Long time coming

I'm going to Burning Man this year. I've never been before and though my college friends went every year, I was honestly just never interested in it. Tonight I was talking to my cousin about this and how, while I'm pretty bummed I waited this long to go, I always knew it wasn't the right time in my life. I told him that "believe it or not, I used to be way more uptight." He laughed cause I still am but honestly I've changed a lot in the last few years and the main improvement has been my ability to go with the flow. I won't say I'm an expert at this, but I'm so much better at accepting things and adapting. I've changed in a lot of other ways; I think I'm way more fun and open minded and I now love listening to DJs where I used to wonder "why does anyone like techno?" I'm definitely open to more drugs and most importantly, I have a new love for my friends and the world around me that I didn't understand before.

Fuck, I know. What a hippie. The thing about Burning Man is that I have a LOT of people in my life who go and almost none of them are hippies. I've never really understood it and I won't really until I go, but what I do understand already, without even leaving yet, is the feeling of community. Being a part of something. I am already out of my mind excited and the anticipation is killing me. It's all I think about and it's all I want to talk about. Lucky for me, I have about a million people I love who are going so I get to talk about it.

The thing I love most about the fact that I am going is that I finally want to go. I like who I have become. And who I am becoming. I know that I can still be hard to deal with. I've got an attitude and I don't always like when things don't go as planned but I am finally to a point in my life where I don't expect the world to be the way I'm expecting. Every day I discover a new kind of music or that someone I'd judged is actually amazing or that there are parts of me that are really amazing or that people are mostly kind and that life is mostly a fun joke and that I have the world in front of me if I can just figure out what I want to do with it.

So that's my plan at Burning Man. A lot of people say that they use the time there to help find clarity, make decisions, figure out the things in their life they can't figure out at home. I want to spend some time thinking about my future and who I really want to become and then what I might do to become it. Things are good here. I love my friends and I have a decent job at a good company. I don't want for much but I know there's something more to it all and I'm so very excited to find it. I want to take the good parts of me —loyalty and compassion and problem solving and listening and laughter and sincerity and good old fashioned silliness — and use those to overcome the worse parts of me  — cynicism and judgment and insensitivity and jealousy and fear of the unknown — so I can choose a path toward love and contentment and satisfaction. A place where I do something meaningful.

I'm heading toward the dirty thirty and it's coming on fast. When I come back on September 3rd and my heart is full and my body is destroyed, I want to make some choices about what happens next. It's my life. I can do with it whatever I want.

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OkKillMe

Internet dating. Sigh...

I haven't written much about it because frankly, it really sucks. The pressure of knowing that everyone is out there to find love and that you may or may not make the cut, the stigma that hovers around internet dating even if everyone is doing it these days, the anxiety over meeting someone and then being judged harshly, the lonely search through hundreds of other lonesome souls. I've been on and off OkCupid for the last two and a half years and I haven't dated a ton of guys, but there have been enough to have some stories and some experiences. Like the guy who took me to shoot guns for the first time and paid for me to shoot a machine gun AND a Barrett 50cal...
 

Or that other guy who took me bow and arrow shooting and I discovered I was kind of amazing at it and put him to shame. Or the narcoleptic guy I dated who taught me what a truly horrible but hilarious disease it is (no, he didn't fall asleep during sex, but he did have to keep his leg locked during orgasm so he wouldn't collapse). Or the one I actually really liked, but who slept in a hammock, filled his watch with moss when it stopped working and refused to believe in having a job. I've had some deeper feelings for these internet guys and I've had no feelings for these guys and I've had strictly sexy feelings for some of these guys, but I've definitely, definitely never fallen in love.

I guess it makes sense. If I strike out on the love front in real life, then why wouldn't I strike out on the internet? I will say that the good thing that's come out of this all is that I've learned a lot about how to date and be a good date and what I want in a guy. Some lessons for a curious soul:

1) Don't message with someone for too long before meeting.
I learned this one with the first internet boy I met. We had an amazing rapport, always making each other laugh and sending flirty texts. It took at least a month before I met him and in that time we talked throughout the day, every day. Everything felt so good with him until we met. He was a great guy, but I just didn't feel romantic feelings for him at all. I tried really hard to like him because I wanted so bad for what we had in words to exist face to face. It didn't. Now if I'm going to meet someone, it's after just a couple of message. Let's just get this part over with and see if there's something there.

2) No food dates on a first date.
What if it's horrible? How do I know if this is going to be a total mess? If it is, I want to be able to escape. Can't do that if I have a meal in front of me. Let's start with a beer on a weeknight and then we can decide if we want more. If we're lucky, we'll stay out way too late having too much fun and regret picking a weeknight when we're hungover at work in the morning.

3) Get out while the getting out is good.
Trust your instincts. If something feels off, it probably is. If I am not really attracted to you, I shouldn't bother with a date. Enough of that high and mighty "I'm going to step outside of my norm and see if the guy I've been waiting for comes in a different package than what I usually go for." Yep, that's definitely a possibility. But that's gotta come naturally, not in a forced situation like this. It's awkward enough going on what is essentially a blind date. At least start with what you think is physical attraction and hope for the best in the other places. There is always going to be the real world for accidentally and unexpectedly falling in love with the guy you never thought you'd be attracted to but who was just... so... perfect.

4) Don't do all the listening.
From what I hear, typical girls do most of the talking on early dates. I'm the opposite. I'm so terrified of awkward silence that I usually just keep firing questions. The good dates find a way to equal out the conversation so that we aren't just talking about him, but the bad ones are just as nervous and let me do all the asking. By the end of the date I realize that he hasn't learned a thing about me because I didn't let him and I can't be sure he even has an opinion of whether or not he likes me because we really just talked about him. The really narcissistic guys usually do like me after these dates because what they are really looking for is a girl who will worship them, which I'm sure I appear to be doing. I learned this lesson with some of the first guys I went out with and have made a very strong point of not doing this anymore. Let there be silence sometimes and see how he fills it. If he can't, he's a dud.

5) Just because you match on paper does not mean you will match in life.
Internet dating sites are designed to match you up with someone who already shares your interests. You think the same kinds of jokes are funny and share similar political and social values and you both hate bad grammar and think people should brush their teeth twice a day and prefer a trimmed pubic region and think that magicians are weird and that dinosaurs are awesome and blah blah blah. This is all well and good but it sure as hell doesn't mean you are going to be attracted to each other. It doesn't say anything about whether or not you can make each other laugh or if he's going to touch your leg in a way that drives you insane. Or maybe he will. But then you find out that he's actually a total stoner that has no ambition or who is really rude to strangers or that he doesn't want to have kids or maybe that he does. The algorithms of these dating sites are pretty good at telling you what you want to hear. But they're probably wrong. You're gonna go through a lot of shitty guys before you get one that's actually good.

I guess this is what all dating is like when you get to know someone. But the surprise element that comes with blind dates, or being set up by a friend, or even going on a date with a person you met briefly at a bar — that surprise is what makes dating both interesting and horrifying.

I dream of falling in love with a friend of a friend who's been going to the same parties as me. Or maybe someone I've known a long time. Or perhaps I meet him organically at a laundromat or a dance party and we hit it off immediately and end up talking for hours. These things don't happen to me (they must happen to somebody right?) so I'm settling for the internet because if I didn't, I might never go on a date at all. I wish I had the courage to go out in public and talk to strangers but as it turns out, adult life is just a big clique. I go out with my friends because I like my friends and then I stay with my friends because I like being with my friends.

I've dated a couple handfuls of guys from the internet and I haven't found a single one to be worthy of a future. I go back and forth wondering "would I rather date more loser guys and have them not work out or date no one at all?" This I have not answered. But I'm leaning toward the latter, which means I might be saying goodbye to the men of OkStupid as the Boyfriends like to call it.

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Dance Yourself Clean

Disclaimer: I wrote this at 5am, drunk, after a night out dancing. It's not at all good. But I wanted to post it because these drunken words are sober thoughts and I'm not feeling like writing anything else.

So, the thing about dancing...

I have been known to say "if I had to choose between sex and dancing, I'd pick dancing every time." Someone's going to argue that I've never really had the kind of sex that blows your mind (of course I have). But I think the real problem is that they've never had the kind of dancing that sets you free. I wish for all of my friends — for all people — that they could let go of all their self consciousness and just  dance.

I don't know when it happened for me. I might have always been this way. I don't remember a time in my life where I was afraid to dance, but I imagine in my teenage years I was. This I have learned: Dancing is the only thing I know that truly frees me. As I am getting older, I'm witnessing my friends, even my brother, cross their own dance-thresholds. It's happening for many of them, each in their own time, but I'm watching with joy as it does. This moment in their life when they suddenly don't care what they look like on the dance floor and they instead prefer to be a part of the joy — a part of the party. Somewhere along the way they've realized that whatever held them back before is no longer worth missing out.

You know that saying "dance as if no one is watching"? One of my dearest friends told me recently, as both a metaphor for me as a person and as a literal reference to the way I danced, that I did just this. It's the cheesiest saying, but it is, without a doubt, the truth for me. I'm not trying to toot my own horn because I'm not exactly a good dancer. I'm just a carefree dancer. And in my opinion, that is the best kind. Sometimes others call people like me "good dancers" because we have no inhibitions and we can bring nearly anyone into the party and because nobody has more fun. In a world full of cynical, terrified people, of people who don't know who they are, if my contribution is to stand in front of them, dance my heart out and give them inspiration or dancing-desire or even just the joy of watching someone else's true happiness, then I feel I have accomplished something real.

Dancing is the only way I know to completely let go of fear and be free of shame and loneliness and insecurity. I have spent my lifetime looking for ways to love myself and I've realized in my adult life that the way I love me best is on the dance floor. Dancing makes me sweat (an embarrassing amount, but it never stops me) and it makes me smile and it makes me love. Dancing makes me instantly forget what I left behind or what's hiding around the corner. I don't care what I look like or if a boy thinks I'm cute. I don't care if I smell bad or if I'm awkward or unladylike. All I care about is that I'm moving and grooving and feeling alive. This feeling I want for everyone.

I still know a lot of people who "don't like to dance." The way I see it, they just don't know yet that they do because they are too scared to truly do it. I wish more than anything that I could give a simple gift to everyone I know and love. The gift is that for one night — even just for one song — they can forget about the rest of the world. That they can close their eyes and feel the music and feel the beat. And then they will know what they are missing and they will never look back.

There is nothing that I love more than dancing. Not sex nor food nor laughing nor love. Dancing is the only way I know to be who I am. Now I want to find a way to spread this crazy love affair. How do I convince everyone who's still left standing to shut themselves down for five minutes and find out what it means to love yourself, your moves and the DJ?

I will dance until I die. And when I die, everyone I love has orders to dance on my grave. One. More. Time.

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Nothing like a scolding to make you feel like a child

Lately I've been feeling like a grown up. I'm finally making good money, my clients like and respect me, I'm good at what I do and I know that I'm valued by my superiors. I have a grown up job and I guess in most ways I'm a "professional" (despite the fact that I work at a place where I can wear leggings as pants, my boss offers to pay for a team outing to see Reggie Watts and I can roll in late with no questions asked). There's no looking back for Kelsey.

Last week I was put in my place. Any notion of being an adult at work was stripped away from me; first by my own actions and then immediately after by my supervisor's shaming of me.

We have an office mom. Against her will, our office manager buys the coffee, keeps the kitchen clean and washes the dish rags; you know the deal. When I was hired a couple years ago, I became her number 2. Sure, I don't do the dishes nearly as often as her, but I am definitely the only other person who does. And I am the only person who cleans out the fridge. I try to do much more than my share because she shouldn't have to do it all and because I was raised in a family where we all helped out. I was raised with a kitchen conscience. Unlike all of my colleagues apparently.

So we had a staff lunch meeting and after the meeting ended, we all rushed back to our desks to catch up on our email. The kitchen is on the way so everyone took their dishes in and then what do you know? The dishwasher was clean so every single one of them dropped their dishes in the sink and walked away. I looked at that pile for a few seconds and thought "I'd love to go back to my desk too. In fact, I'm the busiest one of us today... but no, if I do that then Jill will walk in and she'll have to do these fucking dishes." So I did them. I was pissed and I slammed the dishes around just to prove it. But I did them. And as I did, I thought to myself "I'm going to say something bitchy when I walk back there because I'm sick of this." I've made jokes before about how "nobody else does dishes" and my coworkers always laugh uncomfortably or shy away, but nothing ever changes. So as I walk back to my desk, I'm planning my sarcastic statement. It's something along the lines of "thanks for leaving all your dishes for me to do." Sarcastic, simple, straightforward.

But I guess I was more pissed than I realized because my short and sweet jab ended up coming out like this: "Thanks for making me do your dishes again, ASSHOLES" followed by me throwing my notebook on my desk. I regretted it instantly. When it came out, it was supposed to be a typical, sarcastic Kelsey: "thanks assholes" like I'd say to my brother when he's irking me. But you don't talk to your coworkers the way you talk to your loved ones. I felt bad, but it was done and I let it go.

Thirty minutes later, my supervisor asks to see me. We go over some business and before I leave she says "we need to talk about the incident that just happened." To make this long story short, one of my coworkers told on me. Yep, she tattled. Instead of talking to me (even by email or chatting me, which would have been fine with me), she told our boss, making me look like a dick and an uncontrollable child. Ultimately, my supervisor was worried about me — why did I snap like that? Do I need to take a break? Am I too stressed out? It was hard for me to explain that I can just come off bitchy and that I really didn't mean anything by it.

But I was pissed when I said it. And also I did feel bad about calling them assholes. But they were. And they shouldn't get to treat everyone else like their mom. Maybe it wasn't very grown up of me to act that way but it is equally not grown up of them to expect others to take care of them. The least grown up part about this whole ordeal was that I was basically told I needed to apologize when my boss said "I'll let you decide if you need to apologize." Thanks mom. I felt like my sister told on me and I was being punished. "No TV unless you say you're sorry."

So ask me what was the result of me being totally childish and inappropriate at work?
Kitchen schedule.
We had an impromptu staff meeting (where I was essentially forced to apologize to said coworkers in front of everyone because I hadn't yet had the opportunity to say sorry in my own time) and it was decided that it was time for a kitchen clean up schedule. By god, it worked! Success!

Now ask me what I learned from this experience, other than that my coworker is a huge fucking baby?
Apparently it pays to act on your emotions.
I could just be passive aggressive like the rest of them 'til the end of my days, but I hate passive aggression. I believe in saying what you mean — though I typically choose to say it with more tact. So fuck office politics. Be a bitch. Say whatever you want when you want to and you will get results. You don't think those rich execs got rich by being nice right?

No but seriously, what I really learned is that no matter how well you were raised, there will always be people surrounding you who didn't grow up with the same values. There will always be someone who takes advantage of you. And there will always be people who prove to you that you are better than them. So thanks for showing me that, assholes.

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Being a boyfriend

Being one of the boys can be great. I feel funny and special and well-liked. But I also feel like a boy. I was invited into an obscene, hilarious, elite boys club. It exists in secret on the internet. In it, I don't often instigate, but mostly react. I observe and respond to the silly things they say, delighting in the absurdity while simultaneously passing judgement at the insanity of the way a boy's mind works. This group is crude and inappropriate and most certainly every single one of us is going to hell.

But sometimes hell is worth an invite. The first girl; what an honor. There has since been another lady inducted, but she's a foreigner so she hardly counts. I'm sure there was immediate behind-the-scenes backlash from the group when a "fucking girl" got invited into the boyfriends club. But I'm in and as silly as it seems, being in makes me feel like a cool kid. I grew up with brothers and a very strong mother so I've always been tough and outgoing. I'm vulgar and crass and much of my humor makes at least somebody in the room uncomfortable. I can make anything into innuendo and I can usually make anyone (save for the total prudes) laugh, if not with actual hilarity than at least out of sheer discomfort at hearing a woman talk like that.

It's fun being funny. I've even been told I'm "not just funny for a girl, but actually funny," which is possibly the biggest compliment of my life. Luckily, I'm the worst feminist in the world because I knew what it meant, I agreed with it and I felt honored to be better than a girl.

But I am a girl. I don't actually try — or even want — to be one of the boys. I'm not a tomboy, I don't like sports and damn it, I still cry when my feelings are hurt. I want to be loved by a man and I want to be taken care of and I want to wear makeup and go out dancing. Being a girl like me can be hard. I'm told I'm intimidating, which cracks me up because I don't think I'm hot shit at all. Usually I hate most of the things I do. The story goes that men are afraid of strong women, of being put in their place and probably of funny girls because they think they should be the funny one in the relationship. I do believe that gender roles are changing and that what's traditional is no longer typical. But I also know from experience that men, even the very progressive ones, usually end up with a lady, while girls like me make awesome friends. I'm on a search for a man who won't be threatened by my wit or my obscenities or the fact that I'm friends with a lot of guys. I'm looking for the guy who is not only comfortable with, but enthusiastic about dating a boyfriend.

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Lessons in impermanence

When you become an adult, you think your friendships are safe. You've finally reached the point where you are who you are and the people around you accept that and they choose you because they want you, not because you are a part of the path they are taking to become who they will become. This is it. These are them. These are my people. Never again will I have to painfully watch a friendship die. Not like when I was young.

Childhood friendship can be rough. When you are young, you are friends with whomever your parents place you next to. I lucked out that the girl I was next to as a nine-month-old in a backpack turned out to be my best friend. The rest of them — the ones from school and from day care and who lived on my street — they were just convenient. And in middle school, they were just placeholders. They sat next to me in class and cruelly made fun of the same lonely introverts and passed flirty notes with the boys and agreed that learning to smoke cigarettes was necessary and that piercing our ears with needles would define us and that we knew everything. But high school came and our interests changed; the boys we liked didn't look the same, the music we listened to was wretched in completely different ways, the parties were too insincere and the tears we shed, we shed alone. And then we moved away to college or just to explore and we made new friends. It was with them that we discovered things about ourselves and about the way life actually is. The ones that helped shape us — they stuck. They stuck even once we left our college towns and joined the world. They're the ones who still call and check in. They are the ones who can't wait to meet all the new adult friends who have joined our tribes. And together, they are all the ones who will be at our weddings and our dinner parties. And they are the ones we will never lose. Because finally, we are who we are and they have chosen us because they love us, not just because we are there.

But what about your closest friend who you lose because she married your brother and then she left him? What about the friendships that die, not because of you, but because of life? Losing a friend when you are young is tough because your self esteem is engulfed in it. You blame yourself and you obsess about what you did wrong or who you should have been instead. Losing a friend as a grown up because of what life throws at you is a whole different kind of pain.

I lost a lot when I lost her, not just her friendship. Until then, I believed that I was safe. That my life was heading in a direction that I had complete control of. I was learning to trust in others and the world. And then it blew up in my face. I had this part of my life planned out and in an instant it disappeared. I guess life was getting too comfortable and so for many months after it fell apart, I was angry and terrified of the world that I thought I had control of.

It's probably a good thing for me. I struggle to depend on myself for happiness and not on others. This lesson was good even though it tore me up. I cannot expect the people or the events in my life to go as planned. It's naive and it's detrimental to my heart. Frankly, it is foolish. I will continue to put love and faith in my friends. But my guard was so completely down, I didn't know how bad it would hurt. I have been lucky to have had very little loss in my life. I learned this year that when it hits you, it hits you hard. But despite every instinct, you can't let it swallow you. The hole she left in my heart now has so much more capacity to be filled; in the seven years I knew her, I was learning so much about myself and about my desires. I will fill it with the love of all my other friends and with the joy I find around me. But I know myself. My steadfast nostalgia will always keep a part of it empty for her.

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Tell your daughter she's pretty

My mom was a babe. A serious babe. When she was 13, she looked like a supermodel. In 8th grade she was voted "best looking" and in high school she was on the homecoming court in spite of being a total hippy that just wanted to smoke "spleefs" and spin pottery. She was beautiful. She still is. But being pretty affected her. It made her wary and distrusting. It made her self conscious and insecure. People don't want to be known for their looks. They want to be smart and have integrity and be looked up to. My mom is all of these things. But I have deduced that when she was younger, people couldn't see them as easily behind her beautiful face. She wanted her daughter to know them.

So she told me I was smart. And she encouraged me to sing. And she let me know she was proud of my grades and my accomplishments. But she never told me I was pretty. My best friend's aunt tells me I'm beautiful every time she sees me. It makes me uncomfortable. It's hard to hear when anyone says it, but especially coming from Aunt Jeri. Last time she told me how pretty I was, she could sense my sheer discomfort and said "didn't your mom tell you all the time growing up that you were gorgeous?" And I'm thinking to myself, "of course not." Maybe I am or maybe I'm not, but the truth is, I'd never know it if I was. When Aunt Jeri said this to me, I had to think about it. Had my mom ever told me I was pretty? One of the most basic things a woman wants to hear — needs to hear really — is that she's beautiful. And I couldn't think of a time in my life when my mom, the most influential woman I know, had ever said it. And it hurt. And it started to make sense.

I've always had low self esteem, even though I've been surrounded in people that love me. And while I'm outgoing and seemingly confident, it's usually countered with layers of self-deprecation. I have always been insanely envious of others and never satisfied with my own successes. I will not blame this on my mother. She did so many things right with me: she taught me humility and loyalty and responsibility and to accept consequences and to be fair and loving. She taught me to be analytical and strong and she taught me to be brave and to find peace despite my pain. But she never told me I was pretty. And I never believed I was. I hated the way I looked. I always felt fat, even when I wasn't. I didn't believe boys would ever like me, so I became defensive and jealous of anyone I thought was prettier than me. My own losing battle started with me hating the way I looked, and then acting tough because I had low self-esteem and then not being very fun to be around. It took me many years, many lost friendships and some later attention from boys and kind words from others, to begin to climb out of my self-loathing hole and start becoming a truly confident woman. But even now, though it can make me uncomfortable, the physical compliments put a spring in my step. That my outfit is great, or that I have a beautiful hair color or that I just look pretty that day.

I know a woman in Portland who has one of the cutest little girls that's ever graced the planet. Everyone tells her how adorable she is. And each time someone tells her this, her mom, being an amazing and smart woman, makes sure to also say: "You know what else you are? You are smart and you are you." It's a wonderful thing to see. But after a few very strong gin and tonics and a couple cigarettes, I finally had to tell Betsy that even though her parenting technique was inspiring, she better make sure she tells her that she's pretty sometimes too. It matters coming from your mom.

I finally asked my mom about it a few months ago. I didn't want to hurt her feelings or make her think I thought she raised me wrong, but I needed to bring it up because I believe it helped shape me. And that is when she told me that she never wanted me to feel like she did when she was young: that people only cared about her looks. That they didn't see her real value.

Aren't we women funny? Nothing anyone can do will make us feel whole. I want to be pretty. But isn't it better that I'm funny and loyal and smart? I know that raising your children is tough, that every word I say to them, especially when they are transforming, will matter.

So I'll tell my daughter she's beautiful. And that she has a wonderful singing voice. And that she is intelligent and a good person. But I'll try to only tell her just enough to keep her humble. And I can't wait to one day show her pictures of her beautiful grandmother in her youth. And maybe someday she'll tell her kids how beautiful I was too.

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