Google Helps 30-Somethings With Getting Older

June 18, 2007 at 9:12 am · Filed under THE PAST (02/2007-12/2010)

Hi, my name is Sarah, and I’m single, and I’m “30 Something.”  Specifically, I have 13 days left before I can choose to be honest about certain numbers in my life (such as age) or I can go the route of Charlotte from “Sex in the City.”  You know, where they’re all together discussing her birthday and she bravely says “I’m going to stick at 35.” 

Yes, in less than two weeks, I am either going to be 6 squared, or I’m going to be 35 (wink-wink).  Every year since I turned 29, without fail, the month of June has been incredibly difficult and dramatic and tragic for me as this whole cloud of “you’re getting older, you’re getting older, you’re still single, you’re going to lose out to your younger competition,…” starts going through my brain like a broken record.  Oh, for those of you who were born later, a record is this usually black disc like thing with a hole in it where you would put the hole in the center of this machine called a ‘record player.’  The record player would spin around at a set amount of revolutions per minute-full records spun at 33 1/3 rpm, and for single records which tended to have a bigger hole, it was usually 45 rpm.  Most record players’ needles were set to come off the record when finished, but some got stuck on a scratch, some were set to go right back to the start, but needless to say, there would be times when you’d hear the same line, verse, or even song over and over and OVER and OVER until it was so imprinted in your head that you thought you were going to die if you heard that song again.

So being born exactly six months into the year, the month of June approaches and the thoughts start coming.  You’re single, you’re in a dead end job, you’re getting heavier, you won’t be able to compete with the younger girls (and you sadly reminisce about when you used to BE one of those lithe younger people.  How could you have been so dumb as to think you’d stay that way forever?), and to quote Stuart Smalley from SNL, you’re going to end up being  ’homeless and penniless and  overweight with no one to ever love you.” 

But not this year.  If you have Google as your homepage, you can personalize it with iGoogle, which lets you make your own homepage from  a number of pre-formatted things.  You can get CNN and People Headlines.  You can play hangman.  You can see what stage the moon is in.  You can put the dictionary in there.  However, the coolest thing for me has been “Countdown.”  With Countdown you enter a date of importance (say Arbor Day or Flag Day or they day you have scheduled to give your cat a bath), and it counts it down for you.  So right now, I have 13 days or 303 hours, 02 minutes, and 18 seconds left.  For some reason, I don’t know why, it has totally taken away all of the angst I usually feel about this time of the year.  I’m not kidding.  36?  Bring it on.  I love numbers that are squares of other numbers.  So if you’re one of those who gets relatively stressed out and sad about the fact that time is going by and there is absolutely NOTHING you can do to change it, get the Countdown add-on.  It’ll give you something to cheer FOR rather than something to dread. 

Comments

Writing when nothing’s wrong

May 16, 2007 at 11:47 am · Filed under THE PAST (02/2007-12/2010)

The biggest problem I’ve always faced in my writing was the fact that when things are going well, I feel I have little to talk about.  I’ve gone through journals and journals, have hundreds of pages of material written-and it’s all when I’ve been down.  In a heartbeat I’ll write my woes, sadnesses, and frustrations, but when things go RIGHT it’s almost as if I’m magnetically repelled from getting to the computer to write about it.  Does that mark me as a pessimist only seeing the glass full?  I don’t think so.  I think this is actually quite a common phenomena.  It does help the writer process the pain or anger which they’re experiencing, true, but let’s face it, it’s just easier.  There are so many things in this world that piss me off, hence writing about them is no real challenge.

And in a way, that’s what’s kept me away from here, coupled with the fact that my normal life has suddenly gotten a lot busier.  Work I feel I’ve written enough about, so today we’re veering from that topic into the rest of my life, ie the part of my life that actually matters.Â

May has been a month of a lot of changes. In these last two weeks:
1. I have moved.
2. Dale has joined me and we’re seeing what it’s like to live together. Sadly it’s not to be a permanent situation, but we’ll take what we can get, even if it is for only a couple months.
3. WE GOT A KITTEN!!!

On a lunch hour trek to the Humane Society (which here in Oahu is AWESOME), we raced each other (I was in the car, he on his Yamaha R6) through traffic and got there. I’d been online, so I knew of a few of the felines there, but when we got there, there was this lone little kitten, a calico with white legs, small meow, and rumbling purr. We knew in seconds that she was ours. We raced to the adoption sign up sheet to put our names down to make sure no one could keep her from us. We spent some more time with our soon to be daughter as well as visited the other temporary inhabitants. We talked to either a staff member or a volunteer, and it was heartwarming to hear that most cats don’t spend a lot of time there, that all of them generally get adopted at some point (kittens obviously go faster than older cats). What was best to hear was that unless the cat was in the grip of a life-taking illness, they don’t euthanize. I was psyched to hear that. We chatted a bit, said goodbye to our new one whom we were going to pick up after work.

And then we went to see the dogs.

I haven’t written about it, though I’ve meant to, on the subject of Rufus Palmer. Rufus Palmer was my golden retriever who I had since he was 7 weeks old until he left at 7 1/2. We lived in Vermont from 1999-2005. I broke up with my boyfriend I was living with in 2000, so Rufus and I spent 5 years and 5 long harsh winters together, just the two of us. He’s the longest boyfriend I ever had, and he literally saved my life by giving me a reason to live when I thought none existed. When everything crashed and my family rescued me, they knew he came as part of the package, and my parents weren’t exactly animal people, let alone a 100lb one. But in no time, they took to him as much as I did, and within just a year my mother, who has always disliked animals, was just about as close to her ‘grand-dog’ as I was. We all went through a lot of stress over bringing him here and jumping through the Dept. of Agriculture quarantine hoops and the fear of him travelling on a plane, but we made it. We walked on the beach all the time. He didn’t really like the waves. We were here less than 3 months before he began developing tumors which turned out to be cancerous. He had to have a toe amputated. Within a month, we had to say goodbye to him. It was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to go through, and even now, over 8 months later, I’m a wreck writing this. I’m crying and my heart is breaking all over again-again, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get over him.  Because it all happened so fast right after moving here, I do carry resentment at this place, this island, for he was fine before we moved and had never had any problems.  He was such a light in my life, and he was the glue that brought our family together. He was just so beautiful and amazing and I feel very privileged that from 7 weeks until 7 1/2 years, I got to spent almost 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with him (except for 2005).

The dogs were in really nice kennels, which made me happy. So many different breeds, big and small, loud and quiet. Being around dogs has not been easy for me since losing Rufus Palmer, but it was great to just give them some attention and love that I’m sure they were very happy to receive.

We went back to our jobs, and in the remaining afternoon hours, we went about the arduous task of deciding on a name for our little daughter-to-be. IMming back and forth, we threw out suggestions, and decided on Daisy, but am really big on midle names, so for some reason I suggested Peanut. I have absolutely no reason WHY, I just liked it, and so did Dale. The name turned out to suit her perfectly.

So this month, it’s been a lot less posting because we’ve become parents! Daisy Peanut is a little fireball of energy (especially around 3:30 am) who has become a hilarious addition to our world. Having an animal in ones life is so important, not just for the unconditional love and such, but to have someone outside of yourself to take care of. Having that can save a life. I can say this with authority because having Rufus Palmer saved mine. Even though it still is extremely difficult to let Rufus go, having Daisy actually has helped me a lot with healing that sadness.

And without further delay, may we present the fair Miss Daisy Peanut!

                                                                 Â

Comments

My Fabulous Failures With E Harmony

May 1, 2007 at 1:45 pm · Filed under THE PAST (02/2007-12/2010)

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard about e-harmony (http://www.eharmony.com/).  Your television is filled with commercials of wonderful loving couples who claim to have met the person of their dreams through this site.  Some of them have even lived in the same town, only mere miles from one another, and never in all their growing up, seem to have crossed paths.  The big kick e Harmony has is it’s online profile (a $40 value).  You see, it’s not about attraction, it’s about science.  So come on down to e Harmony.com and get yourself on the road to finding your perfect partner today!

Ok that sounded pretty good, so about three years ago, I decided to give it a shot.  I love taking personality tests anyway, so the test wouldn’t be an unpleasant thing, and I’d had some (albeit psycho and dismal) experience with places like Match.com.  The test is a bit of a time comsumer, as you are taken through over 15 pages of multiple choice continuum questions where you answer ‘not at all’ to ‘somewhat’ to ‘very much.’  After my lack of success with finding the right person, I was looking forward to seeing what science could do for me.

Apparantely it couldn’t do much.  I failed.  I FAILED!  OK let’s think about this for a second.  This is an ONLINE, FOR PROFIT dating site.  Their goal is to MAKE MONEY, right?  After slogging through all of those pages, I get this message that says ‘we’re sorry, but there are some people we just can’t help, and we figured we’d be honest about it rather than take your money.  Eh?  That’s ethical, I suppose. 

So what this means is that I am SO OUT THERE that not even a FOR PROFIT ONLINE DATING SERVICE can’t help me.  I started thinking about this, and rather than run…somewhere crying to…someone, I chose to look at it in a different light.  By failing a simple e Harmony test, I must be so unique, so finely tuned and strangely put together, that they of the common masses cannot help me.  They cannot help me because I am NOT one of the common masses.  I am SO unique that I’m not matchable; no matter that I had my credit card ready and waiting. 

Since then, a lot has happened.  When I took this, I was still in the throes of my little drug habit.  I was still living in the middle of nowhere in northern Vermont, and maybe those played a role, I thought.  Maybe they just couldn’t help me because there just weren’t that many people in the 49th least populated state in the country.

Today isn’t a particularly busy day here at the plant, and I can’t say that I’m really motivated (ok at work, I am almost never motivated) to do some sort of busywork that I very well should have been doing, and for some reason that catchy commercial with that older guy and all those ultra super happy couples came in to mind, and I said to myself, ‘I’m different now, I live in Hawaii, I’ve been sober for almost 2 years, I’m holding down a job, and I’m leading what pretty much what most would consider a normal life; maybe I’ve changed.  Maybe I’m normal.  The fact that I have a boyfriend aside, maybe there are people out there who would find me stunning and mesmerizing and want to be in my presence at all times.  So, given the small amount of work I had to do, I decided I would take it again and see if my personality had changed enough to be accepted into their world.  This was for research ONLY; I was already quite content with the beau I have.

Nope.  Twice taken, twice rejected I have been from these people.  Since I’m sure all of you will pass it with flying colors, here’s what you get when you ‘fail’ at e Harmony:

“UNABLE TO MATCH YOU AT THIS TIME
eHarmony is based upon a complex matching system developed through extensive research with married couples. One of the requirements for successful matching is that participants fall within certain defined profiles. If we find that we will not be able to match a user using these profiles, we feel it is only fair to inform them early in the process.

We are so convinced of the importance of creating compatible matches to help people establish happy, lasting relationships that we sometimes choose not to provide service rather than risk an uncertain match.

Unfortunately, we are not able to make our profiles work for you. Our matching model could not accurately predict with whom you would be best matched. This occurs for about 20% of potential users, so 1 in 5 people simply will not benefit from our service. We hope that you understand, and we regret our inability to provide service for you at this time.”

Alas, again I have failed.  But then a strange thing happened by accident.  I was trying to copy “eharmony” onto a page, and it accidentally got copied onto the Wikipedia search box.  Go take a look at that, dear readers.  Go on, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eharmony and see what comes up.  I certainly wasn’t expecting it, but it does give a good reason as to why they haven’t wanted my sorry ass within their ranks these years.

By no means do I discount anyone who’s reading this who also has a great eharmony relationship, but man, when I saw the words “evangelical Christian,” I took a sigh of relief.  I know I’m ‘off.’  I know I’m strange, odd, difficult, goofy, but I also know I’m smart, fun, interesting, well read, and a whole bunch of other good things.  I don’t need validation from some hard core right wing dating site.  Now, I’m glad, no, ECSTATIC that I failed…twice.  Maybe I should create an online dating site for all of those who’ve failed eHarmony’s.

But I bet my boyfriend wouldn’t be too stoked about that.

Comments (2)

Riding The Little Bus Of Blogging

April 10, 2007 at 1:07 pm · Filed under THE PAST (02/2007-12/2010)

Wow.  In the wide wide world of blogging, I’m quite a ways behind.  My latest attempt to be more on top of things has been to subscribe to other people’s blogs, which is mindnumbingly easy to do if you have Google Reader, and once I commence to read them, it’s like gaining new blogging experience all together.   A spin of the wheel moves the topics by.  Some are useful, some are humorous, and sadly, I admit to subscribing to People’s blog (but they only give you a sentence teaser in order to get you go drag open a new bright blue window with the whole story, and I usually just don’t care that much to do that). 

But the fact is, there’s SO much out there that I wonder if reading it all is doing any good for any of my writing.  Because you can cruise through this stuff in this sort of zoned out state, how much I’m retaining isn’t as much as if I were sitting and deliberately reading a book.  However, this is solving a very looming problem of ‘If my job REALLY IS to sit in this chair in the event that someone might come here or the phone might ring, I might as well have something mildly entertaining to do to keep from going postal,’ and this really fits the bill.  I can’t read books at work, but via this method I almost find it more to an advantage:  I’m not entirely 100% ultra super focused on what I’m reading, so when the occasional person enters or the more likely phone rings, it’s easier to leave where I was and return to it moments later, and all the time, I carry on the appearance that I AM working. 

Through much of this, I feel I’ve been existing in a cave-much of it is far beyond me.  Even many of the the ‘I’m just a beginner,’ or ‘I’m new at this’ blogs I come across, I feel like I just got dropped off by the little bus.  The fact that I have no real ongoing theme or topic other than what’s in my brain I fear could be a detriment.  I was told that content is key, but I’m a dilettante-I know SOMETHING about just about everything, but not enough to write a book or maintain a blog about it.

All in all, it’s just a big ego trip.  I want to be the one thousands of people link to and check to see if I’ve uttered anything in the last 24 hours.  I want to be the one with the content people check to see if it’s been updated time and again every day.  But how can I become queen of my own universe when I’m so bogged in others’ blogs?  When I get through everything at first, sifting through the hundreds of thousands of opinions, pointers, and ongoings of other people’s lives, will I be caught up, and will enough information have soaked in as to make me a fabulous writer in the ‘blogosphere?’

At the very least, when I do become the illustrious blogger with all of the witty yet brilliant things to say, I’ll be so prepared and it’ll all look so cool people will be thinking ‘damn, I wish MY site looked as good as hers.  She’s probably been here for a really long time….’  Until next time…

Comments