-A Life In Boxes

I tend to like knowing where things are. I like being able to find things quickly, I find it useful to have things organized and in their place. This also tends to help me because I seem to be five minutes behind schedule a lot of the time, so not having to search for things makes life easier. I’m not some OCD clean freak, but I definitely support cleanliness and organization. Does my room look like a Gap store? No, but I do have a general idea as to where all my jeans are. Is my bookshelf alphabetized and in numerical order? No, but I can find my favorite book in under twelve seconds. I like avoiding messiness, it seems to make everything flow. To me, having things in their place is like having a good roll of packing tape; it is easy and you avoid wasting time and getting your hands stuck. Otherwise you spend six minutes just trying to find where the tape begins and then wrestling with it to not rip or stick to the box and not to your hand. Having recently moved my entire life from one side of the city to the other, I have gotten very familiar with both boxes and packing tape. I also found out you can bungee cord a mattress to the roof of your car, drive sixty miles an hour and not get arrested. But during the transition from one house to the other my system was royally flunked. Nothing was where it was supposed to be; instead my life was in boxes. I am not willing to admit to how many days I was forced to wear the same pair of boxers, but let’s just say it was more then what is GQ recommended. During this boxed in boxer time I began to think about all the other ways it pays to have organization in our lives. Not only does it save us time while we run out the door, but it also saves us from running in romantic circles.

Appreciating a system and liking to know where things are is not only applied to my bedroom or my bookshelf, it is also applied to my love life. I’m sure you need a minute after having read that surprising tidbit of shocking information….alright, back to the words. I know it seems pointless, but I like having a plan when dating; it’s like the roll of tape. Think of how efficient and timely everything happens when the tape is properly used, and then think about all the time wasted when it is a mess and you can’t find the beginning or the end. It pays to be organized. I have almost reached the point where I would just like to start handing out dating note cards that have simple questions that can be answered by checking the “yes” box or the “no” box. Again it comes back to the boxes. It seems to be impossible to have any kind of organization when it comes to dating, very rarely are things where they should be. Between the baggage, the boxes, and the boxers who has time to play games?

I know that you can’t control everything in your life, and I honestly don’t want to. Some days you don’t even want a system because it has begun to make you feel boxed in. Some days the system and the organization is the only thing that keeps you going. Thank you Bree Van De Kamp and Catherine Mayfair, you teach us so much. But I am beginning to realize that having organization in your closet, in your bookshelf or in your bedroom is helpful because most of our time is spent organizing our relationships. If you don’t know where your toothbrush is, that’s an inconvenience. Not knowing the difference between like you and like you, that’s a problem.

So, you can sort your sock drawer, tape your keys to your desk, you can even bungee a mattress to your car; but will we ever be able to have organized dating? It seems that dating is the one thing you can not have a system for, and you can like that or you can like that. The decision is all yours.

Color Me Comeback

-Color Me Comeback

For those of you who have been keeping score, or keeping up, I have been off my game and practically out of the playing arena. There has been no race to the romantic finish line, no batting for affection and certainly no game, set, match. For the past several months my dating scorecard reads all zero and no love, my tennis racket has been collecting dust. I’ve played more Wii tennis then I have lovegames. Maybe Lady Gaga was right when she said it always seems to start the same, but the middle and the ending are completely different. Sure there are basic steps and similarities to a relationship; but when they occur, how they occur and who makes them occur are harder to control then Kirstie Alley in a Baskin Robbins. Having made myself more then acquainted with both ice cream and solitude all winter long, when the sunshine returned and the time came to actually get back on the dating horse I kind of forgot how to saddle up. Although I was no where near proper preparedness, I figured if Mickey Rouke could get nominated for an Oscar after all he had done I could put myself together for a date. It’s not like I hadn’t done it before, I knew what to expect and how it would most likely play out. After some self motivation speaking and a good strong ice tea I was ready to get back into the swing of things. Making a comeback is not that complicated, all you really need is a good synthesizer, a few racy music videos and a fan base that doesn’t mind a lip synced live show.
Maybe it takes more effort then originally thought…
It wasn’t long before I found out just how much goes into a proper comeback, and I have yet to find out what exactly goes into a triumphant comeback because that is clearly not what I did. I went into the situation basing it all on what I had done before, I was drawing a map using the pen of previous relationships; but basing your decisions on previous failures seems to be a rotten way of coloring the future. This ethos has become a favorite of mine lately, bleeding into nearly all parts of my life. Its one thing to know how to act in a situation, it is another thing to know how to react in a situation. Thinking you know how to handle the situation placed before seems very pompous, because all you really know is what worked in the past. There is no way to really know what will work for the future. I do believe it is time to get some new crayons and start coloring in different shades. Use purple where you used to have green and trade blue for yellow, get red instead of black; basically I think we should try something new because what we use to consider masterpieces is beginning to look like master failures.
Artwork aside, I have a lot to figure out before I am in triumphant territory anytime soon. Realizing that I was basing and setting expectations for the future, off of what had occurred in previous relationships, was like biting into tofu thinking you were going to chew some steak. Disturbing, very unsettling and it leaves a nasty taste in your mouth for quite some time. It’s not a matter of trying to saddle up again, it’s a matter of realizing you’re dealing with a completely new animal all together. Whatever you use to do to stay in the saddle might not amount to a hill of beans this time, it’s a whole new ride and you have to realize you might get bucked off. And let’s be honest, everyone gets bucked off so there is no shame in that; there is shame in not wanting to dust yourself off and ride again. So fill your six shooters with brand new crayons, cut a new horse from the pack and try your hardest to saddle up and hold on. Yee-haw.