And this is why I'm single...

Over the past few weeks, I have been asked the question "Why don't you have a boyfriend" a few too many times. It is becoming unnerving. Every time the question comes up, I am forced to question why it is that I am still single.

Don't get me wrong. I love my life. And quite honestly, I love being single, most of the time anyway. Yes, of course, there are times when I feel like it might be nice to have a boyfriend, but I certainly don't wish for it all the time, or even most of the time. Yet, just last Thursday night the conversation came up again...and actually from a guy I went to high school with. So M and I are having a little FB chat, catching up on what we've been up to. He finally says, "I don't get how you never have a boyfriend..."

I don't know if it was that the statement was coming from one of the guys in my HS class that seems least likely to have a long-term, committed relationship, that's functional (Sorry, M. Please don't hate me!), but it really got me thinking. Seriously? Why don't I? And here M is actually in a good relationship, and even scarier, giving me relationship advice! To distract me from this terrifying situation, I dove head first into Tucker Max's I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, which is by far the most HILARIOUS book I've ever read. He really is a god...but a very disturbed one.

Speed ahead to Saturday night. I'm out with two of my very best friends, R and K. I rarely go out with at least one of them by my side. We end up at a bar where a few of our guy friends are. From across the bar, I notice a very cute boy looking at me. Hm...interesting. After I catch him looking at me again a couple minutes later, I think to myself, "Well really, what do I have to lose?"

I walk across the bar and tell him we should probably take a shot. As the bartender sets the shots down in front of me, a floozy blond girl with too much eye make-up and not enough shirt comes up and pulls his arm away as she blurts out something slightly incoherent. Cute Boy's attention is diverted. I wait for about a second before I decide I will just go ahead and take the shot. I hand him his shot as he continues talking to Eye Make-up. I take the shot and put the empty shot glass down on the bar. Cute Boy observantly says, "You just did the shot without me." Not really a question, definitely a statement.

"You appeared busy. I didn't want to interrupt." As he finishes his shot, I walk back to my friends.

A little later in the night...

Cute Boy: So what, we take a shot together and then you ignore me the rest of the night.
Me: Hey now, I didn't want to distract you. You seemed busy.
Cute Boy: Oh jeez... {continues small talk, exchange of names and (for some stupid reason) numbers}

Cute Boy is definitely cute, and he seems pretty funny. Until...

Cute Boy: So have we had sex before?
Me: (laughing) Are you kidding me?
Cute Boy: No seriously...have we?
Me: (still laughing) Does that pick up line usually work for you?
Cute Boy: No I'm totally serious. Have we?
Me: Um no. We haven't.
Cute Boy: You sure?
Me: Well even though you are in the number range where the girls apparently start to blur together, I'm certainly not even close to that range. So...yes. I'm sure we haven't.

I walk away at this point, as I am completely uninterested now. For some reason, Cute Boy doesn't get the hint and later comes up to me and asks for a ride home. Are you kidding me? Seriously, no thanks. Yet, due to my previous stupidity and/or cuteness haze, I was unable to truly escape Cute Boy because I had idiotically GIVEN HIM MY NUMBER! Right around the time that we are preparing to leave, I receive a text from Cute Boy trying to get me to give him a ride home. First of all, I'm not driving. Second, not happening! Third, is this really happening?

K and I get in the car and do what any normal person does after leaving the bar--Taco Bell run! On the way, I kept getting ride home pleas from Cute Boy. Finally, I send this text: Cute Boy! We're on our way! Wait out front!

We didn't go pick him up, nor did we have any intention of picking him up. And after all this, I was quite confident that I would not be receiving any follow up texts the next day...but I did. Seriously?! Oh jeez...and this is exactly why I don't date boys from here. Standards, folks. Standards. Tucker Max's book might make me laugh out loud, but I certainly wouldn't want to end up as one of the chapters.

Do you Believe in Magic?

As a junior in college, I took the class "Fiction Writing." While studying the genre of writing, we discussed how writers often use things from their own lives to start their stories. Yet, we also discussed how these personal stories often need distance, time, space, before we can accurately handle exploring their depths as a writer. Well, I guess this is one of those stories. I first began writing a blog about my trip to the Ishigaki Jima(Island) Kabira Beach Club Med a day or two after I returned from the amazing place. Yet, I couldn't do it. Now, though, time and space and distance seem to have worked their magic.

I'm not entirely sure I'm correct with this statement, but I feel like Disney World once boasted to be "The greatest place on Earth." Oh no. I've been to Disney World. Twice. While I don't feel as though either trip was a complete loss, I would definitely not claim it to be the greatest place on Earth. I am, however, nominating any of the Club Med resorts as quite possibly the greatest places on Earth. While in Japan earlier this summer, Sister and I, along with four of her friends, ventured out to the Kabira Beach Club Med, aka: PARADISE!

We had little idea exactly what we were in for upon arriving to paradise. After joking about taking a little prop-plane, we became excited to see an actual jet to fly us the short distance to Ishigaki. Being that we were going to a Club Med resort, we were pretty sure that we were a "big deal" and this was only reinforced as we stepped into the little airport. A Japanese man held a sign that read "Club Med," which might as well have read our names...we were practically celebrities.

The A-List treatment didn't end there. We arrived at the resort to lavender tea and an explanation of the resort. Fabulous! The walk to our rooms was gorgeous, being filled with exotic plants and the smell of the ocean breeze. (Mmm...can we bottle that up and take it home? Please?) The rooms were quaint but very nice. Our balcony overlooked a path to the beach, which was approximately a hundred meters from our rooms. Could it get any better? Well, yes, it could. And it did. Being that we had already glimpsed the beautiful pool, we were women on a mission, and that mission was sun-kissed tans and a wine-induced haze. Before we knew it, we were pool-side, soaking up the sun when suddenly the quiet atmosphere was chaotically interrupted by Britney Spears' "In the Zone" remix. There was shouting from across the pool, where we soon saw the mid-morning entertainment. Water aerobics. YES!!!!!!!!!! We were somewhat "tricked" into participating, but when in Rome, right? After a thirty minute "workout," we were back on our lovely chairs.

Later that afternoon we ventured over to the Circus School to check it out. Captain (one of the girls I was with) was very excited to test out the trapeze. She had been a gymnast. Before we knew it, Captain was scrambling up the ladder and grabbing the trapeze to show us how it was done. I figured I was going to need to try it as well. Partly terrified as I slowly made my way up the ladder, I kept telling myself that I was hooked on to a harness and the things that scare us are the things that are truly worth-while. Finally, the top. As I stepped across the empty space between the ladder and the hanging scaffolding, I began to wonder what the hell I was thinking. Yet, it was a little too late to turn back now. Dane, the circus instructor at the top, gave me instructions. Even though I was desperately trying to mask my terror, he must have seen it.

Dane: Are you nervous?
Me: A little bit...
Dane: Well don't worry, all the girls get nervous up here with me...
I hesitated to look at him, for a fear of falling to my death,
but quickly saw he was smiling. I laughed.
Me: Oh really?
Dane: Yeah, I don't know if it is me...(pause)...or the height.
Me: (laughing) Oh I'm sure it's you...

Before I knew it, I was falling through the air, the closest an untrained person can be to flying. While the adrenaline rush was intoxicating and enough to throw my blood sugar off-balance, I was talked into another knee-hang and even a knee-hang catch.



The excitement and luxury of this place didn't end there. We all had an amazing time. If only trips like that could last forever. Yet, at the same time, if weekends like that did last forever, we wouldn't appreciate the bliss. I can say without a doubt that if ever given the chance to stay at another Club Med, I most certainly will.

Summer's Hold is Fleeting

Yes, I stole the title from some Dashboard Confessional's lyrics. What can I say, they know what they're talking about. The summer after I graduated from college I bought their Dusk and Summer album and listened to every song on it relentlessly. A few of those songs would go on the soundtrack to my life, if there were one. But it happens like this every year. The days of August creep up, beginning before we even realized June had come and gone. Tomorrow is August first. Among the many things it means, the one thing I know for sure is that I have twelve short days until I am back in meetings for school, seventeen shorts days until I am back in front of a room full of teenagers. Again, another summer comes and goes--as Dashboard says, Summer's hold is fleeting.

I'm sitting at my desk, at school, staring out at the disarray that is my classroom thinking I should do something productive. I am unable to do anything. There are past essays to file, books to put away, lessons to critique and revamp, and a million other things I'm sure I could make myself do. I know I need to get going on something that will ultimately make my entire life easier in the coming months, but I also know that the whirlwind that is school will happen regardless of whether I've taken the time to file a few documents or read through a few possible readings.

I've always been fairly nostalgic. I can't remember cleaning my room when I was younger without finding some hidden treasure from months or years earlier that didn't make me daydream back to an earlier memory. As I attempt to clean up my current disaster zone, I read the quotes on my "Quote Wall" and "Rockstar Writers" bulletin board and am a little bit sad. A lot of these quotes are by students who I will no longer have in my classes. I will no longer get to see their writing and know if they are doing well. I guess that is part of life, and definitely a part of teaching. It doesn't change the fact, however, that they have affected my life.

Maybe it is because the fall season is upon us, but I feel the need to review the moments of my past for the people who have affected it. Maybe it is because there has been a shift in the way things were in my own life that forces me to wonder where it is all going, but I keep replaying songs in my head that make me think about the past, about the future, and about letting go. The more I grow up, the more I realize that letting go of things is definitely an unavoidable part of life. It is something that we are forced to do. We let go of friends we no longer share the same interests with. We let go of a part of life that is no longer our path. We are constantly growing and changing, or we are not living at all. The moments that define who we are seem to be about the possibility of letting go when it is time to let go. But maybe it isn't the letting go at all that is difficult. Of course it seems devastating at the moment. Even heartbreaking. It isn't that, though, that haunts us. It is the moment three years down the road when the song embedded in a memory breaks through the silence. The scent from a moment almost lost in the abyss of our minds wafts through the stench. Even when it is hardly a change, all seems to be lost. A million meanings can be found in the nuances of a lover's smile.

In the spirit of summer, I feel I need to do something. School will start. Life will begin again. I guess the thing that is great about teaching is it is almost like you get a second chance with each new year. Seventeen days until students? I've got plenty of time to get things finished. Or started.

Goodbye dear friend T-dubbs..RIP

I've been to Japan three different times. I can't begin to count how many times I've eaten sushi over the course of the last three years. While sashimi isn't my favorite, I've eaten it a handful of times. So last week when this boy, let's call him Speed Racer, asked me if I liked sushi, I turned to him, smiled with a touch of impatience and said, "Come'on. I just got back from Japan a week ago. Of course I like sushi."

Done and done. We head to sushi. After a Philadelphia, Waterfront, Captain Crunch, and California roll (yes, I know...not too original. Whatever.) , a good night's sleep, and breakfast with my Grandpa, I begin feeling ill. This illness continues for the rest of the week. I try blaming it on other things, anxiety, a flu bug, drinking, whatever I could think of. No love, and no let up. Finally, after being unable to sleep Saturday night and feeling nauseous all day Sunday, I give in. I call the doctor, make an appointment, and begin self-diagnosing. I'm convinced it's E-coli, mainly because my sister had that once and exhibited very similar symptoms.

Finally...the doctor's appointment arrives. I sit inside the small patient room flipping through Vogue, which I think I left there accidentally, hoping to distract myself from the fact that I have been waiting for over thirty minutes at this point. Finally, the doctor enters the room.

Doc: So, I hear you were out of the country and may have contracted some sort of stomach bug.
Me: Well, yes, I was out of the country, but I was back for two weeks before I began seeing any symptoms.
Doc: Hm...well... (skeptical look goes here)
Me: But I did have sushi the other night....in Ankeny...then started feeling sick the next morning...
Doc: And the plot thickens! Hop up here. Let me take a look.

While the doc goes through the basic doctor tests, I lie on the table listening to my stomach gurgle and growl in ominous unpredictable tones. Listening to my stomach, one might think a monster is preparing to burst out of my abdomen and kill maniacally. Finally, he escapes the room to "do a little research," as he knows there is some sort of stomach parasite associated with sushi, he just needs to check on which one.

Awesome.

Another twenty minutes escapes me while I await my looming death sentence.

The door opens in a big wooooosh.

Doc: Booooooy are you in trouble!
Me: (laughing) Really?
Doc: (shaking his head) Follow me.

Yes, I am really laughing. However, I'm not sure I really should be. What does he mean by "trouble"? As I enter the cave that is his office, I begin to feel the weight of the situation settle upon my shoulders. On the screen there is an image of the human digestive tract and a very long word in doctorly language. Yikes.

Doc: So, what you have here is a tapeworm.
Me: A whhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhat?
Doc: You ate raw salmon, did you not?
Me: Sure did.
Doc: Yep. Tapeworm. So apparently what happens is...
Me: Grrreat...so a tapeworm?
Doc: Yeah, but this is actually a really fascinating case! We haven't seen this at all in this office! I actually had to make sure I was diagnosing the right thing. I even talked to a colleague down the hall. He hasn't ever seen it either.
Me: (laughing) Well fabulous!
Doc: Yeah...it's extremely rare to be seen in this part of the world.

After getting a prescription for some meds that are supposed to kill my dear friend T-Dubbs, as he has been lovingly named by my friends, I leave the office. Armed with a prescription, I am virtually ready to take on the world. Not so fast. I must first verify this parasite living in my small intestine (with the possibility of growing up to ten meters long). I'm not going to go into detail with this. There is no need.

I wake up Wednesday morning sicker than I have been up to this point. It might have been partially due to the fact that I knew I had a parasite living in my abdomen, sucking the life out of me, eating my food. Yet, it might also have had something to do with the fact that it was doing all of those very things. I flee to Target to fill my prescription. The pharmacy doesn't open until 9 AM. As I hand the prescription over to the pharmacist, a sigh of relief escapes my lips only to be returned as I gasp anxiously. Pharmy's face doesn't look good.

Pharmy: Well, turns out we don't have this medicine in stock.
Me: Ok...so...are you going to see if another store has it?
Pharmy: Yeah...well...I can call some other stores if you want.
Me: Uh...yes please. (WTF?! Does she not get that I NEED this medicine?!)

Pharmy calls six different pharmacies in the area. Count 'em. SIX! None of them carry the meds. Awesome. Can this GET any better? Pharmy also looks to see if their pharmicist provider carriers the meds. Nope. Pharmy does not, however, offer to order the drugs. Pharmy is now on my shit-list.

I leave Target. Call the doctor to make sure the prescription is correct, which it is. I call a few more pharmacies, who are also unable to get me the meds. Finally, I drop off the prescription at a pharmacy connected to a clinic. Karma finally gives me a break. Judy, my new BFF, is able to get the meds from the hospital downtown. I might even get it before the end of the day. (Hallelujah!) Downfall: once I take the meds, I might kill off poor little T-Dubbs and start getting some nourishment, but I also am not allowed to drive or operate heavy machinery for forty-eight hours. Sweet.

On that note, I think it's gonna be a good, good night. Rest in peace, T-Dubbs. I don't think I'll miss you.

Addictions...

Don't be fooled by the title. This blog is completely PG.

I don't know if it is Roomie's influence, or my own addictive personality, but when I find a song I like, I tend to become addicted to it. I will play it non-stop. I will learn every word. The melody. The random beats of rest. (And yes I realize several people are arguing that might not be true...I try at least.)

Right now, these are the songs I'm absolutely addicted to...and why...(and even though they're numbered, that doesn't necessarily mean that is the number order.)

1. "Criminal" by Fiona Apple The song in itself is sultry. I'm a sucker for songs that seem sultry. I don't know why, but I am. Plus, this song is dark. I'm definitely a sucker for any song that has even the slightest hint of darkness. However, the biggest reason I have been playing this song over and over again is the line toward the end where she says, "So what would an Angel say, the Devil wants to know." What a good line.

2. "Sick Little Games" by All Time Low Seriously, the whole CD is my current drug of choice. I wasn't sure I could like a song more than Jasey Rae, and I'm still not sure I can, but this one is definitely getting close. Best line: "I'm losing the best of me/ dressed up as myself/ to live in the shadow of who I'm supposed to be." See the previous blog if why I love this song is unclear...

3. "The Blower's Daughter" by Damien Rice Watch the movie Closer and then try and not love this song. I don't think it's possible. I can't even begin to describe how much I love Damien Rice, but I do. Now his music is sultry. Deep. Absolutely Raw.

4. "You and Me" by DMB Everyone knows that Dave Matthews is a lyrical genius. Enough said. Yet, there is a little bit romantic, spiritual, and classic Dave all contained in this song. It's beauty in lyrical and melodic form. I would still claim my fav from DMB to be "Grace is Gone," but this one is definitely claiming a spot near the top of my DMB list.

For now, that's all I'm including. Maybe I'll add some more later.

Show Me Something New

Sometime in the last couple of weeks, probably within the reaches of introspection on the way home from Japan, I decided that I want to do things no one else has ever done. While I don't think this is relatively possible, I'm going to (instead) do things most people haven't done. And to narrow it down one more time, I'm going to do things most the people I currently know haven't done. (I can't be too greedy...and what's really new these days anyway?)

I don't know how or why I started developing this dreaded feeling that I was living the same day over and over, but I feel like I've been trapped in a moment lately. And it isn't even really that. I never feel like it is the exact same thing day after day, but it just isn't different enough. I guess in a lot of ways I am beginning to fear this terrible sense of complacency...that everything is simply good enough, but yet not great...or even terrible. But merely comfortable and easy. While there isn't something wrong with that feeling, necessarily, I'm afraid I find it looming in the back of my mind on a regular basis over the past months. I thrive on challenges. Conflict inspires me. I want to be beat down, in a sense, because it forces me to pick myself back up...if you know what I mean.

So here it is. A leap of faith. I guess a leap of faith is different for each person. In the end, however, we all have something in life that requires us to look at our fears and conquer them. While in the middle of the introspection, the thing I came to realize is that we are all essentially prisoners of our own fears, until we're not. Not doing something that is frightening is essentially a sado-masochistic relationship we allow ourselves to be in. Emotionally, anyway. Maybe some people are good at hiding it, faking it. Is that the trick? But at the same time, isn't it scarier to not do something our heart tells us we should?

Just last night a friend of mine and I had a long conversation about life. It was one of those conversation that should be trapped in a box, or bottle, or something that will contain it for moments far in the future when it will make sense through some deep retrospection, and upon that moment released to wash over us gently. Yet, in the end, all Triumph and I were able to come up with was there are always going to be more questions than there are answers. And there it is...in black and white...several questions with no clear cut answer. I guess, in some ways, I can blame that on my overly analytical thinking process rooted in the study of literature where we are taught to analyze until our eyes bleed.

The thing it all keeps coming back to is that I want to do more. I want to see more. I want to be more. I want to learn more. And here's my current proposition to myself, to take a leap of faith. It might not seem very scary to some, but for some reason it is still a little scary to me. The plan for Project: Show Me Something New is to start researching and applying to international schools. I spent lunch today learning about the system, the struggles, the celebrations. I am really excited...ecstatic even. With that enthusiasm, the fear lessens. The questions turn to answers, a little bit. I begin to think not about the terrible things that could potentially occur, but instead I focus more on the great adventure it can become.

So here goes...alis volat propiis.

The Airline Tango

*This was written days ago. Just now getting to the point of uploading it.

This morning, or rather yesterday morning at this point, I changed my facebook status to something along the line of "Danielle is beginning the airline tango that is traveling to Japan." This statement was partially true at the time, but my intention was more for effect rather than reality. Boy was I wrong. This trip has been the most exhausting trip I've taken to Japan so far. I almost missed two different flights, which is not a good thing when flying internationally.

The morning started off early at the Kansas City Airport. As far as American airports go, their ticketing and security process was swift and virtually flawless. Yet, it was somewhat different from what I'm accustomed to. Most American airports have one (or possibly a couple depending on airport size) main security juncture(s)where as KC has security centers for about every ten to fifteen gates. This meant that all eateries and shops were outside the security and that security didn't open until about an hour before the flight. Not so bad, though, when it takes all of five minutes to get through security.

Now, I had thirty minutes between flight one and flight two. Count 'em...thirty minutes. Luckily for me, the gates were next door. (Ok, so I might have exaggerated the whole "almost missed two flights" thing.) However, the unfortunate part was the fact that I need to get food, hopefully a magazine or two, and go to the bathroom before boarding my next plane. No such luck. As I exited the bathroom, my flight was being called. And I was the first group to board. Fabulous.

Flight two was rather uneventful, as I slept most the way. However, I had only an hour and a half between flight number two and flight number three (the international leg of the trip). This might seem like ample time, but no it was not. I had to go to the complete opposite side of the airport to get to the international gate. At the international gate I had to stop and obtain my international boarding passes, as I was switching airlines. At this point, the clerk who handed me my boarding pass says, "Hm...well you still need to be assigned a seat. They'll do that at the gate. Oh, and they begin boarding in twenty minutes. Better hurry!"

Really? What, exactly, makes you think I haven't been hurrying? Thanks Captain Obvious, but I don't know if you noticed me cursing the people in line in front of me who were being as slow as possible, but I certainly was. Hello People! Don't FLY if it can't be done SWIFTLY!

Next step. Security. The San Francisco Airport has just been crossed off my list of airports I will ever fly through again. The past two times I've flown abroad I have not had to go back through security once getting to the international gate. Of course I would hop into a line and immediately regret that decision. It may have been the shorter of the two lines, but it was chocked full of inexperienced traveling families. Just my luck, they open up a new security line about five people after I got into line. (The universe was clearly against me.)

The security process here at San Fran was itself impossible. I'm not really that great at tolerating ignorance, and I'm especially not good at if my patience is running on empty. I certainly wasn't going to be able to handle the family ahead of me traveling with about a dozen people, half of which are under the age of ten and have no concept of what it means to be efficient! One child began crying because she couldn't put her shoes in her own bin. Tears and wailing. Well, I can tell you one thing, if that was my child, she would not want to make it to the other side of security for fear of what I would do.

I finally reach the front of the security line. My stuff goes through fine. One problem. My backpack is through in my hands, but my liquids and shoes are being held hostage inside the x-ray machine's conveyor belt caged area. There is an opening on the security personnel's side. A man is standing right there. He appears to be doing a great job of picking his own ass, but relatively nothing else.

I ask said man, "Sir, could you please pass my things down to me."

Man says, "No."

I respond, "Well, um, I'm going to miss my flight."

Man says, "You'll just have to wait."

At this point I am three minutes from the beginning of boarding. Now, I realize that is boarding and they begin boarding fairly early for international flights. Here's the problem. If you aren't there to get your seat by the beginning of boarding, you lose your seat. Meaning: Danielle doesn't make it to Japan.

Finally my other bin comes cascading down the conveyor belt. I put on my shoes while throwing the rest the stuff into my bag and begin sprinting in the direction of my gate. The universe is still against me as it is literally the LAST gate available. I manage to run to my gate, zig-zagging my way between oblivious travelers. Out of breath and with only twenty seconds to spare, I approach the counter with my boarding pass in hand.

The travel agent says, "You look like you need some help."

I wheeze, "Yes, I need a seat!"

Within seconds, a ticket is printed, my day is saved. My luck changes as well. I got a seat with lots of leg room, on an aisle, next to a Japanese woman! Perfect! No huge man next to me snoring and trying to take my arm room! It was unfortunate that I didn't have time to go back up and get some food, but I did have enough time to grab a few magazines before boarding the flight.