Spreading my wings

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Getting Started

I'm not one much for getting started on a project. Particularly when there are couches to be lounged upon and books to be read. But I realized that part of my truly embracing spinsterhood is to truly make my home MY home.

In the three years I've had my townhouse, I've become an expert at toilet repair because my toilets are not good and yet I become accustomed to flushing them on a regular basis. As a result, my mastery of life skills includes not only the ability to use semicolons correctly, but also to repair toilet chains, flushers, and those black bubble looking things as well.

But that's about it. For nearly every other repair I've waited for my father to make a space in his very full schedule to help me out. Now that he's almost 70 and I'm still relatively young, it doesn't seem right to make him do all of my work for me. Now I just have to decide what to do first. Inside or outside? Hmmm. I'm making my decision today and getting to work on my first project this week.

Six months later...

So I don't do terrifically well in the winter. I intend to do so many things, but generally I spend the time from January through June in a reflective phase creating a mental to do list. Which I have completed and now all that remains to be seen is how much of the to-do list gets to the done list.

Which, frankly, has not been my strong suit in the past. But my plans for this blog and this summer are going to work together. When I created Spinster Miss it was going to be a spot where women of a certain age who live without the luxury of a helpmeet in life could go to find inspiration and direction. Kind of like Oprah if she wasn't rich, famous, successful, or really confident that her life's decisions were the right ones.

In the coming weeks I'm going to get started on a few projects around my home and will share my experiences, for better and more likely for worse and we'll see how this whole being a grown up girl on her own goes.

Remember me?

Just got back from my alma mater, touring with my beloved niece and sister. What a step back in time. And while I was there I ran into a couple of my old professors. Who actually remembered me! How can that be? I wonder if they keep file cards and quiz themselves periodically to keep their memories alive.

All of a sudden I remembered that there were tons of good times in college and it wasn't all that lousy last semester of senior year when I quit everything and crawled into bed for four months and no one really noticed. By the time I graduated, I had no desire to see any of the people who plainly weren't seeing me. Which is just so dramatic, as you can be at 21.

Now I regret losing touch with everyone. It's one thing to be a spinster miss. It's another thing entirely to be a hermit miss.

That was not part of the plan.

As a result, I've joined a social group of like-minded individual and attending my first gathering tomorrow. Gulp.

And I'm resolved to remember the happier times, get out into the greater world, and not get all Miss Havishammy and dwell on the relatively small speed bumps live has dealt me.

Fall-ing

Man, I love fall when it's scenic and crisp and filled with tasty apples and dogs in cute sweaters. Already, the pressure of daily leg shaving has abated and I actually snuck out in a winter coat and flannel nightgown for my pooch's midnight potty break.

Good times.

What about stamp collecting?

Being a spinster would seem to be the very definition of selfishness. I mean, it's all about me all of the time, isn't it? And that's the rub, my friends. All that me time very rarely goes to the betterment of this spinster's life. So, in effect, I'm living as if I'm married to a vary demanding spouse who consumes all of my time but gives very little back.

But in my case, the spouse is the TV.

And, unfortunately, I don't have the porn channels.

Why is it that so many women feel they can't have a rich life without a spouse? Even those of us who have made very conscious decisions that have led to a lifetime of singleness. There are plenty of men out there with rich lives and no spouse. Messy, slightly creepy lives with wackadoodle hobbies, but rich nonetheless.

This year I took my first vacation by myself, to London. In my experience as a traveler, it seems like transatlantic nations are friendlier to women on their own. Perhaps the puritan ethic of Americans instantly suspect witchcraft. Anyway, it was a great trip, but I was shocked and appalled by my tendency to eat at the hotel and join in package tours. Part of it is that I spend so much time at home alone that spending time abroad at home isn't exactly a vacation treat. The other part of it is the little voice in my head that says women by themselves shouldn't do x, y, or z.

While personal security is important, I get really steamed up with myself and the universe that women still are trained to follow the rutted path led gently by the hand of men.

I was hoping by writing this I would come up with a solution to the problem. But unfortunately, a few more rants may be required to help me move along the path of enlightenment.

Next Stop Crazy Dog Lady?

Four years ago, I hit 35 and entered the world of dog mothering with a sweet shih-tzu, Posey. She was taken from this world far to soon thanks to allegedly nutritious but actually poisonous melamine-filled freeze-dried chicken breast treats. Sigh. That little dog was fantastic...totally willing to wear her construction worker costume for a fun-filled rendition of YMCA on a Friday night after cocktails. How could she be replaced?

Turns out she can't. She never will be replaced. No other pooch will wear her sweet purple plaid snow jacket or yellow slicker.

But my new tzu, Gabby, is a constant reminder that while you can't replace something you love, you can love something new. Just like Posey, Gabby refuses to wear doggie boots, regardless of the salty sidewalks in the winter. But she's a unique pooch who runs to the door in an effort to go outside and bark at the sky during thunderstorms and has been known to walk around with a bright green Tampax clutched between her teeth like a jaunty cigar. She's got moxie, and because I'm older and slower and like to be amused, she's become my ideal companion.

As I get on the fast track to 40, I wonder if there's another shih-tzu in my future...or three.