Back so soon(er) or later?

It's a good day. Getting to a good space as a spinstermiss isn't alway easy. But it does happen.

And, delightfully, it turns out that just because you don't want a 24/7 relationship doesn't mean you have to strictly keep company with your pets, your books, and your unclean thoughts.

It's taken a long time to realize that single life doesn't mean solitary life, but it's so good to be there. Along the way, I've gotten a lot of funny looks from people who just don't understand that not everyone needs to be attached in a permanent, legal way to her plus-one. But maybe I've also gotten a little bit of respect from those who wanted to live the way they wanted to live and just didn't have the guts to see it through.

As Helen Reddy so aptly said, "I am strong, I am invincible, I am woman."

Well...

I don't like to think of myself as a bad person. But sometimes the evidence is irrefutable.

But who the heck wants to read a self-condemnation?

Not me!

So suffice it to say, I'm learning a few lessons about myself and others that will help me grow as an individual.

PS...Working in tandem with the dryness and the heat, I have finally defeated the maples in the patio. Now I can start working on my new and improved bedroom.

Yes, I'm redecorating to make the space more, ahem, welcoming.
No, I don't know exactly who it will welcome.
But if I don't do some welcoming soon, there's going to be a problem.

Maples 2. Spinstermiss 0.

Well, this is embarrassing. I have not done one scrap of yard work this entire summer.

The good news is that I have watched a tremendous number of gardening shows on HGTV and that other newer hip network whose name constantly escapes me. You know, they have a lot of international programming. So instead of filling a planter with about a gallon of potting soil there's some metric reference like liters or mms.

Yesterday I saw a show devoted to planter gardens, and I totally want to do that. At some point. Speaking of planters. My sprouty daisy-looking perennials don't look like they're going to make it until next year. I'm thinking if I let those plants die, then I can use those v. nice containers for something a little less leggy looking next year.

But at this point, I really just want to read mysteries, lounge, and NOT train for the 5K I've signed up to do in September. (What is the inner meaning that my initial spelling was sighed up?)

The good news is, the maple sprouts seem to be battling it out in a turf war, so there do seem to be fewer of them.

The bad news is that they seem to be coming closer to the house. I hope that they're not coming for me.

Maples 1, Spinstermiss 0

Yesterday I was like the Algerian soccer team. Bursting out of my front door, I was filled with cocky fervor, certain that in no time every baby sprouted maple that had wedged between the pavers on my patio and taken root would be dead in no time.

This morning, I realize the maple trees are like the U.S. soccer team: enduring, strong, and determined to survive.

After a liberal coating with ground clear spray last night, I expected to see withered carcasses ready to be plucked and dumpstered. Instead, there they were, growing in the hot morning sun and laughing at me.

Laughing!

Now this means war.

But it's too nice to work

Yeah yeah yeah. This is going to be some grand girly construction site someday. The whole problem is when it's nice enough to do your projects, it's really too nice to be doing your projects. And when it's not nice enough to do your projects, well it's impossible to do your projects.

So instead of doing projects, I'm going to project my chunky butt to the beach this weekend.
Mmmm. Good times.

Meanwhile, there is a grove of maples popping out of my paver patio. It was cute a first. But now they're getting kind of big and blocking the way to the grill. Which is ok, because I'm still a little concerned about blowing myself up while installing a new gas bottle (tank? holder? whatever).

What is the chance that I could find a roommate? Maybe 20something. Male. Buff. Quiet. Loves to clean. Loves to cook. Can't get enough of taking out the trash and cleaning the litterbox out. Oh yeah, and he'd cover the entire mortgage payment.

With those criteria, my sister doesn't have to worry about planning bridal showers for me in the future!

Spreading my wings

I love all five followers, but I have a lot more love in my heart to share with others. So here's a new following tool...
Follow my blog with bloglovin

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.

Old man, new heartache

I'm a Facebook junkie. It's not a point of pride or anything. Just a fact. For someone who doesn't like to call or visit, the freshly opened doors of the technological world are a wonderful thing.

Except in one case: memory lane exploration.

Facebook and Google act as a sober take on drunk dialing as we look for the ones that got away and sometimes find them. Happy. Not utterly maimed and destroyed by the lack of your presence in their lives.

Then you have to deal with the to Friend or not to Friend issue. If you Friend that love gone awry, you're the mature adult moving on and yet maintaining healthy relationships. But then you see pix of him frolicking in the surf with his cute kids at some East Coast Beach resort. Which voyeuristically speaking is a simultaneous treat and torture.

So much for healthy post-breakup relationships.

Next time, I'm going the not to Friend route.

Probably.
Maybe.
Unless he still looks cute.

Hello, Mother? Can I book for next year?

So i did take a vacation and, loser or not, it was at my parents' home. And it's not like they live in a farway land, like Canada or Ohio. They're right over the river and through the Pine Barrens in Jersey.

Laugh away, jerkies. Smirk all you want.

While you had to wonder how that formica bed table in Wildwood Crest got that burn mark, I was a spoiled rotten baby at mommy and daddy's house. They even walked my dog for me.

I tell you what...if they'd been that nice to me back in the 90s, my fat ass would still be living with them.

All in all, a spectacularly relaxing week in the life.

On to Parisian preparations.

Vacation for one?

It's days like this that I wish I was one of those incredibly self-sufficient, creative types who can grab a sleeping bag and head out for a fantastic solo vacation. I spend a lot of my time alone. This is not a complaint, just a fact. But something about being alone on vacation just gets me so depressed.

There are really only so many pictures you can take of yourself with arms outstretched trying to get a bit of scenery and your own face in the frame. Trust me, it doesn't make for a great slide show.

What I need starting very soon is some kind of vacation with friendly people. Not swinger friendly. Just regular friendly. But it has to be cheap and it has to be fun.

Maybe there could be a little swinging.

It is summer after all.

Doing it for Johnny

I'm a very lucky girl. Occasionally for work I get to check out fairly deluxe events, drink champagne, and eat tasty bite-sized snacks while observing the stylish, the wannabes, and the celebrities. And I watch as people go up to the celebs and introduce themselves, ask for pictures, and chat. Does Matt Dillon really want to talk to people? No really? Do celebrities have a need that the rest of us don't...the need to be recognized and groped by strangers?

Is that enough philosophizing? Yep. I like celebs because you're totally allowed to stare at them at public events. I don't mean when they have their kids at the park or they're waiting for their gyno appointment (ew). But when they're at a party, most likely for payment, it's gazing season. You don't have to avert your eyes or act cool. Which I love because it turns out that I'm an atrocious stare-er. Sitting on a peg stool with a glass of champagne and my flowered tote bag on my lap, nothing could be better.

Mystery guest. Again.

"Mystery Guest" is a game sweetly invented by my siblings to draw people to the inevitably empty chair next to their sister (me) at events such as weddings. At formal functions, the tables are often set for 10. With five kids in our tribe, we tend to take up a whole table—except for my guest's spot.

Don't get me wrong. Mystery Guest is fun... especially if we're seated near the bar. As an interesting person walks by, we pull him into the mystery guest seat and each person seated at the table gets to ask a question. But it's the creation of games like this that made me realize that my siblings love me just the way I am and are in no rush at all to find me a spouse.

However, they're not invited to every event I attend, so when a friend was kind enough to invite me to her wedding I was really determined to find a date.

Therefore, once again, I signed up for an online dating service. And managed to stick with it for approximately two weeks before suffering from a ministroke and quitting in a bleary-eyed rage. Dating services are kind of like what I imagine giving birth would be like. Messy, painful, and a little creepy really (think about it--a living creature comes out of your body). You swear you'll never do it again. But you forget. You think: Men are so handsome. They smell great and fix cars. Dating's so nice. So you sign up again and very quickly you realize you've made a big mistake. Again.

Online dating nonsense is like a replay of school days and picking teams. But waiting online for someone to pick you is way worse than kickball because at least with kickball you could see who had a really good team and use the PICK ME! expression to get what you want. Not that the sites don't work for some. But I sincerely believe that the people who meet their spouses online are blessed with a combination of luck, determination, and patience that ensures they would have found a mate with or without mixed media.

Conclusion: Rather than waste another damn dollar on dating sites, I will be starting a new money jar to pay for attractive young escorts for social events.

It's not a vacation if there's penicillin involved

So I was at dinner with friends and it was mentioned that Spinstermiss has been a little quiet and withdrawn.

It is a blog from a SPINSTER folks, there's not much happening. Don't blame me! That's kind of the whole core of spinsterhood: Cute, small animals; Scratchily-written notes (today's misspelled texts) to relatives; day flowing into day with the seamless monotony of a seamless and monotonous movie...

Actually the spring was filled with sinus infections, near-misses at swine flu, and a general malaise the likes of which women used to expire from in Victorian times, generally diagnosed as "melancholia." Turns out that turning 39 was not pleasant. Really, just as unpleasant as I thought it would be. Just like the first time I had my eyebrows waxed.

There I was, just laying flat in the chair thinking, "yes, this hurts exactly as much as I'd anticipated."

And so it was with the last year of my 30s. My childless, husbandless, career stalled 30s. Poor me. Boo. Hoo.

But just over a month into it, things are warming up and maybe its the heat or the humidity, but my sap is once again rising rather than soaking into the pages of English mystery novels and bodice rippers.

Shut up. I was sick! (and i like them)

Caio bella

So it's 3:08 a.m. here in lovely Milano and it might be one of the few times that being a spinstermiss ain't all it's cracked up to be. While generally spinster travel involves lots of doing whatever the hell you want, whenever the hell you want, and often kissing exciting new lips owned by interesting and unusual international lips, there are hours like this that it might be nice to travel with company.

This trip, filled with visions of great new eyewear from the Mido trade fair, has involved tons of rain and a head cold that promises to make flying home this morning a literal headache. But there have been bright spots galore that would never have happened had I a husband keeping me home, including sitting here at 3:12 in my skivvies writing this note.

Brightest spots:

The food. Yes, I'm a bit of a foodie and I've earned those pounds this week with gnocchi and gorganzola cheese, risotto, risotto, risotto. And this delicious new candy bar, Lion Well, new to me.

The sights. While Milan is far from the prettiest city in Europe, it is really, really old which is always interesting for someone who lives in a relative young chit of a nation. And the Duomo lit up a night is really breathtaking.

The men. No one on Earth will look at you like a man in Italy. No where else can a nearly 40-year-old woman who opts for comfort over style get the patented Italian-man-on-the-street sexy look. Rowl.

The shopping. Didn't do much buying but did quite a bit of coveting of fancy boots.

The men II, the visitors. What's more fun than a man on the road on business? Set free from the constraints of happy home life, these packs of men have money to spend and adventures on their minds. Get your mind out of the gutter...these are the folks who will keep you safe at 2 a.m. while you're looking for that crazy jazz bar. He's like a celibate (mostly) sugar daddy. Lovely.

Youth, Schmooth.

Ok, this might sound crazy, but I'm thinking it's a great idea for the spinsters of the world to unite and demand a special dispensation for entry into the retirement village community. Although many of us don't yet reach the requisite 50+ status, we could bring lots to the senior community.

Including the following:

- Oh you crazy kids. Spinsters are a wonderful stand in for no-show kids. We'll stop by seeking advice, casseroles, and how the heck to iron a shirt without adding in new wrinkles.

- Widow transition assistance. This is terrible, I know. But it's true! Some women have been married for a long time. And then their husbands go off to that 19th hole in the sky, leaving their aged brides totally unprepared for the single life. Who better to help them with the transition into the solo scene than a life-long single gal?

- Daddy issues, anyone? Sadly, our married sisters sometimes head to the 19th hole in sky leaving their husbands bereft and looking for a slightly younger model. If that's your thing, well great. Old balls don't really do it for me, but whatever floats your singular boats.

So I'm off to buy a keen Alfred Dunner getup and some sassy walking shoes in preparation for the great day when Spinsters find their freedom in the lands of the golf cart as primary transportation.