The Flying Monkeys

We Made It: Growing up in the 50s, 60s, 70s and early 80s

A must watch for those of us who grew up in the "good old days" of the 50s, 60s, 70s and early 80s: "We Made It".

Just one of the guys or more?

A few months ago I blogged about being "Just One of the Guys".  About being the poker playing, sports watching, occasional beer drinking girl who my guy friends turn to as the voice of reason when they need female advise.  About how they view me as just one of the guys and not a woman who they would date.

Just before Memorial Day one of those guy friends asked me out.  On a real date.  With just the two of us.  Since then we've had a couple of solo dates along with time spent alone before / after plans with our larger group of friends.  We enjoy each other's company even if he does slightly struggle conversation wise.  But still...a guy whose actually interested in spending time with me is a good thing, right?

Sadly he's quickly failing.  As mentioned, he's not the most conversational.  And the couple of times our "status" has casually and quite naturally come up in conversation he won't commit to anything and acts vague on what he wants or doesn't want.  And he hasn't made a single move.  At all.  He treats me the same as he did before asking me out...as a platonic friend who he happens to see one-on-one.

In a move totally out of junior / senior high school, one of my friends pulled him aside yesterday and point blank asked him what was going on between us.  His response was to say that we're dating.  Somehow I missed that memo and, thankfully, my friend asked him if he and I really are dating to which he then didn't seem as sure.  Um, either we are or we aren't but maybe he should actually take the initiative and let me know what he feels is going on.

Oh...and making a move to show his interest wouldn't be such a bad thing either.

Unexpected Things

A Good Life

Smiling Through

Rejection Re-directed

As I look back on my life, I realize that every time I thought I was being rejected from something good, I was actually being re-directed to something better.

Just One of the Guys

As a female who is seen as "one of the guys" I'm the one who hangs out with her guy friends at a bar for Monday Night Football to have a burger and beer and actually watch the game.  I'm the one who knows just enough about sports in general to be recruited for trivia to fill the sports gap when the guys can't make it.  And I'm the one my guy friends turn to when they want suggestions of who I might be able to set them up with.

Not that they want to go out with ME...instead they want me to recommend any one of my single girl friends who they can go out with.  In fact, this happened just last night.  One of my guy friends decided that, six months post-breakup with his most recent girlfriend, he's ready to start dating again which is a good thing.  Then he turned to me and wondered if I know of any single women who he could ask out.  Never mind that I'm a single woman myself who he knows quite well but instead he wanted to know about who I know whose single and female.  The sad part is that he's not the first of my guy friends to do this and, most likely, won't be the last.

But it's still bothersome that none of the guys I know even remotely view me as a woman they could consider dating.  I'm not saying fall madly in love with me or marry me tomorrow...simply go out on a date with me.  And, while my girl friends say they know of guys they could consider setting me up with, that has yet to actually happen despite all their talk.

Yes, I know that in today's "modern" world I could ask a guy out.  Call me old fashioned, or very shy as is more accurately the case, but I prefer a guy to make the first move.  It doesn't have to be a big, bold move but expressing any interest whatsoever would be a major success in my book.  Is that really too much to ask?

Live Your Dream & Share Your Passion

Embrace Your Uniqueness

Romance and Fireworks

Romance isn't everything.  But it's something.

To be desired.
To be someone's most important.
To be someone's priority.
To be someone's favorite.

I want to be.
And a few fireworks would sparkle my world.

Vintage Social Networking

Second City Consulting: The Orientee's Dilemma

Second City Consulting: The Orientee's Dilemma: There is something I don't know that I'm supposed to know. I don't know what  it is I don't know, and yet I am supposed t...

Type A Personalities

As a Type A personality myself, I found an article titled 16 Signs You're A Little (Or A Lot) Type A via The Huffington Post quite an interesting read since I saw so much of myself in those signs.

This article (found here) starts with a background of where the term "Type A" comes from which was a lesson learned for me today and then goes on to list those sixteen traits that speak so clearly to me.

Capricorns: What We're Really Like

Winter in Chicago

Today's chilly weather has shattered records and 12 noon today was marked as the 7th coldest noon time EVER recorded here in Chicago.  We're at -13 (yes negative thirteen) with a wind chill of -40 (yes negative forty).

Think you know everything?

• Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
• Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
• There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
• The average person's let had does 56% of the typing.
• A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
• There are more chickens than people in the world.
• Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
• The longest one-syllable word in the English language is screeched.
• All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20.
• No word in the English language rhymes with mouth, orange, silver or purple.
• Dreamt is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt".
• All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill.
• Almonds are a member of the peach family.
• Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
• There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

But it's only...

One of my current frustrations surrounds what I refer to as the "it's only" habit that an organization I volunteer with has a habit of falling into all too often.  As in, "it'll only take an extra few minutes" that drags a meeting on for another hour.  Or, "it's only $X per person" when each individual person in the group didn't have a say in the cost in the first place and may not have budgeted for said expense.

Many of the women I volunteer with in this organization are in professions that traditionally make good salaries or otherwise are a part of a duel income household where the combined income is at a good rate.  These same women forget that some of us live on just our income.  An income in middle-management at a non-profit that is anything but "good".  An income that pays for the necessities and a few of the "luxuries" but that isn't as expendable as others.

While I'm fortunate to have some savings and am by no means destitute, at the same time, I do have to be mindful of what I spend.  Especially since I just bought a new house with the costs that come with moving and setting up a new home.  A home that went from a condo to a single family house.  And, it is afterall the Christmas season and I'm buying gifts for my family which is where my current extra money is going.

But how do you tell those who are better off that coming up with that extra time and money just isn't always possible?  How do we remind them that what may be "only" an extra hour or an extra $25 to them may mean cutting out some of the basics for us?

I guess sometimes going along with what we aren't comfortable doing is really the "only" option available to us.

One Day

An ocean or a puddle?