Chronicles of a Girl

Living Happily Ever After

2010-11-08T16:18:00.006-06:00

Once upon a time . . .

. . . some chick in Fargo sat down and started writing about her life post-divorce on the internet. Not knowing where it would go. Just knowing there were a few things she wanted to say.

And yes.

That was me.

Over the next three years my readers wrote to me to say they found my stories inspiring and hysterical, that I simultaneously lifted them up while making them laugh. The truth is my words lifted me up while teaching me how to find the humor, truth, and always present life lesson in just about everything.

Blogging became both an anchor and north star for me. And such an incredible gift to myself. But I think that is the consequence of pursuing one's passions. If you do what your soul nudges, an authentic life results. And living authentically just feels so darn good.

I hope all of you listen to that little voice that beckons you to live your dreams as well. For it is the most amazing feeling when you do.

Thank you for walking this journey with me over the past several years. I adore you all. And feel so incredibly blessed by your cheerleading and support. The truth is that blogging, however wonderful it has been, is feeling more like a chapter in my life I am ready to conclude.

Here's to taking chances and belieiving in fairy tales.

And the journey through the kind of life that ends with the words. . .

Happily.

Ever.

After.

Love,Audra

These Small Hours

2010-10-07T11:00:00.003-05:00

Yesterday evening I accompanied my youngest daughter to her Faith Formation class. At the start the priest approached the pulpit and solemnly announced, “Our meditation this evening is on relationships. Good relationships take years to build. And one minute to destroy.”

Ain’t that the truth?

Relationships are not like savings accounts. You can’t make a lot of great deposits and then one day stop investing. Everything you’ve put into it will not remain pristine if you let it stagnate. If you stop giving to a relationship it will deteriorate.

Think of it this way: I’ve put a lot of effort into raising my children. I have rocked them as infants and played with them as toddlers. I’ve planned elaborate birthdays, hosted play dates, doled out loving discipline and made sure they ate their carrots.

But what if one day I woke up and just said, “Yeah, I’ve been mother of the year all of my adult life. I’ve done a great job. They’re good. I’m just going to go over here now.” I don’t think so. That’s actually called abandonment and it’s not even legal if the children are under 18. Or what if I stayed but just stopped being nice to them? That’s not legal either and it’s actually called abuse.

Relationships require you put forth a regular honest effort. If you take them for granted they will tiptoe away in the night and you’ll be left wondering how that great thing you once had turned to loud silence and dusty fragments.

Think about the relationships in your life that aren’t where you want them to be. Do you want a better relationship with your parents? Call them more often. Is your teenager becoming distant? Go for a Dairy Queen run and catch up on life over an Oreo blizzard. Have you been short and demanding of the people in your life who mean the most to you? Try bigger helpings of humility and eliminate criticism.

One of my favorite songs is "Little Wonders" by Rob Thomas, it encapsulates the concept of life's beauty residing in the little things:

Our lives are made
In these small hours
These little wonders,
These twists & turns of fate
Time falls away,
But these small hours,
These small hours still remain

Relationships not only take years to build but years to maintain. If the relationships in your life aren’t where you want them to be, the good news is you’re the one who can save them.

One small hour and one small minute.

At a time.
******************************

P.S. Sooooo sorry, dear readers, for the giant hiatus from the blog! I have no excuse. Well, I do have an excuse and it's called "wonderful guy descended into my life." Yes. It's true. Audra got a boyfriend and went, "Blog?!?!? What blog?!?" I think I'm coming out of the lovesick haze now so I pinky swear I'll be blogging more regularly again. See you Monday!

Perfectly Perfect.

2010-09-13T12:52:00.008-05:00

I am at the age where I think I definitely know who I am. At least I hope so.

I’ve lived long enough to have a pretty good handle on my strengths, weaknesses, gifts, and flaws. And trust me, the flaws list is long! But over the years I truly think I’ve been able to transform one of those negatives into a positive. And that is this: my anal retentive inability to accept anything less than perfection.

This honestly isn’t the worst quality in the world . Asking nothing less than your best of yourself is a great thing. But when you begin to apply it to others? Yeah. Uber bee-otch. All the way. Case in point, back in my 20’s I think I truly made several people’s lives miserable, probably my family’s most of all. I am a neat freak and nazi when it comes to how I think things should be done. The bed is made this way, the towels are folded this way, and if you put that non-dishwasher safe Pampered Chef ice cream scoop in the dishwasher one more time I am going to smack you with it.

Thankfully, the good Lord allowed me to live long enough to do something quite necessary with that attitude:

Grow up and get over it.

Eventually I learned to pick my battles and stop flipping out over an ice cream scoop. Or maybe just to stop buying things that aren’t dishwasher safe and the complications that those decision introduce into my domestic harmony.

Don’t get me wrong. I did not give up my perfectionist ways. I just tried to direct them somewhere healthier: at myself.

For example, I try to soak up human wisdom as often as I can by reading books that nurture my heart and soul. One of my favorites is Dale Carnegie’s classic self help book, “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living,” which I read at least once year. I’d never really been an anxious person but I just loved “How to Win Friends and Influence People” so much I instantly made it my life’s goal to read everything Dale Carnegie ever wrote. (In fact, the man is so inspiring that if a copy of a grocery list he once jotted down showed up on an episode of Pawn Stars I just may need to make a pilgrimage to Las Vegas to buy that sucker!)

They are classic books published almost a century ago, but the attitudes Carnegie touts are as vital to emotional human growth today as ever.

My teenage daughter is dealing with some of the expected anxiety of adolescence and I suggested the other day that she delve into the book. I read the first chapter aloud to her and we laughed and nodded together as we related to Carnegie’s plethora of analogies and anecdotes. From Jesus telling us to concentrate only on our daily bread (not yesterday’s stale bread, and not where on earth we’ll find bread two weeks from now in case we lose our jobs or a natural disaster occurs) to stories of people of mundane intellect who accomplished amazing things simply by doing the best they could one day at a time.

Give us this day our daily bread.

Exploring these mindsets and concepts over the years has solidified my perfectionist approach to life. I do my best every day. And I do not worry about tomorrow. And I don’t lose any sleep. I don’t wonder what’s going to happen. I just know whatever happens will be fine and I couldn’t have changed it.

Because I just did the very best I could with what I had.

That day.

Perfectionism can be a strength if used correctly. As long as our measurements are only made against ourselves and it is applied realistically it can bring great peace. And even joy.

I have several life accomplishments of which I am quite proud of as a result: my daughters, my career, my friendships, and even this blog. And they all exist because I gave thanks for the gifts I had that day, did the best I could with them, and enjoyed my daily bread with no thought toward the yesterdays I’d left behind or the tomorrows I cannot control.

As a result no one has been yelled at for dishwasher infractions in my house for well over a decade. And some days the beds just aren’t made right but everyone still sleeps comfortably.

Life is great but it is not because I’m perfect (hardly!) It’s because I always give nothing less than my best.

And the life that results is perfect.

For me.
*****************************
Thanks for a great weekend, Mr. H. I think the dollar mocha, comfy seats, and inspiring message was one of my favorite parts...next to you. Muah!

Still alive!

2010-09-10T11:59:00.002-05:00

I know, I've fallen off the bloggin' wagon this week! Thank you for all the kind inquiries about where I've been. I went to the farm and helped my mom for a week recover from surgery (nothing life threatening) and then I've just been engulfed with my children, my job, and other wondeful things in my life. I am so blessed . . . and I hope you are as well.

I'm making great progress with my novel and am trying to discern if I should just start blogging once a week . . . I may. Sorry! You are all so wonderful and supportive of my writing, it would be hard to cut back but if I am ever to realize my writing goals I am going to have to divide my time accordingly in order to accomplish them.

Have a blessed weekend!

~Audra

P.S. Congratulations to my dear childhood friend who gave birth to her fifth girl this week! It seems like just yesterday we were the little girls. Now when get together . . . there are seven girls between us. Sugar and spice and everything nice, my friend. Muah!

Traveling in Packs with Pacts

2010-08-30T22:22:00.005-05:00

They fill the tables next to me at restaurants. And travel in packs.

“Look,” my friend Casey motions to me. We are seated outdoors on a restaurant patio for a friend’s birthday party. She nudges my attention toward the group of women seated next to us. Although they are carting packages and presents their mood is solemn. “You see that?” she whispers and then quietly announces,

“Look at their faces.”

I glance over my shoulder to see six women just a few feet from me. They may as well be at a funeral. None of them look happy.

“They’re married,” she diagnoses.

And I laugh. Not at them. But at something else. At a past that used to be mine in another life. And Casey’s too.

That used to be us.

“And look,” she continues her assessment like a sociologist studying another culture, “they all own one piece of jewelry. And no one is wearing a vibrant color.”

It’s all true. What she says. The homogeny continues beyond that. They all have short hair and many are a bit overweight. I imagine they all live in brand new split levels and drive their children to school each day in their shiny Yukons and Expeditions.

Never smiling.

Casey squeezes my hand and smiles, “That’s not us anymore.”

I smile back.

On another day at another restaurant I am seated next to another group of women. But this group laughs and jokes and shrieks. They talk about the Twilight series as if it is classic literature and make plans to attend a Lady Ga Ga concert. They are all in great shape and their hair, if not long, is trendy and youthful, their jewelry fun and varied. Their laughter wafts through the restaurant but it intoxicates not irritates.

You think I’m going to say they’re all single, don’t you?

Guess again. This is not the juxtaposition you are expecting, dear reader.

They’re all married too.

But it’s a different kind of married.

The kind where you don’t lose yourself or give up. Instead, the mystical kind where you find yourself and (gasp!) could it be?

Love your husband.

It is possible.

I saw it in the restaurant next to me just last week.

If I’ve learned anything these past few years it is this: life is divided into two camps, the happy and the sad, and they gravitate toward another like magnets. Happy attracts happy. Sad attracts sad.

Ever heard misery loves company? It does. But happy loves company too. Like attracts like.

I have since analyzed the gabillion reasons I stayed so unhappily married for so unhappily long. There are several but one contributing factor that it took me a while to realize is that in that life my friends were just as miserably married as I, if not more so! Several of the married couples I knew were just shuffling through the motions. I just thought that’s the way it was.

Interestingly? My unhappily married friends did not stay friends with me after my divorce. But my happily married ones did.

Isn’t that interesting? Yes. Mull that. It’s deep. It seems I abandoned an unwritten pact to stay eternally in despair with them. It has been a life lesson that has imparted deep wisdom of which I am so grateful to have, even if attaining it was through something so incredibly difficult.

Never again will I surround myself with friends who pity themselves, who settle for less, and who don’t believe that the power to find happiness resides within. Never again will I waste my time with people who portray themselves as victims.

Life is meant to be toasted to, embraced hard, and lived beautifully. And to do anything else? Is wasteful.

And sad.

Recently a new guy in my life asked me, “Why does it seem like when women get married they get fat and cut all their hair off?” I just laughed knowingly and said I wasn’t sure. But that the good news was I’d already lived that life.

For even if I ever do say I do again, my femininity and size four jeans are here to stay. Along with something even more beautiful and unwavering.

My belief that life is what I make it.

And I’m making mine?

Happy.

******************************
P.S. Just for the record? I do think I would have to draw the line at discussing the Twilight series as if it were classic literature. I'm just sayin' . . . :-)

R.I.P. Laptop!

2010-08-26T11:26:00.002-05:00

My laptop crashed this week and my desktop wasn't looking too good either . . . who are these people who just sit in dark rooms and write viruses? Good grief!

I'll be back online Monday. I've had a fabulous week and life is grand. Hope the same for you, marvelous readers!

Love and blessings,
Audra

Sorry!

2010-08-24T12:34:00.001-05:00

Going to blog tonight...pinky swear. :-)

~Audra

On vacation!

2010-08-17T16:25:00.002-05:00

On vacation this week, readers, experiencing wonderful adventures with old friends and my littlest girl. I am blessed and I hope (know!) you are as well.

Be back next week!
~Audra

Cheating Jerk Follow Up . . .

2010-08-12T21:21:00.012-05:00

I’ve been avoiding the topic of the big cheating jerk I dated from April to July (Refer to my “Dear Daphne” blog post if I lost you.) But I figured I’d revisit the topic at least one more time. You see, I just finished the book Resilience by Elizabeth Edwards. That woman is the epitome of grace. She endured much in this life: the tragic death of her teenage son, breast cancer, and the humiliating public betrayal of her husband of thirty years, Senator John Edwards.

For anyone facing any kind of adversity, I highly recommend you run, not walk, to Barnes and Noble and buy Elizabeth's words.

Therefore, in the style of this classy lady, I didn't want to give the cheater in my life too much attention on my blog. Mainly because I believe in positive energy. And this guy is so screwed up and so dysfunctional that there’s nothing positive about him. But the truth is there’s been a positive twist to the story.

And that twist is Daphne.

For once she and I were done discovering all the disgusting details, “He called you Blondie, too?!?!” we discovered something better.

A friendship.

In between moments of revelation, “What? He had pictures of the two of you on Facebook? I could only see two pictures on his page. He told me he didn't know how to really use Facebook! Good gawd, that man had his privacy settings Mac Daddy'd out!!" and epiphany realizations that we were intimate with him simultaneously (which, by the way, is the universal human definition of a dog) we eventually dug out of those discussions and found our way to more mundane commonalities.

Like similar careers, taste in clothes, and a love for wine and food.

We were soon giggling like school girls over lunch and checking in often via text and phone. I’ve even introduced Daphne to a couple guys with whom I think there may be some intriguing potential. (Just call me cupid!)

It’s nice to see her smiling.

I have a feeling Daphne will be a permanent fixture in my life and I feel so incredibly blessed.

Discovering I was being betrayed and used was not fun but the outcome is something I never would have expected. I found a kindred spirit and wonderful friend in the process. On top of that, this shared experience had helped both of us to discern that the shortcomings of others is not something we ever have been or will be able to control and is no way a reflection of our failings.

We are trusting and loving women and those are qualities we are both holding on to. This man was out for power and that was it. But he didn't get it and he didn't win. Because we will not allow him to steal our trust in others.

Elizabeth Edwards offers an acute assessment of situations like this in her book. Sometimes things happen to you that are tragic. Tragedy is sometimes unavoidable.

But it is an honorable place.

As the alternative is to be on the side that she puts her husband's mistress. And where Daphne and I put this man and his misguided motivations.

Pathetic.

Hidden Treasure

2010-08-09T13:16:00.008-05:00

In December 1993 I was a senior in college. My application to law school sat on the kitchen counter and I was preparing for the LSAT. I was going to put my outspoken personality to use and become an attorney.

All those dreams vanished in an instant when I went in the bathroom and watched a pink plus sign appear on a little plastic stick.

I was pregnant.

And just like that.

My life changed forever.

I married a stranger and my life became a surreal dream. Or more like a nightmare. I woke up every morning wishing none of this was so. But soon I didn’t even have time to wish for anything more than one day to go by when I was not throwing up.

But I didn’t quit getting sick. Instead I vomited every day for the next eight months. I couldn’t win the lottery but I was one of the “lucky” 2% of pregnant women whose body treats the baby like an unwelcome parasite. I think my cells had a meeting and decided if they just made me barf constantly I could expel the baby that way.

It didn’t work.

So while my friends went on with college, parties and part time jobs I stayed home with my new husband in our meager apartment and stumbled through married life while trying to finish college and wondering if I was really ready to be a mother.

And?

I barfed endlessly.

But on August 4, 1994, I finally stopped throwing up when a black haired blue eyed cherub arrived in my life after 24 hours of labor. My daughter was born. And again.

My life changed in one day.

But this change was different.

While my friends graduated from college, got their first jobs and bought new cars I graduated not only from school but to motherhood, nursed my first born child and bought tiny pink dresses and ribbons for this sweet little angel.

That baby became a toddler who loved Barney and then a little girl who liked to play princess and Barbies. Her waist length long hair blows in the wind and her blue eyes sparkle forever in my memories of her childhood: pushing her swing and flying kites in endless expanses of green.

And somehow? Impossibly?

She is 16 years old. She wears eyeliner (some days too much), borrows my clothes (did you take my strapless bra again?!?!) and her bedroom looks like the aftermath of a natural disaster (what smells up there?!?!).

And in two short years this closet raiding slob with too much eye make-up will be off to college. And it is just surreal.

But I’m not sad. And I have no regrets. For life is flowing the way it always does and I have no control over time and transition. I learned long ago that when the winds of life change, sometimes the only thing you have the power to adjust?

Are your sails.

I had a beautiful baby all those years ago. Who grew into a beautiful braided girl and is now blossoming into a self-assured creative woman.

Sometimes our greatest gifts are plans we never would have made ourselves but unexpected detours in the road we’d so meticulously plotted and planned. I am glad I didn’t become an attorney. It would not have been the career for me. And I am glad I spent my 20’s playing dolls with my daughter. I’ve watched countless friends wish desperately for children who never appeared.

I’m lucky.

And blessed.

By experiences in places I would never have sailed into on purpose.

For it is there that I have discovered hidden treasure.

In the uncharted waters.

Of this life.

*************************************************
Happy 16th Birthday, Booga Wooga Bear. Thank you for coming into my life. Love you to pieces baby girl!!

****

The picture is of my daughter at age four enjoying the garden of a friend...this is one of my favorite pictures of her. And even though that little girl is no longer in my life, in her place is a young woman, tall, confident and full of hope and potential. I hope I have helped her cultivate the garden of her dreams as best I could.

Law school would never have held a candle to this journey....love you always and forever.

Love,

Mom

Today's Post . . .

2010-08-05T08:24:00.001-05:00

Will be up tomorrow! My little girl turned 16 yesterday and it's been a crazy week. I'll have a post up Friday, thanks for reading. Muah!

~Audra

Ordinary Days

2010-08-02T22:00:00.008-05:00

My toes almost touch the branches with every swing. I stretch some more.

Almost there.

Two wrinkled hands push my swing and off I fly.

Got ‘em!

It’s October 1979. I’m seven years old and swinging the afternoon away on a wooden swing hanging from my grandmother’s clothesline and wearing a faded orange homemade pumpkin costume. Earlier that afternoon my Gram had dug it out of an old box in her attic.

“Arms up, there you are,” she’d said with satisfaction as the green felt Peter Pan collar hugged my neck, “I made this for your mommy when she was little.” She tugged the draw string that pulled the costume tight about my waist and instructed, “Now when you wear this, just put on a green shirt and green pants and stuff this with newspaper to make yourself fat and you’ll be the cutest pumpkin!”

That was my Grammy. Always giving instructions, always telling others the way things go. She’d been a teacher for over forty years but just because her classroom was gone didn’t mean her knack for taking command of everything else around her was. The wall above her desk was a testament to that, covered with plaques and certificates: president of this, chairperson of that; she always found a way to boss people around in a way that made them grateful she had.

Hours later I was still wearing the costume as the evening light faded. Seven year olds do that, wear costumes as regular clothing every chance they get. My mom would be here soon, plodding around the corner of Gram’s old white house, walking on the lawn that was more clover and violets than grass, telling me to hurry up and then laughing when she noticed me wearing a piece of her childhood.

My Gram wasn’t really my grandmother, she was my great grandmother. Women had babies young in my family. My own grandmother was still in her mid-forties, my mother her mid-twenties. Gram was pushing seventy, so she just played grandma to all of us.

I don’t remember why I remember that ordinary day so vividly. The costume, the swing, the violets. I just do.

It’s one of several memories of Gram that pepper my misty memory.

But isn't that what life is? A string of ordinary days woven together. Sure some stand out more than others as truly extraordinary: weddings, the birth of children and grandchildren. But the truth of our lives when all is said and done is found in the mundane ordinariness. That's where the beauty lives, the breathes we took together, the smiles we shared, the momentum we gave that allowed toes to touch tree tops.

It's 1989 now.

I’m bounding through Gram’s cluttered porch and can see her through the dusty lace curtains, rising slowly from her recliner and exclaiming, “My girlie is here!” She’s wearing her typical polyester dress and nylons with sandals. Her red hair is freshly colored and we eat cake doughnuts in her kitchen. She asks about things like what college and I am going to and if I’m going to be a singer.

Gram always loved to hear me sing. She’d come to every concert I gave throughout high school, perch in the front row and record my performances on her prehistoric tape recorder. She’d play them back later while she sat alone in her house. Smiling to herself as she read her tattered bible or clicked her crotchet needles.

It was a nice way to grow up. Having a devoted fan like that.

Now, it’s 2010.

I have all of the tapes Gram made of my singing. They stay close to me, on the top shelf of my bedroom closet in a pretty box with a bow. Reminding me always that there once was someone on this earth who not only loved me enough to make poor quality recordings of my voice in a high school gymnasium but to play them back to herself when she needed reminding that she may be alone in the old white house but she was not alone in this life.

And now, all these years later, I am the one all alone in a big white house, wishing the recordings were not of me.

But of her.

Gram died when I was 25. Her fiery spirit faded like the red in her hair. The last time I sang to her was in a church.

But she couldn’t hear me anymore.

It’s been so long since I’ve heard her voice or seen her wrinkled smile but if I need to visit her I do. I close my eyes, fling open the porch door and rush inside to visit Gram. She's always there. I swing on that swing, walk in the violets, and sit at her sunny kitchen table and eat doughnuts with her again.

I’ve visited Gram in the halls of my memory often these past few years as I’ve struggled with the reality of divorce and the uncertainty of being a single mom. And she is there as she always was. My biggest fan, my unwavering support, pushing my swing higher when I try to reach the tree tops, and reminding me not to get upset if flowers grow in my lawn.

And teaching me always the simple power love can have when we let it inject . . .

. . . extraordinary magnificence into all our ordinary days.

*************************************

Love you, Gram. Miss you . . . always. ~Your girlie

What WAS I thinking? Apparently nothing much.

2010-07-28T13:25:00.005-05:00

Facebook is something the whole world is still trying to figure out. It's this mysterious snap shot of what's on someone's mind from time to time. Personally? I think I am a deep person. I read classic literature, contemplate the vastness of the universe, and work hard to instill meaningful values in my children.

Although you'd never know I had a brain at all if you based my intellectual capacity on the content of my random Facebook status updates. My rants read like the musings of a freak show with about as much depth as a mud puddle in the Sahara.

Yeah, well. It's Facebook.

It's not my personal manifesto by any stretch of the social networking imagination. What it is is a series of little moments and passing musings that I feel like throwing out into into the internet universe. I will confess, I try to share silly stuff whenever possible. I learned that from my Dad, he's always laughing. If hostile aliens took over the planet he'd be the guy cracking jokes even as Scotty beamed him up. The guy invented the silver lining philosophy, I swear.

I think that's a good way to live, personally.

So here are my top ten most recent Facebook status updates that many people have hit the "Like" on . . . as an illustration:

When the new automated garbage trucks come for pick up every week I can't help but think about those little alien guys in Toy Story every single time...."Oooohhhhh....The Cllllllaaaaaaaawwwwwwwww........"

It was so calming getting ready this morning with the electricity out, the rain falling, eating breakfast by candlelight. Told the kids we should seriously consider going Amish.

Tampons. Fiber One bars. And a toothbrush. This is my grocery list. Weird.......

Kinda wish I'd been an archeologist.

Smelly cat...smelly cat...what have they been feeding you....Smelly cat....smelly cat...it's not your fault . . .

Cancelled my Match.com account...R.I.P. online dating....I could find better quality men at a strip club.

Is it just me or did red lights used to last an eternity before texting existed? Now they seem like a freaking time warp when I want to send a text.

Great run around some lake in Eden Prairie just now. Minus the shin splints, lightening, and goose attack.

My kid is making up a song about how much she loves beef jerky. Set to Lady GaGa's Bad Romance. Gotta love road trips . . .

I sewed my daughter's pool pass onto her swimsuit . . . in the crotch. If that is proof I didn't have the best day today, I don't know what is. (Don't worry, I did take it off and attach it somewhere more Rated G. Can you imagine? "Lemme see your pool pass kiddo..." Um. Yeah....)

And...my all time favorite status update ever which I can not take credit for. It belongs to my ex-husband's aunt, she's a real nut (in a good way!). I don't want to know what on EARTH she was doing when she broke out her blackberry and decided to type this little tidbit in but it made me chuckle just the same:

HONK if you love the dump!

Now if that isn't finding the silver lining in a mundane life task....I don't know what is.

Girl Talk

2010-07-26T08:09:00.006-05:00

As the mother of two daughters and the owner of one female feline there’s a lot of estrogen going on at my house.

Girl talk. Girl time. Everything girl rules most topics. Boys, bras, and boisterous gatherings.

Ahhhh . . . life on the pink side. ‘Tis lovely.

I have full physical custody of my daughters. This means that my life is consumed with glamorous things like laundry, vacuuming, and meal planning. I once heard that if you are lucky enough to live to be 90 and look back on your life as a pie chart, the slice during which you had children at home will be merely a sliver, hardly a full serving. Therefore I embrace every moment with my daughters. My oldest one turns sweet sixteen next week. And before I can say training bra I know my youngest will soon be chasing the skirts of womanhood as well.

And as I skillfully balance the day to day of making macaroni and cheese with making sure homework is done I also imagine their tomorrows and make sure to impress upon my daughters life lessons that will keep them resilient when I am not there.

One of which is the importance of girlfriends.

Girlfriends are the glue that holds life together when it crumples in your hands like an autumn leaf, they are the most necessary support you can cultivate, more so than Vicky’s most secretive secret. They are the hugs you need when life leaves you lonely, the laughter that fills you when you’re empty, and the soothing words when the silence is loud.

So here’s a picture of me from this weekend. My girls were with their dad so I sought out the other girls in my world who make my life sweet.

Sipping wine at a rooftop restaurant. Hugs, laughter, and words of wisdom were plenty.

Here’s to my girlfriends and all the girls of the world.

Who possess always the magical powers to turn an upside down world.

Right side up.

I Love Men

2010-07-20T18:51:00.002-05:00

After last week I figure I should officially make that announcement should anyone assume otherwise.

Just because I choose to write mostly about my (failed) relationships that is not an automatic translation into man hating land. Yeah, many of the men who’ve crossed my romantic path haven’t panned out but that is hardly a testament to testoerone’s inferior ranking.

On the love front in particular, I have two ex-boyfriends and an ex-husband who I respect immensely and who have been there for me on more than one occasion . . . as friends. In fact, I don’t think I could have gotten through this most recent dating debacle without the affirmation of one of my ex-romantic interests.

“He’s a douche bag, Audra! This wasn’t your fault, you’re trusting and wonderful. HIS LOSS.”

(Thanks, Bobby. You always did have a way with words.)

And of course, my family is made up of many men who hold the pillars of my life story in their strong arms. My dad, the eternal jokester, who’s made me laugh all of my life and instilled a similar sense of humor within my being. My grandpa, handy man extrodinaire. The last time he was at my house he insisted on WD40ing every hinge in my house. I shall never creak or squeak again with Grandpa around. And my brother, the favorite uncle who gives endless four wheeler rides and makes up silly jokes with his two nieces. My daughter’s lives are full of adventurous jump ditching and endless laughter thanks to him.

How could I hate men with these great guys all around me?

And of course, the boyfriends and husbands of all of my friends provide a steady presence when I need to borrow them. Anna’s husband took me to the vet to put a pet down on a difficult summer’s day. His quiet compassion enveloped me as he handed me tissue after tissue and consistently assured me I’d done the loving thing on the long drive home.

In other damsel in distress moments, Carmen’s cop boyfriend will rush over immediately if I am ever scared (what was that noise? Do I have an intruder?).

“I’ll be right over, Audra. With the gun.”

And of course, age old friendships I’ve cultivated with boys who have become men sustain me year after year. One monitors my moods via my Facebook status. The moment I post anything cryptic, he’s right there.

“Hey, saw your post. You okay? Need a drink? Or ten?”

Men, at least the ones in my life, are wonderful.

Every single one.

Eventually I’ll find one to play a romantic role, I’m sure.

But in the meantime?

I’ve got plenty of help in life at times that require someone be branded a “douche,” WD40 be administered, alcohol be consumed , or a gun be displayed.

Thanks, guys.

You’re the best!

Happy Monday!

2010-07-19T09:53:00.004-05:00

Just a quick note wishing you all a joyful week!

I'll post a "story" by tomorrow . . . but I wanted to pop in quickly and let you know I'm hardly on the floor after last week's unexpected twist in the road. I had a wonderful weekend with my children and went for two long glorious runs along the river.

Speaking of roads . . . last night as I was pounding out mile 4 I turned a curve in the path and the evening sun was gleaming through the trees dotting the river bank. Spheres of fluffy cotton seeds glowed in the sparkling light, their orbits dancing all around me as I chased my long lean shadow home.

Life is a rose bush.

Full of thorns.

And forever beautiful . . .

Love,
~Audra

Dear Daphne . . .

2010-07-18T09:02:00.003-05:00

I didn’t know.

I didn’t know back in the beginning of April that the very witty guy who emailed me on Match.com and made me laugh had been making you laugh since December. I didn't know he'd told you he'd deactivated his online profile months ago.

I didn’t know that when he and I met for drinks a week later that you assumed he was spending the evening with his children. When he and I visited over Pinot and he told me he hadn’t dated in a long time I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to believe him.

A week later when I appeared on the radio to promote my blog I didn’t know that when he texted me afterward to ask me to dinner that he always made excuses to not go out in public with you.

The first week in May when he sat in my kitchen for hours and talked with me after helping me put an old appliance on the curb for spring cleaning week I didn’t know that you were going to attend a Butch Walker concert with him that weekend.

As the weeks progressed along with my relationship with this charming man I didn’t know you even existed.

When he played sports in the evenings I didn’t know that afterward he went to your house to shower and spend time with you. I thought he was doing paperwork.

When he came to fix my daughter’s swing set, the kid I’ve nicknamed “Monkey,” I didn’t know there was a woman to whom he’d assigned a similar term of endearment to and that you were his “little monkey.”

In June when I asked him if he was dating anyone else as he laid on my bed and kissed me, I didn’t know that when he said “No” he was promoting a charade.

When I told him about how I'd been betrayed in a relationship last year I didn't know you'd shared a simliar loss and that he was well aware of how fragile the hearts were that were in his hands.

When I commented on his clothes I didn’t know you’d bought them for him.

When I asked him if we could change our Facebook status and he said no and made fun of me for being juvenile because Facebook is stupid I didn’t know I should question his reasoning.

When I introduced him to all of my friends as my boyfriend at the end of June I didn’t know that I was sharing him.

I didn't know that he had segregated his life into two social circles.

One with you.

One with me.

When his children were out of town and he invited me to stay at his house I didn’t know that he was choreographing time between the two of us and that you were invited the next night.

When he asked me to park in the garage because the mosquitoes were bad I didn’t know he was hiding my car.

All these other couples that the two of you would hang out with together are names I never heard. I didn’t know those people existed.

When he started to resist being out in public with me I didn’t know it was because he had something to hide, I thought it was because he wanted to hold me in his arms in private.

When he cancelled on me last minute as I was preparing to join him at the lake with his friends and children I didn’t know he did that because you were already there.

When he texted me on my birthday when I was out of town I didn’t know he couldn’t call me because you were sitting right beside him.

I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to believe him when he said he was having second thoughts about having me spend an afternoon with his children and that the real reason was because you were with him.

When he was always busy working or spending time with his kids I didn’t know I was supposed to question those good things and that instead those were the times he was with you.

I didn’t know someone could be so cruel. I didn’t know someone could lie so often and so effortlessly. I didn't know someone could be so calculating. I didn’t realize that deceit existed on this level. I didn’t know that someone could fabricate untruths with such ease. I didn’t know that when he told me my expectations were too high and that if I wanted a real relationship I needed to slow down that he was only trying to buy more time to continue his cunning charade.

I didn’t know he was a cheating on you.

I didn’t know he was cheating on me.

I simply.

Did not know.

But now I do.

And you do too.

From April to July we were not treated as people worthy of compassion and honesty, we were treated as pawns in a giant game of control and deception. But that game is over and if I know anything now, Daphne, I know this:

You will stop crying. You will get out of bed. You will find your strength and voice again and you will go on. You will be resilient. You will learn a lot about yourself. You will find threads of force within your being that you did not know existed. And you will weave those threads into a rope that you will use to propel yourself forward, to pull yourself up out of this hole that you did not dig but were thrust into. For you are a woman, a strong woman, a woman who will not give the power to this flawed and awful man to determine your self worth and value as a human being.

And even though today you can’t fathom this truth, I know it with all my heart and soul:

You will forget him.

I will forget him.

And I will be there with you, my sister in sadness. As will every woman who has ever hurt so deeply she has felt her soul vaporize like a gasp in that awful instant when lies become truth.

I know today it hurts. It hurts terribly. I'm crying too.

But I also know after all these awful days stretch out there will be a day when the sun shines on our hearts again.

And I know.

We will go on.

Heads held high. Scars and all.

Hold on to me. I won't let you drown.

Love and blessing, let's make this ugly thing beautiful. Here's to shining new friendship in the darkness.

~Audra

(Always here for you "Blondie" . . . love "Chronicle Girl" . . . )

My Readers Reply to "Dear Daphne" . . .

2010-07-18T08:51:00.005-05:00

There "Dear Daphne" letter was originally published on July 13th, the day after she and I discovered this deceit. I was invited to appear on KFGO the next day as I appear regularly to promote my blog. I read the letter on the air and the response has been astounding. The response was so positive that KFGO has been repeatedly airing my reading of the letter on the air throughout this week. I'll post an audio link soon . . .

There is a "Comments" section at the end of each blog post and I want to thank those of you who took time to write your heartfelt and compassionate thoughts. When "D" read them her response was . . . "my heart is soaring." Thank you for demonstrating such love . . . I have reposted the immediate commentary this letter received for easier access in a post of its own. If you wish to add your thoughts please click on the "comments" link at the end of either this post or the "Dear Daphne" letter post . . .

Love and Blessings, ~Audra

Anonymous said...
I am not sure you should (or will want to) post this. I just want you to know that I know "D" very well...you see...I am her mother. I know that this beautiful woman has been hurt by more than one man...and she doesn't deserve it. She is smart, sincere, has a good job,and is beautiful both inside and out. If she has any faults it is that she is too trusting...too kind,too loyal, and too generous...the very things that people should strive for...fail her. I would like to believe that she was shown these good things by her parents...but I believe that they just come naturally to her...she is just that kind of person. I know that there is the right "someone" out there for her and I tell her not to give up...he WILL come along. I hope for your sake that Mr. Right will come into your life as well. Thank you for being so kind and 'being there' for "D"...you couldn't find a better friend.
July 13, 2010 5:29 PM

OarFan5 said...
Wow...never met D's Mom before, but I love her comments...and knowing D pretty well, I totally agree with her. D couldn't be more due for a future of kindness, gentleness, and for someone to wrap his arms around her and be the proudest guy in the room everywhere they go.And I'd repeat that sentiment for you, too, Audra. Excellent blog...in so many art forms pain seems to bring out awesome creativity, and your blog this week is no exception. (That being said, I'd rather read boring blogs and you be happy!)Peace.
July 13, 2010 6:17 PM

SLS said...
*tears*I am SO sorry for both of you. I also know D very well...and if there's anyone who is due for a loving, supportive, respectable relationship, it's D. Neither of you deserve this and I'm very sorry you have to go through it. Audra, this letter to D is brilliantly written. How you have embraced her is selfless and honorable...I don't think many people would have reacted the way you have. Thank you for taking my friend in your arms. Thank you for being strong for her. Thank you for your courage to lead her through this only to come out on the other side with your heads held high.To D: I've said it before, I'll say it again: stay strong. Don't be defeated by this. You deserve so much better. As your mom said, you are a kind, smart, caring, giving, loving, sincere woman who deserves a man who is willing (not to mention able) to give you those things in return. He is out there...don't give up on that.Love you...and Audra, I can't wait to meet you. =)
July 13, 2010 8:02 PM

Audra said...
To D's mama bear, What beautiful commentary. Your family has been through a great deal, but it looks also that there is a great deal of something more than just loss . . . love. Although the circumstances have been adverse the past few days, I welcome D's presence in my life. I feel blessed to know her . . .Love,Audra
July 13, 2010 8:03 PM

Anonymous said...
Audra: I always knew you were one of those students that was "special." Special to others, special to me, special in your resiliency...your purpose of life? Well, I think you found your calling...you know this happened for a reason...all things do...you and "D" will form a bond that will withstand tests of time and trial...you have just started to see that...I kept the rope of sand picture you drew in high school for a long time...you did not weave a rope of sand Audra...you wove a rope of strength...you are perhaps the best thing that has happened to "D" in a long time...I read this to my 19 year old son (because you will forever be 19 in my mind...and because he is a guy). Braeden says "remind them both that not all guys are jerks...not all guys should be labeled because of a bad few...they deserve better, and if they are patient, one of the good ones will find them, probably when they are not even looking..." Well, I thought it was pretty insightful for a 19 year old guy...Always there for you....:) CJH
July 13, 2010 9:53 PM

Kellie said...
Wow, Audra....It is so unfortunate about the circumstances behind your blog post...I hope you realize that when you read it back for yourself it is one of the most beautiful, heart-wrenching "stories" that is obviously full of your raw emotions...We as readers are in awe of your words, yet we feel so sorry for the pain that has caused you to write them.For both you and "D"- This person is not a man, he is not even a human being. For someone to do this so coldly, so calculating, it is beyond belief. Please don't let this person change who you are...Don't let him take away your trust in others and your right to love and be loved in return. Don't let this person do this to others. Tell on him, rat him out, purchase a billboard, do whatever it takes because maybe, just maybe, you will give another woman the information she needs so that she will never trust her heart with this scumbag...
July 14, 2010 12:10 AM

Anonymous said...
"D"Sorry that you have joined this awful club. With love I suggest you read the Healing Library on SurvivingInfidelity.com. I personally know that it is hard to never quite get the 'why's and how could he' of this situation. I know that betrayal reaches to the core of you with stabbing pain. I know that it questions everything that you thought was you. I know it sends you in a tail spin of questions: 'Did I do the right thing, should I have asked different questions, maybe if I had done something differently it would not have happened?' And even the biggie... 'but, I still love him - How will I get over this?' It is a roller coaster ride of ups and downs, twists and turns.And the only thing that works to slow that roller coaster down is time. You need to heal. Healing takes time. Healing takes work. Healing takes patience. talk. cry. write. wear pink. and just know, that you are loved.
July 14, 2010 9:13 AM

Audra said...
This empathetic woman asked me to share her commentary, she sent me this in an email and asked me to post it here:

Audra,Great Blog! Very Impressive and well written.For D....I feel your pain! I went through something very similiar..not just once..but twice! The first time it happened my ex met his "soul mate" while vacationing with my dad and brother!! He traveled back and forth Fargo to be with her! The second time was the last time. While he was sending me 6 dozen roses..for the 6 years we were married..he was sending the "other woman" the same roses and sharing the bedroom! I look back now and even though it was the most difficult thing that I had ever done..it was the best thing I had ever done! I drew all my strength and decided to move on. Two months ago (after being divorced for 6 years) I married the love of my life and all I can tell both of you is that it was so worth the wait! You have to be strong and stay positive. I, like you, trust too easily and always give others the benefit of the doubt! If I can get through this anyone can! You will look back on this..and even though it is hard now..you will thank the Lord that you are able to move on with your life and find true happiness! I am the happiest I have ever been in my entire life and it will happen to you too! Stay strong and stay focused! Surround yourself with good friends and family! You will need them now more than ever! My thoughts are with you!!
July 14, 2010 10:00 AM

Anonymous said...
Great writing, terrible story in that you and "D" were both hurt. It amazes me how people, whether it's men or women can do this with no guilt and so coldly. He will get his. I truly believe in the saying, "What goes around, comes around." A cheater will one day be cheated on.
July 14, 2010 5:09 PM

Audra said...
The comments you have taken the time to put up have been very uplifting for both me and "D" . . . thank you for taking the time to write such heartfelt sentiments and compassion . . . we are both so gratefulfor for your embrace. I chose to delete a few comments, not because they weren't wonderful, but because they called out identifying information about "him" and as a professional writer I can't identify others in my writing without their permission. Those are my professional parameters for my blog, it is one of the reasons it is so popular. My email address is fourgirlsonestory@gmail.com if you would like to email me commentary that doesn't fall under those parameters, I am always happy to hear from my loyal readers.Blessings . . . ~Audra
July 15, 2010 6:37 AM

Anonymous said...
Very well written Audra, brings back memories of how I hurt someone a long time ago much in the same way. I am embarrassed to even mention it, but it's a reminder to me that I will never let it happen again. The hurt and the pain that was caused is unexplainable and will never be forgotten, but time has gone on and people have healed, forgiven and learned huge lessons to live the rest of our lives by. Thank you again for taking the time to write this and remind us that we all need to treat people as we would expect to be treated. Happiness is out there for all of us.
July 15, 2010 12:19 PM

Rockin' the Radio Waves

2010-07-15T07:59:00.003-05:00

My last blog post was SO popular that KFGO invited me to be a last minute guest last night! It was a great show. I got to read my letter to Daphne on the air and discuss the larger topics this experience introduced. What motivates such deceit? Is cheating rampant in our society? Has being faithful gone out of style?

I'll upload the podcast for download in the next day or two for those of you who missed it.

Thank you for your endless love and support! I have the best readers in the world.

Blessings . . .
~Audra

You can not even imagine....

2010-07-12T09:59:00.003-05:00

....the story I am going to write . . .

This is real time, folks. Can you say CHEATING SLIMEBALL?!?!?

It's still unfolding so please come back soon . . . :( :(

~Audra

Big Love

2010-07-07T23:14:00.007-05:00

When I was pregnant with my second daughter I was so huge that when I turned to the side I looked like I was having a German shepherd. From the very beginning nothing about this kid has been small.

The moment her lungs hit air her voice was big. Her personality too large for that little baby body.

At twelve months she endlessly began to inquire, “What dat?” unleashing her big curiosity. At fourteen months she didn’t call her dad “DaDa,” instead she emulated me and branded him, “Honey.” From her highchair she could be heard sweetly, yet loudly, demanding that “honey” bring her “mo mok!” (more milk).

“Honey” would comply.

But not because baby always got her way, but because baby’s love was her biggest big of all.

Big kisses, big hugs. Big, “Love you!” She couldn’t snuggle enough, she couldn’t kiss you enough.

And when she was mad? She couldn’t throw a big enough fit.

This demanding little dynamo is now nine years old and her personality gets bigger by the day.

She makes her friends big presents, she plans big sleepovers, and she never leaves a room without everyone in the vicinity being notified by the resulting silence that she has, indeed, left the building.

Her moods are not mysterious. Not even Helen Keller would be in the dark if she knew this child.

My first daughter, although equally as wonderful, was nothing like this. And is nothing like this.

When she was three years old her father and I marveled at what amazing parents we were. She never had a tantrum, always complied, and was basically, an angel. I seriously wondered if I’d given birth to a saint.

She was that good.

“We should write a book on parenting,” we would tell ourselves every time we’d witness a toddler in full on terrible two’s form. Obviously we were parenting wonders harboring mystical wisdom.

Then.

We had our second child.

And threw all that thinking down the diaper bin.

As plentiful as the stars in the sky, so are the personalities of people. None of us are identical, all of us are unique fingerprints of humanity.

And anyone with more than one child will say “Amen, sista!” to that.

Nature versus nurture.

It’s a mystery.

Our two daughters were reared in virtually identical fashions. For whatever reason the first one was so compliant the cat could have raised her. The second one? Well, let’s just say the cat has been through a lot. (Sorry about that whisker incident, Dolly. At least they grew back?)

I love both my daughters to absolute pieces and celebrate the qualities that make them who they are. One is on her way to being an artist. I can see her living the creative life in a funky studio apartment someday and going to alternative concerts every weekend, maybe even designing the album covers for her favorite bands, sharing her gifts and impacting the world around with her talent and passions. Quietly.

The other? She is going to be a woman who is going to rock the world, an attorney who doesn’t back down, who fights for justice and stands up for the underdog. Or maybe she’ll be the activist who marches on Washington, speaks from her heart, and lobbies for change while pumping signs of protests (designed by her quieter sister).

We are all gifted in some way and blessed with talents that pepper the world with human qualities as unique as the sound of our voices. And as the mother of two of those very opposite voices, it is my job to simultaneously guide without stifling, nurture without demanding, and allow my daughters to become the women they are someday meant to be.

The world is counting on me to do just that.

And I plan to.

In a big way.

(That is if my second daughter gets out of her time out chair in time for college . . . .)

********************************
I wrote this post for all the parents in the world who wake up every day and just do the best they can. Who sometimes fail but always try.

For the parents who even though they aren't perfect, provide their children with the best possible thing you can do to guarantee their success and happiness in the world:

Love.

(I love you, my little Peanut Butter. Love, Mommy Butter.)

Happy 4th of July!

2010-07-06T10:46:00.001-05:00

I'll be back on Thursday . . . hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend with your families.

God bless!
~Audra

Trying to be the Change . . .

2010-06-29T22:05:00.006-05:00

Sorry about Monday. I actually did blog on Monday but had to remove the post. It hurt people’s feelings. I shall not expound and say only this about it: It has been said that my writing is a gift. If that is true then it is God given. Therefore, I cannot use it to do evil. And hurting others is evil, intentional or not. (It was not my intent.) But I took the story down because of this: No matter what happens in this life there’s always two sides to everything. I’ve lived long enough to know that much. So I took it down. And I’m not saying that because I want applause. I liked the story I wrote on Monday. It was honest and raw. And I used some good metaphors (I am all about the metaphors). But if it hurt someone? Then it’s a bad story. No matter how clever it was written. And no matter how affirming everyone is in their commentary.

Too often in this world we want to say, “Yeah but he did this!” or “Yeah but she did that!”

Karma is definitely real but the cyclical motion of it is something all of us have the power to halt to “Be the Change you want to see in the world.” Isn’t that beautiful? Be the change. None of us are truly victims, empowerment is much more accessible than we realized.

Yes it is. But I think it’s a lot easier said than done. In fact, I think with my strong personality I probably fail at that one every day.

Because truly to live that philosophy you would have to do the following:

When you are wronged. Ignore it. When you are attacked. Retreat. When you are ridiculed. Pray for your enemies.

It is the only way we can ever bring true love into the world.

I have a very hard time with all of the above. When I am wronged I tell the person who wronged me why they’re wrong. When I’m attacked I send a strongly worded text message. When I am ridiculed I pray that person mistakes Nair for shampoo.

It’s a good thing my prayers are rarely answered. If they were half the people I know would be bald.

An approach I heard once that helps me calm down in my more diva-like moments is to imagine someone you strongly dislike as either an infant or an elderly person. Doing so can provide the ammunition to extinguish those negative feelings. Imagining that person in a more vulnerable state of life allows you to see the whole person and almost, do I dare say?, look upon them through the eyes of God.

For God sees our whole story. From beginning to end. Our entire life is stretched before Him. He knows why we do what we do, why we think the way we think, why we act the way we act. He sees a side of us that honestly few other humans will know of us.

None of us can ever have an omniscient perspective but we can at least try to forgive the humanity of others and simply acknowledge our own.

So.

That’s that.

Let us all be more cognizant of our thoughts, words, and actions and how they ripple through the world around us. Spread waves of humility.

And be a barrier to waves of anger, resentment, ridicule, and misunderstanding.

YOU.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

When you hurt others apologize. And when they hurt you? Well, as for me I will simply try to refrain from future Nair hair prayers.
**************************************************
Since I removed Monday's post I won't do a Thursday post this week. Wednesday will have to do this week blogarama fans. Happy 4th of July everyone...and happy 38th birthday to me this weekend. The original firecracker. Well, not the "original" . . . I'm getting old but I wasn't born in 1776!

Although somedays 1876 might seem plausible . . .

Muah!
~Audra

Today's Post . . .

2010-06-28T12:07:00.000-05:00

Will be up tomorrow, thanks for your patience!
~Audra

Naomi the Nut

2010-06-24T15:41:00.005-05:00

I really should just follow Naomi around and record every word she says. It would make blogging easier for me because every time she talks I pee my pants.

Some Naomi-isms from the week.

On her teenage son learning to drive:

"I told my 14 year-old son he could get a driver's permit and put it in his wallet. Sure, that part's fine. I did not tell him he could put me in a car and drive ME around in the car. I draw the line."

On my venting about how I want more communication from someone I dated once:

"It's not like you're asking for much. The guy never talks to you. I mean really, what you're asking for something is more than zero. Like one. Or even half of one. Since when is a percentage high maintenance?"

Her response to her kids asking her for money:

"What do I look like? The Bank of A-Mom-ica?"

A petty reason she gave for not wanting to go out on a second date with a guy who clearly was concerned about her well-being:

"He said "drive safe. It's not "drive safe" it's "drive safely." I can't be expected to date someone who wants me to "drive safe."

And finally, the reason she actually did date someone with poor grammar for far too long:

"What can I say? He passed the orals . . . "

Thanks for the laughter, my dear friend. I'm off to buy some Depends now because I just can't hold it in when you're around . . .

~Audra

Do you love this or what?

2010-06-21T13:48:00.004-05:00

Blogger has some new template designs, so of course I thought I'd take this one for a test drive. It's so girly . . . so full of estrogen . . . so pink to the bone. Whatdayathink? Too foofoo? Too Paris Hilton? I tried some edgy black "I read poetry and think about the meaning of life" ones but I just looked like a wannabe. (Although I do love a good mysterious Poe bit time and again, The Tell- Tale heart just pulls you right in, I'm tellin' ya.) But it just didn't work for my blog.

Screw it. I shop at Victoria's Secret, paint my toenails fuchsia and long for Jennifer Lopez's wardrobe. Therefore, I shall embrace my femininity and just go with one.

Like I always say . . .

Girl.

Power.

~Audra

Detour into Dating Land

2010-06-20T19:51:00.003-05:00

I think I’m actually going to write about relationships today.

I know. I know. I changed the title of this blog from Dating Land to Chronicles of a Girl because I wasn’t writing about dating too much. I was still blogging under that title but the topics I chose to yak about were more like Celibate on the Farm. Hardly Sex in the City.

Now notice I said I wasn’t writing about dating too much. I never said I wasn’t dating too much.

Oh get off the floor and pull that wool off your eyes dear readers, of course I date. Well, kind of.

Don’t get too carried away with that notion. It just basically means I’m not home knitting every weekend. (Maybe every other . . .)

The truth is I do like writing about relationships. Because guess what? At our funerals no one reads our resumes. People talk about who we loved. And who loved us.

That is the essence of our stories.

Therefore, I haven't given up. And I never will. I get out there. And I try. Over and over again. Because I believe in love. And I'm never going to find it if I don't simply:

Look.

So here ya go. The chronicles of this forever inquisitive and eternally awkward little traveler in Dating Land and some highlights from three guys who stumbled into my path in the past year:

Guy #1: Justin Case

I met Justin last fall and we clicked on a level I’d never experienced. Work, interests, sense of humor. I truly had a fantastic time with him. He stated that he thought our connection was exceptional and unparalleled by any previous romantic experience and I agreed. But it turns out he was also having the same identical exceptional and unparalleled experience with another woman at the same time. To his credit he did tell me about her but he quickly qualified this as appropriate since I was ranked ahead of her. But he wanted to maintain contact with her because, well?
Just.
In.
Case.

(I am all for insurance but that was ridiculous. Adios, bub.)

Guy #2: I. B. Astalker

The next guy was very very nice. We didn’t really have a lot in common but I figured he was worth investing some time in to getting to know better. My definition of “more time” was a much longer timeline than his. After three dates he started showing up unexpectedly where I was and following me around town. Because in his mind I was his girlfriend.

In mine?

He was a stalker.

I’m all for hunting but not when I’m the prey.

Guy #3: Ivan Notdivorcedyet

And finally, there’s sweet Ivan. Ivan neglected to tell me when we first met that he was getting divorced. And wasn’t actually YET divorced.

Goodbye Ivan. Maybe call me next year when you’ve been single for a longer than the lifespan of a house fly.

I love basketball but I never was good at that rebounding deal.

So there you have it. See? I date. It’s true. Although all of these stories have a nice healthy time delay. I never write about the present. And don't even ask if I'm dating now! I may type with wreckless abandonment on the internet but I do have discretion. You’ll just have to keep wondering. Or wait for me to change the name of my blog again.

In fact, I think I already have a title picked out for that shockingly optimistic future time when I do finally meet "the one":

Happily Ever After Land.

Because no matter how many Justin Case/Stalker/Rebound boys cross my path one thing I am never giving up on is the belief in my very own.

Someday fairy tale.

I'll tell you one thing right now, no one is reading this chick's resume' at her funeral. (I don't care how many Pulitzers are on it!) When this life is said and done all I really want anyone to know about me is that:

I lived.

I laughed.

And I.

Loved . . . . . . . . . . .

Be Grateful. Be Rich.

2010-06-09T10:19:00.002-05:00

There are big white billboards all over North Dakota with simple statements in large block lettering instructing passersby to, “Be Kind.” “Be Grateful.”

Or simply:

“Smile.”

Someone told me an anonymous millionaire pays for the signs. Definitely an impressive and inspiring way to spend some extra change.

I like how these signs sneak up out of nowhere as they rotate throughout the entire state. I never know when or where I’ll see one. One minute I’m cruising down the interstate noting that the Come On Inn has a new water slide or that there’s a Perkins at the next exit serving fresh French silk pie and the next I’m being reminded to basically count my blessings.

So I do. For as hilly and curvy as the road of life has been for me, I still find myself often stopping and just thinking to myself:

I love my life.

I really do.

I’ve made some tremendously difficult changes in the past few years but they were vital, for myself and more importantly for my children. Subsequently, life is unfolding in ways I once had only imagined possible.

And it is such a blessing.

But I do wonder sometimes about this mystery person when I see these declarations in the ditch. I wonder just how much money we’re talking. And if this person is taking heir applications?

Just kidding.

What I really wonder is what happened to make this individual want to share these simple viewpoints with the people on the prairie? Because obviously he or she knows that happiness has nothing to do with a bank balance.

Richness lies in our attitudes.

So when the road of life gets a little bumpy?

Smile.

When other people’s bad attitudes make you crash?

Be Kind.

And when the road detours unexpectedly?

Be Grateful.

Plant those signs along your own life journey and you’ll be wealthy.

In the ways that matter most.

Life Prevails . . .

2010-06-08T09:34:00.001-05:00

I didn't blog yesterday. I lost a pet and it was a very difficult experience . . .

I'll be back on Thursday.

Love,
Audra

Are You Feeling My Mojo? And other True Tales of Dating Desperation.

2010-06-03T22:35:00.001-05:00

“Do you have any dating advice for me?”

This question always cracks me up to no end. Somehow just because the URL to my blog has the word dating in it people make this wild assumption that I, well, know something about dating.

Hmmm. Maybe if I did I wouldn’t be so perpetually single?

Ok, pessimism aside, maybe my singledom is a sign that I DO know something about dating. After all, I didn’t run off into the sunset with a rebound right after my divorce, I refuse to compromise or settle, and I know exactly what my deal breakers are. (Meth habits and cowboy boots. Both equally appalling as far as I’m concerned.)

The guy who posed this question actually dated my friend, Naomi, ever so briefly. As in I’ve had colds that have lasted longer. Regardless, because of this minimal exposure I was pseudo aware of how this guy dates women.

I debated briefly what to say to him. And decided I should just do him a favor and rip the band aid off.

“Dude, don’t try so hard.”

Because really, with Naomi anyway, he did try too hard, way too hard. He texted her too much, he wanted to know if she was “feeling the mojo” about ten minutes after meeting (no commentary on his usage of the word mojo, that’s in a category all its own), and he asked questions that read like the email surveys I get from my Aunt Bertha. (Knowing a woman’s favorite color isn’t exactly the kind of information that’s going to really signify happily ever after, is it? Would the response really ever be, “Red? Really? You like red? This is so over. I really pegged you for chartreuse.”)

The guy is a great guy but he really just needs to chillax.

I told him: “Treat a romantic interest kind of like you’d treat a new friend. Let it flow. Get to know each other. And really, what is the rush? Last I checked an asteroid is not hurtling toward Fargo. No need to do the fifty yard dash to the alter. Stop trying to force it.”

After all, for as simple as it sounds, there is this complex mystical magic called chemistry that needs time to develop. You start with physical attraction, then you find out if can stand talking to this person for more than 20 minutes, and then you just . . . well? See. Discover each other. After all, it takes a hundred years for an oak tree to reach its majesty. I’m not suggesting you try for second base when you’re both in a retirement home, but I am saying:

Don’t rush.

And of course: be yourself. Don’t audition. Don’t try to be witty. Don’t try to be charming. Just be you. The right person will find you witty and charming. They will. If you have to construct it, then it’s not authentic and you’re just going to look like you're getting relationship strategies from email forwards when you start asking things like, “What’s your favorite winter activity and why?”

Instead, stick to something more like this: “How was your day?”

The beauty of my advice is found in its simplicity. Because really, the people you filter through when you are genuinely yourself, the ones you took time to discover . . . when those dating adventures didn’t go anywhere? Celebrate. You can know for a fact Jack, none were “the one.”

As for this guy? Yeah, that’s a pretty easy one if you ask me. My prediction is the woman he’s looking for will be the one who’s still voluntarily still standing there.

Long after he’s used the word “mojo.”
****************************************************
The individual I used as inspiration for this story gave my perspective his blessing. I am very careful about not being too critical of others when it comes to matters of the heart. Thankfully, he's a huge blog fan of mine and he found this story humorous and didn't mind my using him as "material" at all. At the end of the day, we're all just doing the best we can . . . and to those of you who are single and hope to maybe someday fall in love? Well, I've been told that "He is out there, Audra, and he is looking for YOU." And I believe that's true for all of us. So just be yourself . . . and God won't let you fall.

Muah!
~Audra

In Honor of Memorial Day . . . In Flanders Fields

2010-06-01T11:00:00.003-05:00

Although he had been a doctor for years and had served in the South African War, it was impossible to get used to the suffering, the screams, and blood. Major John McCrae had seen and heard enough in his dressing station to last him a lifetime.

As a surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, Major McCrae, who had joined the McGill faculty in 1900 after graduating from the University of Toronto, had spent seventeen days treating injured men -- Canadians, British, Indians, French, and Germans -- in the Ypres salient.

It had been an ordeal that he had hardly thought possible. McCrae later wrote of it:

"I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days... Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done."

One death particularly affected McCrae. A young friend and former student, Lieut. Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, had been killed by a shell burst on May 2, 1915. Lieutenant Helmer was buried later that day in the little cemetery outside McCrae's dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain.

The next day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the Canal de l'Yser, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. The major was no stranger to writing, having authored several medical texts besides dabbling in poetry.

In the nearby cemetery, McCrae could see the wild poppies that sprang up in the ditches in that part of Europe, and he spent twenty minutes of precious rest time scribbling fifteen lines of verse in a notebook.

A young soldier watched him write it. Cyril Allinson, a twenty-two year old sergeant-major, was delivering mail that day when he spotted McCrae. The major looked up as Allinson approached, then went on writing while the sergeant-major stood there quietly. "His face was very tired but calm as we wrote," Allinson recalled. "He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer's grave."

When McCrae finished five minutes later, he took his mail from Allinson and, without saying a word, handed his pad to the young NCO. Allinson was moved by what he read:

"The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene."

In fact, it was very nearly not published. Dissatisfied with it, McCrae tossed the poem away, but a fellow officer retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England. The Spectator, in London, rejected it, but Punch published it on 8 December 1915 . . .

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918) Canadian Army

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place;
and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead.
Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved,
and now we lie In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep,
though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

************************************************
I attended the Memorial Day services in my little rural hometown this weekend. As the poem, "In Flanders Fields" was read I looked around the sunny hall at the grey haired veterans and saw in their teary eyes the misty ghosts of fallen solidiers, hometown boys from years ago, who never made it back. I found the story of the poem on this site and thought I would reprint it here. http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/flanders.htm Let us not ever forget the sacrafice of the men and boys who never came home . . .

My Eternally Impossible To Do List

2010-05-26T22:06:00.003-05:00

I make a “to do” list every day. And I am not sure it is something I should be proud of. It sounds kind of anal retentive, mildly neurotic, and absolutely futile. But I do it anyway.

One for work. One for the rest of my life.

From conference calls to dentist appointments, it’s all there, mapped out and meticulously crossed off as accomplished. Unfortunately, some days I wonder if my to do list crawls off my counter, puts on a naughty little number, hits the bars, and brings home another shady to do list, gets busy, and gives birth to a whole slew of additional tasks. Because I don’t know how this multiplication happens but some days my list is longer at the end of the day than it was at the beginning.

Perplexing.

My point? I am busy as crap.

Case in point: when people ask what my favorite tv show is I just kind of glaze over and get all slack jawed because honestly? Who has time to watch tv? I do not. Maybe I should make time, but I simply cannot imagine having the luxury to just sit on the couch and do nothing. I have kids, pets, a job, a house to clean, laundry to do, bills to pay and a yard to mow. I know everyone else does too so maybe they know something I don’t? Or they have maids, gardeners, and a laundry service. Or else they don’t and they live in filth, have knee-high grass and wear the same pair of underwear for days on end.

Who knows?

All I know is I am damn busy chasing after the eternally impossible to do list.

The one thing that I do make time for on that list though, no matter what, is my daily run. That is my escape. That is my sanity. It is the one task on my to do list that trumps everything else. (Well, I don’t let my children starve or run around in the same outfit for three days in a row, they are a priority, but you know what I mean.)

Today was an exceptionally crazy day and gave up on my to do list for good at around 7pm. There were still tasks left but I threw in the towel and waved a flag of surrender in the form of my running shoes and iPod. The bathroom was dirty, the laundry needed to be folded, and the kitchen was experiencing a dirty dishes hostile takeover.

Screw it. I’m going for a run.

And that’s that. Cranked up my favorite Lady Antebellum song and hit the trail.

Good bye to do list.

I’ll see you.

Tomorrow.
*************************

I Run to You ~ by Lady Antebellum
Music Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs38lKxmtI4

I run from hate
I run from prejudice
I run from pessimists
But I run too late

I run my life
Or is it running me?
Run from my past
I run too fast
Or too slow it seems

When lies become the truth
That's when I run to you

This world keeps spinning faster
To a new disaster
So I run to you . . .

Sanctuary from the Wind

2010-05-24T22:41:00.007-05:00

I was in a wedding this weekend.

Therefore I feel like I should write either something profound about marriage and commitment or just merely document the silly stuff, like how my daughter thought my bright pink bridesmaid dress made me look like a cake. Or a beehive.

Although I don’t think beehives come in fuchsia so I'm gonna go with the cake.

The wedding was outdoors and because of hurricane force winds, had to be held in a tent. Have you ever been in a tent during 40mph winds? It isn’t exactly romantic. Frightening may be a better description.

Yet the bride and groom beamed through it all as the tent creaked, flapped, and threatened to collapse on the nuptials and earn the wedding some unwelcomed publicity on the ten o'clock news. (I tried to strategically stand away from a support beam as I really didn't want to be on the news looking like a bleeding beehive.)

Having been married, very awfully married, I try not to be cynical at weddings. Especially when I’m dressed in pink and holding hydrangeas. I am a romantic person at heart so of course I want to believe I am witnessing the beginning of someone’s happily ever after, the end of a fairy tale that has only truly just begun.

So I’m standing there, my feet aching in 4 inch stilettos, hoping the tent holds up, while watching my friend in her Monique Ihuillier dress, complete with Swarovski crystal belt, and I find myself wondering how this couple is going to handle the winds of life: How will they do the first time their “someday” newborn screams for three days straight from an ear infection? What about baby barf, bills and a distant future where boredom may invade the bedroom? What about job loss, death in the family, or daunting diagnosis?

For the storms come to everyone, howl around our shelters and try to break inside and ruin our perfect plans. For no matter how fancy the dress, impressive the flowers, or entertaining the band at the wedding dance, ultimately marriage is just about building the kind of foundation that can weather the storms when they descend.

I smile to myself as I realize this is a very fitting beginning, this crazy windy circumstance. For as hard as the wind whipped, screamed, and yelled, it did not break in. The tent held. The couple smiled. And the beginning of a life long journey was sealed with a kiss.

May this be the metaphor on which they build their future. Let them construct a strong sanctuary where they can huddle together as the winds of life blow all around them.

And never collapse their union.

********************************************
"I do to the future!" Congratulations my dear friends!! I couldn't resist commenting on that wind situation . . . it made for a great story and will always be something you will remember about your wedding day. I wanted to tie to something beautiful. So when the "winds of life" blow, just remember: that tent didn't collapse on May 22, 2010.

And may your marriage be the same: strong and sheltering, forever and always.

~Audra

Tuesday . . .

2010-05-24T10:05:00.002-05:00

This week's Monday post will appear tomorrow . . . I had a Tommy Boy sales trip last week followed immediately by a wedding (not mine!) I was a bridesmaid, doing the twist in a fuschia frock to the greatest local band ever, The Front Fenders. (Okay, my cousin is the lead singer, but they're still tremendous!)

For those of you who followed my "Divorce Land" blog a few years ago . . . the "Divorce Land Girls" are one by one saying "I do, to the future!" Sonja married the love of her life this weekend . . . Smiley Susie Sunshine is next in a few weeks!

And do not even ask about my personal life . . . all I am going to say, is that I think . . . I might actually have one . . . Shocking, I know.

See you here tomorrow, blogarama fans!

~Audra
P.S. Muah to my "cab driver" on Saturday night . . . !! :-) And silent grateful blessings for the Christmas Eve miracle of 1984 . . .

We'll return to our regularly scheduled program . . .

2010-05-20T06:51:00.004-05:00

. . . after the break.

Sorry, blogarama fans! I'm on a business trip and my hotel has (*#$&#(!!% for a wireless connection . . . and it's a nice hotel too! I figured out this morning that I have a great connection in the living room area of my room, just not in the bedroom area of my room (where I was when I was attempting to get online last night). Soooo . . . too late to throw some thoughts out into the universe today. I'll be back on Monday!

Muah!
~Audra

I'm Such a Dirty Girl

2010-05-16T21:46:00.006-05:00

There’s a picture of me taken when I was five years old. It’s 1977. I’m standing in a field next to the freshly poured foundation of my family’s new home. Well, new to us. It was actually an abandoned farmhouse my parents got for free. All they had to pay for was the construction of the basement and the moving fees. The rest they bought with a currency made of sweat and elbow grease. My dad and grandpa spent the summer remodeling the old house that would be our family’s home for the next three decades.

I love this picture of me. I’m in pigtails and a cookie monster tank top. My legs are brown and my face expectant. But what I love most about this picture?

Is the dirt.

Because even though it’s a blurry shot I am fairly certain I’m covered in it. My outstretched palms, I can assure you, are filthy, my fingernails harboring more mud than the bottom of a shoe, and more than likely my legs really aren’t as tan as they look.

They’re probably just that dirty.

It was glorious.

Because on a farm life happens in the dirt. The soil holds the secret to each crop’s success or failure, the muddy puddles of spring bring endless opportunities for farm kids to slosh and explore, and the family’s gardening is carefully planted, tended, and harvested in the earth’s cool darkness.

Dirt is life. And it’s everywhere.

But it’s not 1977 anymore and I no longer live on that farm. I gave up my country mouse ways long ago and traded them in for a little historic house on a shaded street. Although my cottage did come with something spectacular: Dirt.

And a lot of it.

The home was meticulously landscaped when I bought it and it is my honor and joy to maintain its endless perennial gardens, trim the roses, and make way for each spring’s release. The sun was barely up on Saturday when I found myself intending just to do a bit of yard work. Two hours later, I hadn’t started anything I’d set out to do (like mowing) but instead had dug out two dead bushes, edged the front yard, weeded the shrubs, trimmed two bushes, and dug out a couple dozen dandelions. I was filthy and bloody.

But mostly.

Happy.

For although I wasn’t wearing a cookie monster shirt and pig tails I was very much at home surrounded by the scent of earth and flowers, soil and sun.

Doing what I love to do most.

Playing.

In the dirt.

Link to my KFGO Radio Interview; April 22, 2010

2010-05-13T06:00:00.003-05:00

Great news blogarama fans!

I actually figured out how to archive my radio appearances for play back later online. Sooooo . . . if for some horrifying reason you missed my last radio interview on KFGO: never fear technology is here. (In fact, rumor has it you can download this file to your iPod and . . . holy cow, I think I just made my first pod cast!)

So, if you want to hear me expound upon some of my more jaw dropping social debacles that never made the blog, click the link above to download the audio either to your computer or an iPod. You can take me on your walk/run/trip to the grocery store.

After all, I am here to entertain.

Thanks for reading (and listening)!

~Audra

Some Days I Just Wanna be a Dude

2010-05-10T19:46:00.005-05:00

It has been raining for far too long the past couple weeks. And there is nothing worse than a string of gloomy days to make me all introspective and philosophical. At least that’s what happens to me when Mother Nature gets all soggy on me. I start musing over this that and the next thing, examining the wayward dynamics of life on this human journey.

Good thing I don’t live in Seattle.

I’d probably be a poet. And flat broke. Because I am not a poet and I know it. Any prior attempts I’ve made to construct a creative verse or two just reads like the insane ramblings of a homeless maniac.

Where is my life?
Where has it gone?
It was here a moment ago.

I think I left it on the counter.
Next to my keys . . .

See?

Crap.

Told ya.

So instead I’ll just torture my blog fans with my rainy musings of late which is:

What is it with women and friendships? We are either clinging to each other like Titanic survivors or ripping each other to shreds with unnecessary drama. Truly, some days I find myself wondering: if I had a penis would my life consist of blissful boring exchanges about beer and bimbos?

After all, men don't appear to have any drama, not the kind women do. No matter what happens between them they just sail along all even and blah. No matter what.

They do! Don't believe me? Well, when is the last time you’ve overheard a couple guys exchange the following:

“That Doug, I tell you. I could not believe he gave my secret BBQ recipe to Stan. He knew it was a secret, yet he just went blabbing it with zero regard for my feelings. So you know what I did? I sent him a text and told him exactly what I thought about that. Yes I did. See if I invite him to my Super Bowl party. And he can forget about that hunting trip to Montana in the fall.”

Uh, yeah. That doesn’t happen. Men are more like this:

“Doug, you gave Stan my BBQ recipe? What the f*ck?”

“F*ck You.”

“Oh yeah? F*ck you.”

Two seconds of silence.

“Wanna get a beer?”

“F*ck yeah.”

Hello? They grunt at each other and drop a few f-bombs. Either men suffer from short term memory loss and verbal communication shortfalls or they totally have friendships figured out.

Because really? I think we women routinely make Everest out of speed bumps. We don’t let anything roll off our back. We brood, we sulk, and then we tell five other girlfriends all about how we were wronged in a transparent effort to rally the troops to our side should “she” start talking smack behind our backs.

It is exhausting.

I have two great friends I’ve had for twenty years. They’ve seen me at my worst and they still love me, and vice versa. It's effortless.

In other words, we’ve evolved to a guy type of friendship. We’ve been through so much together that if things ever do go south and one of them gives my super secret aunt Edna's BBQ recipe away you know what will happen?

This:

“Thanks for pimping out my BBQ to Marge, bee-otch."

“Kiss my bumper, ya hooker. Marge won't remember it anyway."

Two seconds of silence.

“I've got some wine chilled, want a glass?”

“Absolutely.”

Now that’s.

What you call a real friendship.

(And I didn't even need to grow a penis!)

Happy Monday!

2010-05-10T07:54:00.005-05:00

Yesterday was Mother's Day so I took full advantage of the lazy pass . . . that is, right after I took my kids to church, my mama out for brunch, and volunteered at my daughter's dance recital. Oh yeah, and I let my mom drag me to the flower shop where I promptly lost her in the hanging baskets. "Mom? Mom? Mooooooooooom!!"

I almost had to put out an Amber Alert . . .

At the end of the day, I finally collapsed on the couch, Riesling in hand. And needless to say, I did not crack open the laptop.

This mama will be bloggin' tomorrow. I hope all the mom's who read this had a fantastic mother's day!

~Audra
P.S. Oh, I did finally find my mom. She was in the geraniums.

Tell Me a Story . . .

2010-05-06T06:00:00.000-05:00

“Mom, tell me a story when you were little.”

This is my little girl’s nightly request. I have no idea how somewhere along the line she decided that my childhood was good bedtime fodder. Maybe it’s because of the time I relayed the story of how a tornado once lifted my family home into the mystical land of OZ. (Hey, a person can only tell so many stories about growing up on a cattle ranch before taking liberties with established plot lines. That being said, no comment about the time I woke up to find three bears looming over me while I napped in Baby Bear’s bed.)

I wrestle with her plea and finally settle on one of her all time favorite stories, one she loves more than OZ and bowls of porridge.

In my home office is the wedding picture of my great great grandmother, Minnie Nelson, a brave Danish immigrant who left her family and home in 1906 for the promise called America. And in my living room is her trunk, a modest century old wooden vessel, leather straps still intact, that held all of her material possessions and misty dreams.

A mere six years later, a different wooden box held all those dreams.

A coffin.

Minnie died of an infection shortly after giving birth to her fourth daughter. She’s nothing but a historical statistic on childbirth related deaths in the last century but a vital branch on the tree of our family. The ten-day-old daughter Minnie left behind was too much for her Norwegian husband to handle. The newborn was given up for adoption, disappearing from our family like a gasp.

The oldest of her remaining three little girls, my great grandmother, Agnes, was six years old when she lost her mother. And a mere two years later, she said goodbye to her littlest sister. Her name was Hazel. And she died from pneumonia at the age of four.

Little Hazel still rests in a shaded cemetery next to her young mother. I visit them with my daughters every spring and place fragrant lavendar lilacs on their graves.

And so I tell the story to my little girl again. The story of Minnie. Of the missing baby. Of little Hazel’s death. And of her great grandmother, Agnes, and how all of these women were here before her, and how she is here, because of them.

My little girl knows the rest of the story by heart:

How Agnes grew up and became a well-loved teacher in one-roomed schoolhouses scattered throughout the county. How she married a carpenter named Clarence and had a little girl named Cynthia. How twelve-year-old Cynthia met a boy named Alan one day while visiting her mother's rural school, and how Cynthia thought he was such a repulsive farm boy with cow hair on his hat. And how those two grew up and went to high school together, and how Cynthia must have gotten over the cow hair because she married Alan. And how they named their first born daughter Pam. And how Pam grew up a tomboy but became a beautiful girl in bell bottom jeans only to fall for a rebellious boy from the next town who drove a sports car and liked to laugh. And how Pam married that boy, moved to his family's farm and had a daughter named Audra who spent her childhood playing in the haybales and romping through the prairie with the wind in her hair. And how Audra grew up and had two daughters of her own.

She knows all of it. The story of her. The story of me. The story of Pam, and Cynthia, and Agnes and Minnie.

The story of our family and all of the girls.

When we were little.

Pain in the Booty? Try Budda.

2010-05-02T21:35:00.004-05:00

I’m kinda crabby.

And this is why.

I truly am a perpetually positive person but I have this sabotaging force in my life called “the ex-husband” whose presence is as constant and unwanted as a hemorrhoid. Which personally, I feel is a perfect analogy considering the anatomical geography of such an affliction.

Unfortunately, this patooty pain is the father of my wonderful children, a fact that requires me to smile politely and nod when he says or does something completely and absolutely asinine instead of saying, “That was completely and absolutely asinine!” I have to bite my lip, say nothing, and instead be satisfied by simply thinking to myself:

“That was completely and absolutely asinine.”

Yeah.

Not so satisfying.

I am a Christian, Catholic actually, but I really think that divorce (when children are involved) should require a person to temporarily borrow from the Buddhism buffet when times are trying:

I’ll take the “every other weekend” helping of nirvana, please. And why yes. A dash of grated enlightenment sounds wonderful. But just a sprinkle.

You see, I am well aware that Christianity is founded on a plot line all about endurance and suffering, one that leaves we believers subsequently touting “we all have our cross to bear.”

Yep. We sure do.

And mine is about 6’2” and 195 pounds.

But in this divorce situation, I think I may have to start practicing a limited version of Buddhism. Because the gurus aren’t so much down with cross toting as they are with tolerance, which is just a fancy way of telling people to just ignore something. (If this is true, Christian mamas everywhere are preaching Buddhist doctrine on a very regular basis. After all, who ever heard their mother tell them to forgive their little brother’s incessant irritation? Nope. It’s more like, “Just ignore him!”)

So if I am going to be a weekend Buddhist, that conveniently means I don’t have to forgive my ex-husband's challenging moments. Instead I can simply say: Not my problem. My peace and happiness is not going to be driven by your unpredictable insane train. Enjoy the ride, I am not buying a ticket, stopping at the station, or even watching you chug on past. I am going to:

Ignore you.

The philosophy is quite liberating actually. Because life is just far too short for crabby pants and crazy trains.

(Or six foot tall hemorrhoids . . . ouch.)

Lemonade Lessons

2010-04-29T10:25:00.004-05:00

“Lemonade! Twenty five cents!”

My daughter and her neighborhood friends are shrieking up and down our street, their marketing plan for their lemonade stand consisting mainly of yelling their heads off.

And it’s working.

An adorable older couple on even more adorable matching bikes, complete with baskets and flags, glide up to the folding table parked in our driveway to place their order.

I am in sales and work from home so today I am perched on my sunny front step with my laptop since my office is anywhere I have a great wireless connection. I watch my kid serve up sparkling pink glasses of summer, making conversation as she does, “It’s my birthday tomorrow; I’m going to be 9!”

I smile to myself as I eavesdrop. She’s a chip off the old blonde block as anyone in sales knows: it’s not about the product it’s about the relationship. “Good job, kiddo,” I think to myself and calculate her someday commission into my own retirement income. At this rate, I’m thinking her innate ability to connect with people will help me secure a place on the Mediterranean.

The cute couple offer synchronized crinkled grins. And the curly haired woman pipes up, “Oh really! Well, I turned 90 last month.”

“And isn’t she beautiful,” the old man adds.

I cannot help myself, I simply must join in the conversation and inquire from my sun-drenched stoop, “How long have you two been married?” After all, I am eternally searching for evidence that true love exists and who better to ask than two almost centurions on matching bikes?

“Ha!” the old man laughs loudly and I am momentarily confused.

What’s so funny?

I don’t have to wait long for clarity when he proudly shouts back, “We’re not! We’re living in sin!”

The old woman giggles coyly.

“That. Is. AWESOME!” I announce as I yelp my approval.

Yeah, yeah. I am queen of conservative but there was something about this aged pair on this sunny spring afternoon that was very affirming. No matter where you stand on marriage, you couldn’t help but be taken in by the happiness they shared. The kind of happiness that makes you buy matching bikes and stop at lemonade stands together. The kind that makes you proclaim across manicured lawns and nuclear families, within ear shot of children, that you love this person and you don’t care what the world says.

They finish their drinks, thank my daughter and her friends, and sail side by side back down the shaded street.

My daughter runs up to me. “What’s living in sin mean?”

I laugh and reply candidly, “Well, it means that people live together but aren’t married.”

“Oh” she says and I see her processing the concept, one I will get into a bit more when she's 19, not 9.

“Normally, it’s not something that God wants people to do but I think when you’re 90 years old, God probably makes exceptions. We can’t be sure but what we can know is that they sure seem pretty happy together don’t they?”

“Yep!” she agrees and then announces, “And they tipped me a dollar!” She runs back to her business of pushing sugar water, obviously satisfied with my brief commentary on co-habitation because she is soon in a chorus with the rest of the kids once again, “Lemonade! Only twenty five cents! Cold Lemonade! Get it here! Only twenty five cents!”

I silently thank the older couple for the value of their visit. And I don’t mean the buck they tipped my little girl.

Love is possible.

At any age.

How Did We Do It?

2010-04-26T09:12:00.012-05:00

My bestest bud, Naomi, and I are collapsed in repreive next to my fire pit last Friday night, glasses of Reisling in hand, feet up on my wicker outdoor ottoman. Our children run and play around in the backyard on some crazy adventure as we lazily sink into the cushions to ponder present, past, and future.

The conversation winds around and at one point aimlessly wanders back to our college days. Naomi randomly observes, a crinkle appearing between her eyebrows as she does, “You know, how did we ever even get a hold of each other back then? We had no cell phones.”

“Or email,” I add as I sip my wine.

“And no Facebook!” she exclaims with a smirk of puzzlement, “Good gawd, we actually had to be in our dorm rooms to have a phone call."

“I had an answering machine,” I recall as I linger in the hallway of my memory for while.

“Hey Audra, it’s Cami. Let’s go to Theta Chi tonight!” “Hey Audra, meet us on the second floor of the library.” “Audra, it’s your mother. You’re bank account is over drawn again! Your dad is furious!”

Yep. That was it.

Answering machines.

“But what if we were out? How did we find each other?” Naomi's perplexed state growing as she contemplates the prehistoric life we once led.

“Um, we just ran into each other? Or we set it up ahead of time?” I volunteer with a shrug.

Naomi feigns shock and horror, “Holy crap, how did we even have any friends at all? It's a miracle I even know you!"

“I think we just relied more on serendipity back then.”

“In other words our social lives were a crap shoot? No wonder we ended up married to idiots," she evaluates, sealing her hindsight with another taste of wine.

I frown and look sideways at her as I state the obvious, “Um, it’s a Friday night right now. We have cell phones, email, and Facebook. And the only testosterone currently in our lives is in the form of your sons.” I glance back at the swing set that is currently doubling as a rocket ship in a childhood fantasy. I think they are pretending to shoot lasers at each other, and my daughter may actually be winning.

Naomi takes in the scene and surrenders. “Good point.”

“Maybe we should just pretend it's 1991 and throw it all back into the universe. You never know, a couple hot, funny, secure and emotionally healthy available men may just wander into my backyard.”

“Not likely.”

“Hey, how do you know?” I challenge.

“Because,” she deadpans and takes a gulp of Reisling, “I didn’t call ahead and leave an invitation on their answering machines.”

KFGO 9:00 Thursday, April 22

2010-04-22T06:30:00.000-05:00

Tune in to KFGO tonight at 9:00 to hear "Chronicles of a Girl" live!

If you don't live in the area you can listen online at http://www.kfgo.com/.

Bush Whacking

2010-04-22T06:00:00.001-05:00

Who sings that song? It goes, “You’re so vain. I bet you think this song is about you, don’t you, don’t you?”

Oh yes.

Carly Simon.

Well, I’m going to write a new one. And it’s going to go like this:

“You’re so vain. I bet you think this Facebook status is about you, don’t you, don’t you?”

Seriously.

Has this ever happened to you? I mean really.

I was once accused of being passive aggressive in a Facebook status.

Excuse me for a minute. I must now temporarily collapse while rolling around and around on the floor laughing hsyterically because THAT.

Is funny.

Anyone who knows me for more than two minutes knows there is nothing about me that could ever be construed as passive. If I don’t like you, I don’t beat around the bush. I beat you with the bush (or any handy shrub I can find).

Okay, not literally. Whacking someone with a bush isn’t exactly legal. But what I am going to do is let you know what I think. And there is nothing passive about that. Over the years I have gotten better at using more discretion. Which for me basically means that now when someone makes me mad I don’t tell them to bite me.

At least not right away.

In corporate America, the Meyer’s Briggs personality test is hugely popular and it rates different components of your personality. According to its assessment, Audra is Emotional, Intuitive, and Judging. Not the worst combo. It does mean that even though I’m emotional, I am usually spot on when it comes to deciphering people’s motivations. And then I swiftly categorize them accordingly.

These are wonderful attributes for my career in sales. I connect with people on a human level, figure out their motivations, and then definitively make recommendations that match their goals. Over and over, people trust me and selling comes easy for me. And it’s not manipulative; it’s just a fantastic fit for my personality. If you have a problem, I’ll tell you if I can sell you something that’s going to fix said problem.

And.

I don’t beat around the bush.

Although in my personal life, sometimes this isn’t such a good thing. My candor is great for my career, but not so great in the rest of my life in conflict situations when emotions are running high. In those cases, sometimes the best thing to say is nothing.

Yeah, I am working on that one.

So in the meantime, anyone who knows me can at least trust this fact:

How I feel will never resemble any level of encryption.

Because if I write a song about you, or a Facebook status for that matter, the last person you'll need to consult.

Is Carly Simon.

Parkas and Prozac

2010-04-19T21:55:00.005-05:00

I wonder . . .

Do people in Hawaii every get depressed? What about the Caribbean? Do they sell less Zoloft there? Are razor blades hard to find?

I would assume.

Because I live in the anti-sunshine section of the world and let me tell you, it can be downright depressing. At least for the six months out of the year that winter’s icy hands try to strangle all the happiness out of the world in its 50 below/cloudy for days/clutches.

Seriously.

If you have not been to North Dakota you do not know cold. And you do not know cloudy. Imagine if Seattle were in Antarctica not Washington.

That.

Is where I live.

And every year round about the Ides of January I start fantasizing about a suicide plan. Let’s see, how tightly does that garage door shut anyway? And what did I do with that extra rope again? How high are those rafters?

Well, not quite, but by then I definitely have a full blown case of cabin fever punctuated by my longing to be able to walk outside without my face hurting. In fact, winter induced depression actually has a medical term: Seasonal Affective Disorder. And yes. The acronym?

You got it.

S.A.D.

I am not even making this up! It’s real. Google it.

My mom always jokes that she is solar powered: happy when the sun shines and driving my dad nuts when it doesn’t. (I do think my father secretly checks the forecast every day in some feeble effort to decipher my mother.)

And so, of course, everyone who doesn’t live in this Godforsaken Tundra does ask the obvious: WHY DO YOU PEOPLE LIVE THERE?

Gee, I don’t know. Maybe because we’re all phobic about leaving our homes so being trapped inside them by ice, snow, and sub-zero is our idea of fun.

Duh! Sucks to be us, yes, it does. But it is a good question. And every winter I do wonder the same thing and start checking out the real estate market in Tampa.

Honestly, I think the reason people do reside here might have everything to do with the euphoric arrival of spring. Because I will tell you what, there is nothing better than watching your backyard transform from an ice cube to Eden. Witnessing that monumental miracle floods you with relief that Mother Nature is not a b*tch after all.

Because look at that tulip.

Hello?

She brought flowers. It's time to kiss and make up.

Alright, so up this way she may be a little bi-polar, but her tundra temper tantrum is temporary. Eventually people put away the rope and razor blades and trade them in for beer and boats.

And that “SAD” acronym takes on a whole new meaning.

Summer’s

Arrived

Dude.

So party on.

(At least until next November anyway.)

Taking the Airwaves Hostage

2010-04-19T09:03:00.003-05:00

Tune in to KFGO later this week to hear "Chronicles of a Girl" live (you can listen online if you don't live in the area). I'll be on the air with Jason Spiess hashing out the good, the bad, and the ugly of dating.

I'll post the link as well as the air time and date as soon as the the schedule firms up.

Thanks for reading!
~Audra
(Monday's post will appear tommorrow, my weekend was insanity!)

I'm Seeing a Pattern Here

2010-04-15T06:00:00.003-05:00

I am having the absolutely oddest experience right now.

Everyone, and I mean everyone in the entire world, is doing one of two things:

Breaking up.

Or getting married.

Okay, that’s an exaggeration. It is not the whole world, just my world. But still, I know a lot of people. It’s still a paralyzing phenomenon sweeping Fargo/Moorhead.

One I am grateful I am not participating in because both sound like a heaping helping of stress. Since I am sans relationship I am doing neither, thank you very much.

Seriously. What is going on? Are we in some rare astronomical situation where the planets have somehow aligned to form a Mickey Mouse constellation? The effects of which are forcing couples to decide now if they ever plan to go to Disney World in a family vacation situation?

I mean good gawd.

Three good friends have broken up in the last few months with their long term boyfriends.

And two more have gotten engaged.

I’m feeling slightly bi-polar as my subsequent conversations with my social circle has no happy medium, it’s either, “What a bastard!” or “What a prince!”

I feel like calling up some of my happily married girlfriends just to ask them to tell me about the mundane yard work their husbands are doing. I seriously am craving a conversation that revolves around a couple's biggest dilemma being whether to plan lilacs or dogwoods along the fence in the backyard.

Because I am not sure I can take much more of this reality waffling between congratulations or castration.

And so, there you have it blogarama fans. The earth has entered some kind of force field. So beware. If you’re in a relationship and not sure where it’s headed . . . well, don’t look up at the sky tonight.

You may just see Mickey up there.

And be forced to make a decision whether you want to discover the magic.

Or not.

Calling in Sick!

2010-04-13T11:45:00.002-05:00

I was not feeling well yesterday blogarama fans, so here's a flashback to my first blog, Divorce Land. This post was originally published on October 13, 2008. It's still a relevant lesson and life observation, enjoy!:

Why I Never want to be 25 Again

The best part of cleaning closets, I think, is the part where I stumble across a box of old photos, cards and letters. And then promptly lose myself in the past for a good twenty minutes.

Last weekend I did just that. While sorting through the contents of the top shelf of my bedroom closet, I couldn’t resist cracking open a photo album from my college days. Of course, my initial response was to cringe at my hideous hair (I swear, I never smoked pot in college. But with hair that high and huge, it is almost embarrassing to admit that I did that to my myself sober. And on purpose.)

One of the pictures was of an old boyfriend I am still in touch with. I couldn’t resist snapping a camera phone copy and shooting it off to him immediately.

“Check this out,” my accompanying text message read, “I found this in an old album, had to send it to you.”

I wondered what he would say.

After all, almost twenty years had passed (okay, only eighteen, but still) since he and his friends had leaned against my dorm room wall and smiled into my camera lens.

He texted back in about five seconds, his response exactly on target.

A simple observation summing up what almost two decades of living had done.

“I miss my bangs.”

Was his reply.

I just rolled around on my closet floor for a while laughing. I did. I absolutely did. So much for any profound nostalgia.

When it comes down to it, the guy just misses his hair.

And so began a texting repertoire documenting our lost youth. On my part, I missed my pre-baby no stretch mark 20-something body. He was on a hair kick I guess because he texted back how he missed not having grey in the hair he does have. Oh fine, I jumped on that bandwagon and gave thanks that although mine isn’t greying (yet, knock on wood) I certainly do miss having all that hair (even if it was big enough for its own zip code.)

On we went, lamenting what time has stolen.

Eventually I had to get back to cleaning that closet. I thanked him for the chuckles and wished him a good bang-less kinda/sorta greying fabulous day.

And as I continued sorting through my boxes of junk, I wondered:

Do I really mourn the loss of my youth? Hmmm. Well, maybe some things. But I am in my 30’s in the age of botox, gym memberships, and teeth whitening. I don’t look half bad for my age. The little bit time has done, I can live with. Yeah, I have stretch marks, but I take care of myself so underneath them are abs of steel. And lest not forget, I have two fantastic kids. I think they were worth it.

And truly, when I look back at those pictures, yeah, I had a lot of hair, but what was underneath that 80’s mane was the spirit of a young woman who had so much yet to learn.

Would I really like to go back there?

Are ya kiddn’ me? No way Jose’.

After I really thought about it, time doesn’t steal so much as it bestows.

When I was in my 20’s I thought I knew everything yet I wasn’t quite sure enough of myself to live like I did. I second-guessed all my decisions, and if I didn’t, then I stood behind them with extra helpings of conviction, just to make sure.

Life seemed to have a black and white road map back then and I stuck rigidly to the course. I lived my life how it was supposed to be. I was militant about following the guide books. And always did what I perceived to be the “right” thing.

But then I turned thirty, and life got grey. Things didn’t go as I had planned, and suddenly everything I thought I knew just . . . disappeared.

And now, I’m past the mid-way point of my 30’s, and these grey areas, honestly? Are far more comfortable. I understand that people, myself included, don’t fit neatly into all the boxes I had drawn in my 20’s. There’s overlap, muddy places and sometimes everyone around me is just coloring outside the lines.

Oh well.

You see, I feel a peace about life now that I never could find a decade ago when I tried to shove everything into neatly labeled boxes of my own making.

But now? The boxes are gone. I let things flow. And peace has miraculously descended.

So let time march on. Let the grey dance slowly into our hair.

But more importantly, let the murky areas of life seep into our realities. For with time, and age, comes wisdom, acceptance, and peace.

In many shiny and stunningly beautiful shades.

Of grey.

Desperate but not a Housewife

2010-04-12T09:49:00.003-05:00

Sorry, my "real" post is going to be a day late. I collapsed last night after 8 hours of yard work this weekend! I'll post tonight, thanks for your patience, sorry for the delay. :-)

And yes, I could use a gardner. Preferably 6'4, dark hair, and shirtless. Tatoos optional but a definite plus.

~Audra

Cryptic Messages and CIA Training

2010-04-07T21:51:00.004-05:00

So I get a voicemail last week from a guy I dated briefly last summer.

Hey, Audra. Gimme a call. There’s something I want to discuss with you.

I haven’t seen this guy in almost a year. Oh great. He has AIDS. I freaking knew it.

I call him back and when he answers I brace for the bad news.

It’s worse than I thought.

He wants to sell me Amway.
************************************

This is my life. My dating life anyway. Brief moments of optimism sprinkled on top of a giant soufflé of weird.

Of course, the weirdos all seem so normal at first. I would like to make a motion that we start requiring single men to come with warning labels. Like cd’s or cigarettes. “Dating this dude is dangerous to your social, mental, spiritual, and/or emotional health” or something more specific like “Has been known to exhibit stalker qualities after two dates.” Hell, I would even appreciate the occasional “Pyramid Scheme Sucker” footnote. (At least I wouldn’t have an STD heart attack when he randomly calls several months later and leaves a cryptic voicemail.)

Sometimes I wish I could just Wikipedia a guy before even going on one date. Get the low down. The scoop. The dirt. Call it something like The Dating Girl’s “Guy’d” to the Universe.

Ooh. I love that one.

Unfortunately, if I tried to start something like that it probably wouldn’t go over too well.

Yeah, it’s called slander and it’s not exactly legal.

Sigh. Why is the fun stuff always against the law?

And so, like a dating detective I watch for red flags, take mental notes about the contents on Facebook, ask around trying to discern if this dude has a bad reputation, several illegitimate children, or a wife in Idaho. And all the while smiling politely, giggling when appropriate, and making witty conversation.

A few more years of this dating shennanigans and the CIA really should consider hiring me. I'll be so damn qualified at subtly assessing someone's character that I'll be able to determine citizenship and blood type three bites into a steak dinner.

That's a talent that's gotta be worth something.

Oh well. For now, all I really care about in my little dating world is that the next time the phone rings.

It isn't some former frog calling.

Trying to sell me Amway.

My Easter Nuggets

2010-04-05T08:53:00.015-05:00

Someone I used to know once referred to those moments in life that teach you something as nuggets. Golden bits of truth, clarity, and resulting wisdom. I think Oprah calls them Ah-ha moments.

I try to discover one every day. I figure life probably has plenty of lessons to teach. So each day I try to turn experiences inside out and lift the foggy veil of mysterious reasons why things happen the way they do. I try my hardest to find those little golden treasures when life is especially confusing, dissappointing, or just plain crappy.

This past Easter Sunday had quite a few.

First of all, I didn't have my children this Easter, they were with their dad. Its a painful experience that I don't wish upon any parent, not having your young children next to you on a holiday. It's like trying to put a shoe on a phantom limb. Nothing but air and emptiness.

But I tried to make the best of it. I went home with a girlfriend. And she is one of 14 children. I met her mom. She's 80. She looked really tired. I tried to just stand next to her and syphon off some of the incredible strength this woman must have had (has?) to have had that many kids and still be standing.

Nugget number one. Women have come a long way in the past 50 years. I didn't spend my life working on a dairy farm and having a baby every other year. Granted her family is awesome, I still gave quiet thanks that I live in a world where now if chidren outnumber parents seven to one TLC follows you around with video cameras.

My second nugget showed up while visiting with one of the family members about what we do for a living. I work from home and do IT sales. I talk on the phone, send emails, and go for mind clearing and energizing runs over my lunch break. She works in a factory and has to be there by 6:30am. She is also divorced but doesn't have custody of her children.

Nugget number two. At the end of the Easter weekend, my children come back to me. And I don't have to go to work on an assembly line at the crack of dawn. My work days starts in my cozy kitchen with a cup of coffee and a laptop. A hard day for me is an early morning conference call. From my couch.

My last nugget was harder to find. I accompanied my friend's mega family to church that morning and sang in the choir with some of the family members. After the first song the choir director marched over to me and told me to quit singing so loud and so well because I am not a member of this church. Holy small town ego attack.

I felt my nose do that burning thing and I tried not to cry. I am a member of my own church choir and obviously I would rather be there right now with my children smiling at me from the front row. Instead, I sucked down the tears and sang softer in an unfamiliar place with unwelcoming strangers.

Nuggest number three. I am not a crabby old choir directing fat lady who is mean to others on Easter.

So, it wasn't the best Easter ever but instead of dyed eggs I hunted a few nuggets instead. Mainly, I found myself giving thanks for MY life.

It may not be perfect. But its mine.

And there are some pretty darn good golden sparkly parts to it that are easy to find.

If I just look hard enough.
**************************************
Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to comment lately! It always amazes me when I get comments, it reminds me "Oh yeah, people really do read this..." I am eternally humbled and honored. :-) Look for your own nuggets today, I assure you they are there. For even on our gloomiest days, the sun isn't gone, it's just behind the clouds.
~Audra

If Elected I promise to . . .

2010-04-01T06:00:00.001-05:00

. . . keep my bra on.

I lost you? Oh, sorry, a little background:

It's the last week of voting for the Fargo Star contest that I entered. If you haven't cast your vote for moi, you really should consider doing so.

And here's why:

In my video audition I am singing Amazing Grace in my home office because . . . well? I thought this looked like fun. And life is too short not to try something that looks fun (granted, it's the kind of fun that is legal and video evidence of it showing up later in life will not thwart any of my some day public office aspirations). I think auditioning for this contest falls into my personal "acceptable level of humiliation" category, parameters that were established back in 1987 when my friend dared me to run my bra up the school flag pole. Hello? I was 14. My bra was more like a tank top. What made me think that was a good idea? Hence, "Bra up Flag Pole Idea" forever equals unacceptable public humiliation. I will not expound upon the ridicule I (rightly so) endured.

By comparision, making a video of myself singing (at night, you will notice, because everyone looks better in the dark, that's just a fact, Jack.) is not nearly as self depricating, or stupid. (Ah, the lingering lessons of adolescence . . . )

So here's the deal, vote for me if you want to vote for someone who doesn't let life get her down, who keeps on keeping on, who stumbles upon a singing contest and says, "Ok! Let's give this a whirl!", who fires up her video camera, plugs in her microphone (ignore the fact I own a microphone, will you?), and records one take of herself yowling and throws it on You Tube.

Vote for a woman who takes chances, throws caution to the wind, and says, "Why not?"

So if I do make the top ten, I'll wave a flag of triumph. Not a training bra.

http://fargostar.inforum.com/?contestant=115

Thank you for your support!

A "Peace" of Bacon

2010-03-29T06:00:00.000-05:00

I grew up in the middle of nowhere. Quite literally. So few people live in or have ever traveled to my home state that it could feasibly be called Nowhere, USA.

And yep. I grew up smack dab in the center of it.

So when I go home to visit my parents, who still live there (Rural Route 1, Nowhere, North Dakota) I equate it to a fancy retreat that hoity toity people take to escape the bustle and hustle of civilization. Only I don’t have to pay a lot of money for peace and quiet. I just head down the highway a couple hours to the boondocks.

And I love it. There’s nothing better than falling asleep in my childhood bedroom, waking up to the sound of my dad whistling in the kitchen, bacon wafting up the stairs whispering good morning.

Although peace is not necessarily silent. Sometimes peace is loud.

You see, as I make my way downstairs my parents bicker and joke at not exactly a soothing decibel. Forty years of marriage has carved out dynamics that are somewhere between Archie Bunker meets the Waltons. “Bacon? Again? Jack, you’re going to kill yourself!” I hear my mom harp. “Yeah, yeah, at least I’ll die happy, woman!” my dad retorts.

I just walk by the chaos and wonder to myself if I’m going to find any raisin bran in this house that didn’t expire during Reagan’s presidency.

I pour myself some coffee and go out into the chilly morning, settling into a chair on the porch and listen to the majestic melody of the prairie. Thousands of migrating veins of snow geese pepper the spring sky and the accompanying cackles makes it sound like an NFL game is going on across the road where they have chosen to feed in the corn stubble.

My mom swoops onto the porch exclaiming, “Good gawd, your father. I can not believe he is having bacon. Again.” She continues her tirade about his unhealthy eating habits and I just listen and nod, her voice blending in with the geese. Soon, my dad is on the porch wrestling with his boots and complaining loudly about both the muddy yard and my nagging mother. He stomps off to the barn and soon the tractor roars to life behind the house as he begins the process of feeding the cattle, the machine joining the chatter of the birds and the commentary of the farm wife who just can’t believe her husband is still alive after so many decades of bacon for breakfast.

Five minutes later my youngest daughter is on the porch, my brother (her uncle) in tow exclaiming loudly that she’s going to get a four wheeler ride. They jump on the ATV parked in the front yard, she squeals, the motor growls and they take off down the road to get a closer look at the thousands of honking birds circling and diving in the wind across the road.

The chaos continues throughout the weekend. Crescendos of farm and family life rise and fall.

And that’s the best kind of quiet anyone can ever hope to find.

When the noise around you.

Makes you peaceful.

On the inside.
*************************
Happy Birthday, Mom!!!!

Size Matters

2010-03-25T06:00:00.003-05:00

“Just order me a size 4.”

Famous last words.

My dear friend is taking the plunge. Tying the knot. Getting hitched. And I? Am showing up for the occasion. In a hot pink dress.

Bridesmaid city, here I come!

One advantage to the 50% divorce rate is now I get to do that wedding shenanigans all over again. Remember that? Every summer for a good solid four to five years during our 20’s it was wedding after wedding after wedding.

Fifteen years later?

Divorce after divorce after divorce.

Which means only one thing: suck in the gut and put the silicon slices in the bras, girls. It’s time for the Bridesmaid Tour; Act Deux.

Sara is my first divorced friend to head back into matrimony and I am ready. Bring on the limo, the open bar, the groomsmen, and the chicken dance. Oh wait. I forgot the ceremony. Ah hem. I meant, bring on the commitment! (After that it’s booze, boys, and a band.)

Hope is alive and it’s starting right here. With a big fat party. And me. In a size four fuchsia frock.

Wait. Make a that a different size. Might wanna put a one in front of that four.

You see, bridesmaid dresses are actually instruments of emotional torture with sizing designed to turn everyone insecure and anorexic. For some odd reason, they are sized terribly strange. A woman can be, for example, a size 8 in everything from skirts to shorts but a bridesmaid dress? Oh no. That’s a size 20.

And I’m not even a little kidding!

Case in point. The size 4 I ordered? Yeah. About that.

When it arrived I took one look at it and thought perhaps I’d mistakenly been sent the flower girl dress. A very slutty flower girl dress.

This thing was tinier than Tinkerbell! I could be a corpse and this thing would not fit. Fifty seven years after I am dead people could exhume my body, put this dress on my remains, and definitively announce with a defeating sigh, “Nope. It still won’t zip.”

And so I go through the interesting process of reordering a different size. Blackberry on speaker, I stand in my underwear in front of my mirror with a tape measure and diligently announce my numbers to the manager of the bridal shop.

“36 inches,” I scream to the speaker perched atop my dresser.

“And that is your?” the woman’s voice echos back.

“Bust,” I clarify and add, “but I’m wearing a padded bra. Without it I think I am a negative five.”

She laughs and asks me if I plan on wearing a padded bra when I wear the bridesmaid dress.

“Sh-yah! If I don’t I’ll be mistaken for a teenage boy in drag, lady. Trust me.”

I then measure my waist. Ugh. I need to cut down on the salt. I consider lying but really don’t feel like repeating the microscopic dress debacle so I accurately report the number.

“Are you sure?” she asks.

“Yes, I’m sure.” Maybe I should tell her I had a salty lunch . . . or that I’m six months pregnant. She comments on my “interesting” proportions. I make a face at my phone and silently mouth, “Bite me.”

When we’re done she tells me that according to her sizing chart for this designer I’m about a size 10 bust, size 12 waist, and a size 14 hips.

I look in my mirror. I’m wearing a size four pair of designer jeans at the moment.

I am 5’6” and weigh 130 pounds on a bad day, 125 pounds on a good day. Every single article of clothing I own is a 4. HOW can this be right?

I suck it up and tell her to just order me a 14 to be safe but of course, I do need to tell the woman that normally . . . I am a 4.

“That is odd . . .” she says.

She thinks I am lying. I can tell. I want to snap a camera phone picture and show her that yes, I am a 4. Okay, I could maybe lose 5 pounds. I’ve had 2 children, the abs are not what they used to be but geeze Louise, lady!

But I don’t say anything.

What’s important is I am getting a dress in the mail in a month that will definitely not fit my 8-year-old daughter.

And who cares if it’s a 4, 14, or 44? What’s more important is that I’ll be in the full and proper uniform for the party!

I mean.

Wedding.
***********************************
Congratulations, Rick and Sara! Love and blessings as you embark on your new life together, I could not be more honored to be a part of this special day. Muah! ~Audra

So In Love

2010-03-21T20:59:00.002-05:00

Its time I wrote about the love of my life.

Our time together leaves me panting and breathless and wishing I could spend my time this way every hour of every day. I love how my heart races. How I break such an amazing sweat.

After all. I am in love.

With running.

(Hey, if your mind was in the gutter up to this point, that is not my fault.)

It’s been a long damn winter up here on the tundra and the runner in me has been relegated to the rat wheel at the gym for months. Now, I realize the gym for some people is a great social outlet. Not for me. I am a mom and my time is compartmentalized, delegated, and spoken for. When I carve out an hour to run it’s because I gave up an hour doing something else like cooking or laundry. On top of that, I do anything but dress in matching pink Nike gear. No way. I wear a baseball hat, old cut off sweats with bleach spots, and if I have a zit I don’t even cover it up. Why? I’m not there to impress anyone.

I’m there to run.

Now that spring has arrived I can run even longer because all I need to do is lace up my Aesics, crank up my iPod, and bound out my front door.

Today was the first day my shoes have seen asphalt since sometime last November. For months I’ve pounded the belt of the treadmill shoulder to shoulder with strangers, oblivious to their presence, concentrating only on my breathing.

But not today.

I try to restrain myself from starting out in a full blown sprint I’m so excited to finally be outside without a parka on. I head north and the sun paints my shadow on the street in front of me. I chase it for a mile and half, run along Main for a couple blocks, and then head back the direction I came. The crisp wind bites me but the sunshine kisses it, making it all better.

And all the while Keith Urban sings to me. Some song about a woman who left the relationship she was in.

It took awhile for her to figure out she could run
But when she did, she was long gone

I smile and take his figurative lyrics literally for a moment as I remember all those years I didn’t exercise at all. Yeah, it took me a long time to figure out I could run, too.

But now I have.

And I am truly, madly and deeply in love with it.

And long.

Long.

Gone.

Committed

2010-03-19T08:36:00.001-05:00

No one should be reading my blog this week, everyone should be reading Elizabeth Gilbert's new book, "Committed." ;-)

If you read "Eat, Pray, Love" you'll have to pick this one up too. It is tremendous.

Have a good weekend and I'll see everyone right back here on Monday!

Muah!
~Audra

You Give Love a Bad Name

2010-03-15T09:31:00.003-05:00

I remember the first time I heard Bon Jovi’s “Livin on a Prayer.” I was a football cheerleader and was walking from the bus to the field for a game when a friend of my boyfriend’s drove up alongside my sister and I in his truck one crisp September night.

“Hey, pretty sisters. Wanna a ride?”

We hop in and are enveloped in, “Oooh wa ooh, wa ooh ooh, ooh ooh,” blaring from his speakers. (Boys and stereos, I tell ya.)

“What is this?” my sister’s voice yells from underneath her permed head.

“Bon Jovi’s new album!” he grins, and cranks it up more.

We arrive at the field being serenaded by Jon Bon telling us us to take his hand, we’ll make it he swears, because Whoa . . . we’re livin’ on a prayer.

Loved the song. Loved Bon Jovi. Loved that album.

The band definitely provided the soundtrack to many of my teenage moments and so when they played Fargo this weekend I simply had to go. I grabbed my three favorite friends, my new Hudson jeans and prepared for a night of time travel back to 1989.

Well . . . a lot has changed since then.

Including Bon Jovi.

An hour into the concert they’d played more new stuff than old and I was fighting the urge to sit down, feeling more dead than alive and resisting the urge to nap, and not in a bed of roses. This folding chair will do just fine.

“Is it just me, or is this like one giant Pepsi commercial?” my girlfriend next to me confesses.

I look up at the screens showing pictures of people in their hometowns and listen to a song that sounds like the theme to a video montage people make after a unifying natural disaster like a flood or a tornado and nod in agreement. On top of that, Jon Bon danced around the stage like he was in an episode of Glee. Where’s my bad ass hair band? They’ve been kidnapped by middle aged men in skinny jeans singing songs that would be more fitting around a campfire.

I leave a couple times for a bathroom break. Buy some water. And find the t-shirt stand more exciting than the show.

Oooh. This pink one’s cute.

The final encore is, finally, thank you Jesus, Living on a Prayer.

Two hours of torture and I finally hear my favorite Bon Jovi song live. But by then I’m so bored I can barely even get into it. And mourning the fact that the rock stars of the 80’s are now kings of lame.

Oh well.

Even though I felt shot through heart by the fact that my favorite 80’s bands has run away and is no longer born to be my baby, I survived the bad medicine and celebrate the fact that at least they did end with my favorite song.

And went down.

In a blaze of glory.

“Oooh wah oooh wah oooh, oooh oooh ooh, Oooh wah oooh wah ooh ooh ooh ooh . . .”

Flashback to Divorce Land

2010-03-12T07:37:00.007-06:00

Crazy week, readers! Sorry I have been tardy a few times with my posts. I'm going to do a quick rerun from my old blog, Divorce Land. The following is one of my more popular stories. And since I've picked up a lot of new readers with "Chronicles of a Girl," I thought I'd throw it out there again as it may be new to many of you. And also, of course, any time my pain can entertain you, I am happy to be the sacraficial lamb!
~Audra
P.S. This post is from 18 months ago. If any of you have ever kept a journal, isn't it interesting to look backward? When I read this story I can see how much I have grown and changed in the past year and a half. Life is a journey and the lessons are unending.

*********************************************

Trust your gut.

It’s true. You should. When your gut says, “Uh oh.” Listen up. It’s more reliable than tornado sirens, your local weather man, or any magic eight ball (I don’t care how creepily correct it is.)

The gut.

Is rarely wrong.

And since I ignored mine on Monday. Yeah. Well then. Of course, a debacle was bound to ensue.

It all started one sunny morning at my dentist’s office . . .

I nestle into the dental chair for a routine procedure. But instead of my kindly, wise, and experienced grey dentist, who walks into the office but some kid who probably just started shaving last Tuesday.

The Doogie Howser of dentistry.

Um, is it bring your kid to work day? Did I miss the memo?

“Um, who are you?” I blurt at this obviously lost child.

“I am Dr. Olson,” he smiles, “And I will be doing your crown today.”

I don’t smile back. I frown (as much as I can with a Botoxed forehead.)

And just say, “Hmmmm,” because at that moment my gut is announcing, “RED ALERT! You are not going to let an infant with sharp objects near your face, are you?”

“Is that okay?” Doogie asks.

I sigh. And decide to confess my hesitancy as graciously as possible:

“How old are you, kid? Because I am all for dating twenty somethings but I wouldn’t want one as my dentist.”

Okay, maybe I wasn’t so gracious.

He’s immediately insulted but I am not really caring. After all, these are my nerve endings at stake here.

He clears his throat and says, “I’m 24.”

I nod, process and continue on with my dental credentials interrogation, “And you graduated . . . when?”

“In May,” he replies.

Oh GAWD.

Yeah. Like I really want some kid who was partying like a rock star in college a mere 5 months ago now in charge of filing off MY molar?

I think not.

My silence is loud and he interrupts it by defensively offering to have the other dentist, oh let’s see, that would be MY dentist, do the crown. But not before he informs me that I will have to wait another month should I opt for that route, because that dentist (MY dentist) is booked up.

But of course, the toddler’s schedule is wide open.

Shockaroo.

So basically, if I want the procedure done today, I either have to let junior do it or run the risk of letting my molar go another month before I can get in with MY dentist.

I briefly entertain the concept of going “Tom Hanks in Castaway” and just finding an ice skate and popping this baby out myself and calling it a day.

But he has a point and I am soon in an oral hostage situation.

So I surrender to circumstance, open up my pie hole, lay back in the chair and crank up the iPod I brought with me to distract myself from the fact that I am at the dentist, and let Doogie do his thing.

45 minutes he says.

Quick and easy.

Three hours later . . .

I am still in this chair. And I have listened to my “mellow” playlist about 72 times.

(I have that playlist for emergency make out situations. And since I make out pretty much rarely to never in my nunnish life of late what is the point of bulking that baby up? I digress.)

So, by the time I realize I have just listened to One Republic sing “It’s too late ta Apologize . . .” a couple bajillion times my jaw is killing me and Doogie still isn’t done.

And I really need to pee.

I finally motion for them to let me sit up, and when I do I just blurt, “Okay, seriously, 3 hours? What is the hold up? Are you trying to find China at the bottom of this molar or what, kid?”

He explains that my decay is severe. So severe in fact that he has actually filed so far down he has exposed a nerve.

I am not liking the sound of this.

Any time the words “nerve” and “exposed” are used together in the same sentence that is probably reason to start insisting on big gun narcotics, the kind that will make me see pink elephants and vote for McCain.

Shudder….

Doogie explains to me that he is almost finished, he is just going to cover the nerve with a filling, put on a temporary crown, and then send me home with a prescription for pain medication that I am to use every four hours for the next three weeks until I can get in for a root canal.

Every four hours? For three weeks?

I just stare at him as I hear my own voice say, “You have got. To be kidding me.”

He assures me it is a light pain med. I can still drive and function, it will just take the edge off until I can get in for a root canal.

Edge?

I am tempted to put this kid in a time out right about now.

Doogie eventually finishes, I finally get to go to the restroom, and as I leave the office I think to myself, well, how bad can it be? I am sure it might be a little sore, I’ll just fill my prescription on the way home from work and that will be that.

Two hours later I am sitting at work huddled in a fetal position in the corner of my office because the Novocain has worn off and the entire left side of my face is on fire.

I call the dentist's office.

“Have you filled the pain prescription yet?”

“Um, no, I am too distracted by thoughts of suicide.”

The receptionist relays that Doogie suggests I fill the prescription and if that does not help then I may need an emergency root canal today.

Great. JUST great.

As I drive to the pharmacy, I call my boss and explain that if he was expecting me to do any work today he can just kill that dream now. I then call friends and arrange for my children to get rides home from school. (I am a Mom. When my day goes to crap, there is major project management choreography that must be executed if life as we know it on this planet is to continue on uninterrupted.)

At the pharmacy I whine to all the legal drug dealers about the kid masquerading as a dentist who drilled into my nerve canal and demand to know at exactly what moment I can expect the pain meds to deliver nirvana.

Thirty minutes.

Twenty nine minute later the pain has INTENSIFIED and I am on the phone with my dentist's office actually begging for an emergency root canal.

When the receptionist delivers the news that the doctor who performs their root canals can’t get me in until the next day, I let out a pain fueled evil cackle and tell her to have MY dentist call me back. Because this pain is not my fault. I was in no pain until I let that adolescent playing doctor use me as a dental guinea pig.

I am not taking no for an answer.

I am getting that root canal.

And I am getting it today.

Because at this point, I am hurting so badly that with every breathe I am fighting the urge to climb on top of the roof of my house and jump to my death. If I have to wait until tomorrow, I am going to need narcotics so strong that I will be comatose.

And I don’t have the time or luxury to be comatose.

So while I wait for my phone to ring, appointment schmapointment, I start driving to the palace of pleasure: the root canal doctor’s office.

Yes.

Yes I do. And yes, I have huge ovaries.

Halfway there my cell phone rings.

It is the kid.

“Hello, Audra, this is Dr. Olson.”

And now, I would like to introduce you to my alter ego: Super Bitch.

I just bark into the phone, “You? Again? Haven’t you done enough? Put my dentist on the phone. NOW.”

“I am sorry but he is busy,” Doogie offers meekly, “would you like me to call the office about your root canal?”

“NO!” the pain demon in me shrieks, “What are you doing to do? You have no business relationship with that doctor. You graduated in MAY! I need MY dentist to call THAT dentist and offer him a good steak and a round of golf and explain to him that HIS patient was just tortured by his apprentice in pain and that a root canal is in order. You have no pull, you are incapable of having that conversation. Now GO AWAY before I come through this phone and scream at you in person!”

And then, Super Bitch just hangs up.

Looking back I like to equate this situation to a woman in labor, delirious with agony. Because at that point, I honestly just wanted the pain to end, and I did not care who I had to scream at to make it stop.

When I reached the root canal doctor’s office, I composed myself as much as I could, calmly walked into the office, tears streaming down my face, and as respectfully as possible explained the situation and asked them to call MY dentist.

In two minutes, I was approved for an emergency root canal, blowing my nose into Puff’s Kleenex with lotion, and counting down the seconds until relief is mine.

Twenty minutes and $800 later I am post-root canal and pain free.( I would have sold my car and paid $8,000 at this point if that is what it would have taken).

And thus ended an adventure I never hope to repeat again.

And yes, I have noted, that the next time my gut tells me to run out of a room screaming.

That is exactly what I will do.

Because if I don’t, I run the risk of Super Bitch showing up and yelling her head off anyway.

And as for twenty-something guys, hey, I am a fan.

It's just that if I let one poke and prod me for three hours in a manner that leads to my screaming my blonde head off I would much rather it be because he and I are playing doctor.

Not.

Dentist.
***************************************
Footnote: I published this story during a time I refer to as my "Demi Moore" era :) I know age is just a number but my own personal story when it comes to my evolution as a newly single woman will probably not include any repeat cougar performances (and I admit, I had a few shortly after my divorce). I've since "recoverecd" but it was great inspiration for some humorous angles for my writing. Hope you enjoyed the story. And thanks for being with me on this journey! :-) (Oh, and P.S. I did bring Dr. Doogie a Starbucks the next day along with an apology for the pain induced shrieking . . . )

Living and Learning

2010-03-09T13:36:00.004-06:00

I am Catholic so I am not really the “devotional” kind. You know. Those little books with the daily bible verses? We Catholics like to leave the memorizing to the Protestants. I mean really. At no time did Jesus ever say the words "pop quiz."

But when I went through my divorce I broke the mold and picked up a devotional, this one was written by Kristen Armstrong. She wrote it after Lance Armstrong left her for Cheryl Crow. I love Cheryl Crow, but Lance is still a dick wad. I’m just saying.

Anyhoo, the former Mrs. Armstrong authored a devotional in her divorce aftermath and titled it, “Happily Ever After; Living with Peace and Courage through a year of Divorce.”

I loved it.

Every day I’d read my bible verse. And every day I’d read Kirsten’s application of it to her life post-divorce. I felt like I truly had a kindred spirit in this awful experience and was so grateful for her words.

When I finished the book and made it through my own first year of divorce, I loaned it to my best friend, Naomi. She’d been divorced for a while but I thought she may also find it comforting. She loved it so much she continues to announce ,“Oh, this is a Kristen Happily Ever After moment!” whenever she stumbles upon circumstance where the book’s wisdom is applicable.

Today was one of those days.

I made a mistake today. Not a huge mistake, not an illegal mistake, but a big fat whoops mistake. It was at work and involved spreadsheets. And software quotes. And formulas.

I’m smart but I’m an English major. Numbers are against my religion.

Long story short I made a whopper of an error that required me to eat my margin in order to honor an incorrect number I’d given a client. I was horrified with myself. When I told my manager, what do you think he said? Well, if I were him I would have said something like, “Nice one, Einstein.” Or started in on a well-deserved lecture about responsibility and haste.

But did he do that?

No. He did not.

Instead he told me that all people are imperfect. And that in the long run, it’s a mistake that does not matter in the grand scheme of things. And that he hired me because of my humility. And that I will find a graceful way to right the wrong with the client. And probably win more business in the long run because of it.

I couldn’t stop the tears.

Instead of a lecture, I received compassion. Instead of chastisement, I received encouragement.

I was overcome with the thought, “When have I exhibited compassion on this level?”

Probably not very often. When people make mistakes I am quick to point them out. I am critical. I am judgmental. And not very forgiving.

Words fail how humbling this moment was for me. I felt very undeserving of this compassion.

Instead of a lecture he instead chose to remind me of my good qualities, of my value as an employee, and of his strong belief in my ability to right a wrong with grace and dignity.

I was blown away.

Later that day when I shared this experience with Naomi, her response was immediate. “We are called to forgive because we have been forgiven. To love because we have been loved.”

“Bible verse?” I inquire.

“Nope,” Naomi explains, “It is Kirsten Armstrong’s take on Ephesians 4:31-32.”

Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

I thought a lot about that verse and came to this conclusion:

Not only are our mistakes and lessons learned an integral part of our own life’s journey, but how we respond to the mistakes of others is probably the biggest test of all.

I guess this means Kristen's probably forgiven the dick wad.

Whoops.

I mean.

Lance Armstrong.

A Day late . . .

2010-03-08T09:58:00.004-06:00

. . . but not a dollar short!

Sorry for the lag in my Monday's post. Little behind but I'll have something up tomorrow.

Thanks for reading!!

~Audra

2010-03-08T09:58:00.001-06:00

Dignity? What Dignity?

2010-03-04T16:47:00.004-06:00

I am going to take my own blog hostage for a moment for a little shamless self promotion:

I submitted a video entry for a local singing competition, Fargo Star. Please vote for me online at http://fargostar.inforum.com! I am singing Amazing Grace to myself in my home office like a weirdo. (Dignity? What dignity?)

The top ten finalists will perform April 24th at The Venue.

Thank you SO MUCH for your vote and support!

(Don't just dream it, do it!)

~Audra
Here's a preview of my audition on You Tube. . . but to vote for me you need to go to The Forum Fargo Star website. The contestants with the top rankings go on to compete, so any and all "five star" votes are greatly appreciated!

You Tube Audition Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUGnGE1ftMg

I May Be Stranded but I'm not Stupid

2010-03-04T06:00:00.001-06:00

I want to believe that most married men are madly in love with their wives. And many that I know are.

But it’s the ones I meet when I’m not at home that really make me question if marriage is a complete and utter façade or what. And if men are slimier than than a snail trail.

Last week I was traveling but I missed my connection and ended up struck overnight in a strange city. In a meager effort to cope with my spontaneously stranded situation I went straight to the hotel bar upon arrival and ordered a Lemon Drop martini. Extra sugar.

Gawd. This was irritating. I was supposed to be home right now. Not drinking vodka and ordering a burger. Fun as those activities are they’re not so fun surrounded by strangers when I am supposed to be home in my own comfy bed in my jam jams.

So I make due. Sip a martini. And strike up a conversation with the poor traveling schmucks at the rail.

Before the night is over I am engaging in an intriguing conversation with a successful, funny, articulate, and very married, man. (Oh fine, and cute too. He’s cute. What? Not a crime to notice someone is cute). Nothing about this is scandalous so I just enjoy the fact that the conversation keeps me distracted from my circumstances.

As we converse I begin to be more and more entertained by how he confesses to be more and more unhappily married as the night wears on.

Gimme a break.

When it’s time to call it a night he insists on walking me to my room.

Fine. He shared that he's a pilot so I figured I wasn’t going to be molested by Mr. American Airlines so I let him escort me. Besides, he wasn't that tall. I figured if he tried any funny business I'd just knee him in the nards.

And for the record, when we got to my room the only thing that guy got at my door was a free copy of USA Today in the hallway. Nope. Not even a handshake. And no, I don’t want a congratulatory cookie. I’m just saying. Why was he even there?

Yeah. One guess why he was there.

Two minutes after settling into my room my hotel phone rings. Yep. It’s miserably married man.

I answer and blurt, “You have got to be kidding me.”

“What? I am just calling because I didn’t get the address of your blog you were telling me about.”

I let out a two (or was it there?) martini laced cackle. And give him the address.
He eventually hangs up. But not before he insists he really is getting a divorce.

How does that saying go again? Oh yeah. “That’s what they allllll say . . .”

I curtly reply in as much staccato as I can muster, “Good. Well, now you have my contact information. Call me when you’re single.”

Good night, Mr. Pilot.

I got a plane to catch in the morning.

And it ain't yours.

Here Comes the Sun

2010-03-01T06:00:00.002-06:00

I have a love/hate relationship with flying. And I’m on a plane right now as I type this, hurtling through the clouds on my way to California for business.

I didn’t grow up flying all over the place. My parents were farmers. If you got a ride with the local crop duster once a while that was an epic adventure. Commercial air travel was something people did on tv. If anyone in my family flew it was a huge deal that rivaled the appearance of Haley’s Comet in frequency. My mom would spend days making lists, packing, and making sure my grandparents knew where the life insurance policy was.

Obviously, with a belief system like that modeled for me, the first time I stepped onto a plane at the age of 19 I was fully convinced that I had an equal chance of ending up in a fire ball on CNN as I did of arriving at my final destination.

I’ve since left my inherited anxiety behind and joined the pack of business travelers that crisscross the skies on a regular basis; however, hurtling through the clouds isn’t something human beings were designed to do and that unnatural reality is definitely responsible for the “hate” part of my relationship with flying. Every time my plane takes off?

Jesus is my best friend.

But at the same time, flying is amazing. I love it. And not just because of the convenient condensed travel time.

Take today. The sky is a grey flannel as my plane lifts off. But in less than a minute, I’m blinking into the sunshine as I soar above the dreary and into the sun. A philosophical reminder that even on cloudy days, the sun isn’t gone.

It’s just hiding.

Of course, flying has its downside beyond the natural anxiety of its unnatural logistics. I’m a petite woman and even I find the tuna can accommodations trying. What is it about the seat design in planes that makes my butt fall asleep? Every time.

And right now? I’m listening to the woman behind make a very bad case for her Amway business to her poor seatmate. I feel like telling her I’m in sales. And that the hostage situation pitch is not the best tactic. Five bucks says when this flight is over her pyramid scheme victim bolts through the airport as if being pursued by a pack of wolves.

But even despite the restrictive seating and unwelcome pyramid scheme endorsements, flying is superb. At this moment, how can I complain that I’m being whisked from tundra to palm trees in a matter of a few hours? On top of that, I’m floating far above my email and cell phone messages. Anyone trying to contact me right now is getting my Out of Office auto email reply or hearing my pleasant voice proclaim “Please leave me a message and I’ll call you back as quick as I can!”

Ah. Freedom.

Disconnected from the earth. Physically and literally.

Ultimately, getting on a plane is like every experience in life that’s worth the effort. It makes you nervous but then rewards you greatly. Anyone who’s ever flown over the Rocky Mountains or marveled at the microscopic boats zipping over Lake Michigan has tasted the majesty of the view from a plane and been awestruck by the world’s greatness. And our own smallness.

So here’s to the everyday mundane miracle of flight and its metaphorical truth.

Every day is a new chance.

To face our fears.

Soar above life’s clouds.

And find the sun.

Life Ain't Always Beautiful

2010-02-25T06:00:00.000-06:00

A girlfriend of mine said goodbye today.

Not only to a relationship but to a dream. Her relationship with her boyfriend of several years ended after months of unraveling.

It’s over.

They didn’t share an address but after two years together, they didn’t just entwine their hearts but their possessions too. Tonight, she went to his place to gather them up.

And take them home.

I came to her house to help her unload her hopes and dreams.

The night is cold and the deep snow surrounds her driveway like a fortress. We work silently.

The only sound is occasional sniffing.

Clothing and coats. Movies and books. Stemware and silverware. Mundane items that over the course of several months migrated from her house to his. She grabs a bag of shoes. I wrestle with a suitcase of cement.

Bump.

Bump.

Bump.

I pull the weighty cargo up the steps.

Heartbreak is heavy.

When all of it is piled safely in her house in scattered disarray we lean against the kitchen counter and say little. Her nose is red.

“Have a glass of wine. Get some sleep,” I say as I hug the fragile shoulders that sag under the weight of this newly defined reality.

“I will,” she whispers, “I will.”

I hesitantly leave to go back home to my children. I hate to, but I don’t have a choice. "Call me later, honey."

“Thank you, Audra,” she says in a small voice as I start down the stairs to the back door, looking over my shoulder one last time. I try to stay strong but it's too much. My tears betray me.

Because there is my dear, beautiful, funny, and intelligent friend.

Crying in her kitchen.

With bags and boxes of a lost future.

Piled at her feet.
*********************************************************

Life ain't always beautiful
Sometimes it's just plain hard
Life can knock you down, it can break your heart

Life ain't always beautiful
You think you're on your way
And it's just a dead end road at the end of the day

But the struggle makes you stronger
And the changes make you wise
And happiness has it's own way of takin' it sweet time

No,life aint always beautiful
Tears will fall sometimes
Life aint always beautiful
But it's a beautiful ride

What a beautiful ride
~Lyrics by Gary Allan

Love you, my friend . . . ~Audra

Soul Mates and Cereal Aisles

2010-02-22T17:03:00.009-06:00

About three weeks ago I had a momentary idiot attack and emailed a guy I dated this fall and asked if him if he would be opposed to having dinner. We honestly have stayed in touch sporadically and I really liked him. I figure . . . what have I got to lose?

After two weeks of nothing but the sound of crickets chirping in my inbox I figure the answer is no. I sigh. Accept the silence and pledge to move on.

But then, lo and behold, what have we here? A two week late totally tardy response.

He says sure, he’ll have dinner but it has to be platonic. Timing just isn’t the best.

For him.

I decide not to pry. And to retract my dinner invitation. I didn’t ask for a friendship dinner and I really don’t feel like auditioning for a part in a sequel when I was cast so easily the first time around. My gut feeling said, “This is a waste of energy.”

So I decide to be diplomatic and write back, “Glad you are doing well. Since I sent this invitation a few weeks ago a lot has changed in my life as well, so the timing isn’t the best for me either.”

I sign off wishing him well and figure I can put a bow on that one and forget it. He emails me back in half a nanosecond. Oh the beauty of a blackberry.

“What’s changed in your life that it isn’t the best timing?”

Ok, now I’m torked.

First off by the fact that he emails me back two seconds after I am suddenly and mysteriously unattainable. Secondly, I wasn’t nosy about his reasons so what gives him the right to ask me about mine?

So I respond with this:

“Oddly enough, I met my soul mate in the cereal aisle of Hornbacher’s last week and we’re eloping next Tuesday. I’m registered at Target. Feel free to send a gift.”

I figure my smart ass attack is justifiable. I am not demanding/inquiring to know what his reasons are for “not the best timing.” He could be in rehab. Have a raging STD. None of my beeswax.

And okay fine.

I confess that I really don’t want to know the name of Miss Not the Best Timing if she exists. Because that’s called rejection. And call me crazy but not one of my top ten favorite feelings to feel.

Unfortunately, he doesn't view my sarcasm as a closed door but an open one. He keeps emailing me back. Tells me I’m funny. That he misses talking to me every day. That no one he dates is as great as me. But again. He reiterates.

It’s just.

Not the best timing.

I feel like standing up and saying, “Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, the defendant can provide no solid evidence as to why we should not be dating again . . .”

Long story short we have a little word war. But even that sucks me in deeper. I like men who are men, who can challenge me. Stand up for themselves. Match me and march with me in a verbal spar.

But I stay strong and don't agree to the olive branch of friendship over french fries he is offering. Doing so has the potential to make me the star of a a video montage with scenes of my life set to Katie Perry’s “Hot and Cold”.

So.

That’s that.

Our email battle did ultimately evolve into mutual understanding. And? An ending. He never expounded on his reasons and I didn’t ask.

But I do feel better. It wasn’t the answer I was looking for but it was an answer.

He’s just not that into me.

And I can live with that.

I just hope he can live with that STD and stint in rehab.

Poor guy.
******************************************
Hey Bobby . .. if you read this, I hope you laughed. Enjoy the Etch a Sketch. If you ever need someone talented enough to draw a heart on it . . . you know who to call.
~Audra

Bad Roads and a Blue Bra

2010-02-18T06:00:00.003-06:00

My ex-husband got married this weekend. On Sunday. Valentine’s Day.

I had it all planned out.

I’d sing at church, then come back home and get my daughter’s all ready for the wedding, curl their hair, iron their clothes, and then send them off with their dad. Pretty, primped, and in good spirits for this next odd mismatched chapter in our family’s story.

Then my mom would come for a visit. She doesn’t live that far away but far enough in this tundra that she doesn’t like to brave the three hour drive on a regular basis from November to March. But she would come that afternoon. We’d go shopping. I’d be distracted for the six hours my daughters would be away and just enjoy some mother daughter bonding.

It was the perfect plan.

“I’m not coming,” she announces in my ear just twenty minutes before my ex-husband is due to arrive. I drop the curling iron in my hand onto the sink to free my other hand as I arrange the final curls in my little girl’s hair. “The roads are terrible and I’m not risking my life. I’m sorry.”

“But the sun is shining here,” I protest in a desperate attempt to get her to change her mind and salvage my sanity.

The answer is no. She isn’t coming.

Sigh.

My ex-husband arrives. I tell him that although I hope he lives happily ever after, just in case he doesn’t, that someday, someday . . .

If he ends up alone on Valentine’s Day you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to get married. In fact, even if I’m already married, I’m going to get married again.

He just smiles. He’s used to my sarcasm.

I tell him congratulations. And give him a hug.

And then send my girls out the door with him.

Deep breath.

Well? Even though my mom isn’t here I decide to stick to my shopping plan. I am well aware that all my friends are busy so I just go it alone. Twenty minutes later I’m milling around Vicky’s Secret debating between an innocent lacy little number or a leopard print unmentionable. I wander around some more and then I realize the irony.

My first Valentine’s Day without a Valentine since 1998. My ex-husband is getting married.

And I’m standing in a store with hearts everywhere and the word “Love” on half the articles of clothing.

Gawd.

This is like sending an alcoholic to Wine country for the weekend.

What.

Am.

I doing here?

Eventually, I end up back home. With a new blue bra in a bright pink bag.

And have a good cry in my recliner. Then I blow my nose. Get out of the chair. And decide to use my remaining time home alone to be as productive as possible.

So I vacuum my stairs. (There’s something incredibly therapeutic about the methodical and measurable sucking up of lint and cat hair.)

And eventually? My girls come back home. Full of wedding cake and stories of how gross it was when Dad and his new wife kissed during the ceremony.

“It was long and yucky,” they report.

I smile and listen to their retelling. Divorce with children is like that. Little innocent messengers that go back and forth between two worlds, blending the fragments of the family they once had.

And with that.

Valentine’s Day 2010.

Came to a freshly vaccuumed stairs/new blue bra/yucky kissing.

End.

Happy Valentine's Day

2010-02-14T23:15:00.003-06:00

People will judge you.

People will misunderstand you.

People will never have lived one day in your shoes but they will be self proclaimed experts on the road you have walked.

People will hurt you.

People will call you names.

People will get a glimpse of you in one chapter of your life and claim to know the whole story.

Only God can judge you.

Only God will understand you.

Only God will walk right beside you.

Only God will heal you.

Only God knows your name.

Only God knows your story.

People will say they love you.

But only God.

Will never leave you.

***********************************
Today was a hard day and there is no way I would have made it through without my faith . . . God bless you all on your journey.
Love,
Audra

A Spit Swapping Situation

2010-02-11T23:11:00.003-06:00

It's time to kiss and tell.

Well, maybe just the telling part. Because there wasn't any kissing. But there was a lot of spit swapped.

Here’s the scooparama:

About a month or so ago I ran into a girlfriend of a girlfriend of a girlfriend. I think this is just a couple levels above complete stranger but nevertheless I do recognize her face, know her name, and that she is divorced. Like me.

The fact that we both have ovaries and the same marital status puts us in the club, a place where that’s enough shared background for it to be acceptable to start with the mutual grilling of the love life status sixty seconds into the conversation.

We inquire with hushed whispers, “So, are you seeing anyone?”

She answers yes and tells me about her great boyfriend.

Of course, I answer with my standard, “Are you kidding me?”

She does what everyone does when I confess that the epitome of Saturday night excitement for me is getting all my laundry done.

“What? Why? You’re so fun and so pretty!”

Spoken like someone who hasn't seen me sans mascara or the Saturday before my period. “Yeah, and so not dating,” I tack on emphatically.

She proceeds to insist that I should date her boss. First of all, this town is smaller than a Lady GaGa leotard, I know her boss. He’s about 8 years older than me and our social circles do overlap. That is, when I feel like being social.

I laugh. “Please,” I explain, “I’ve talked to him several times; I don’t think he’s interested.”

She guffaws. And insists that I’m so, so wrong.

Four days later this self-appointed cubicle cupid works her magic because I get a text message from said boss asking me to meet him for a drink. Well, whatdayaknow, Idaho.

I agree and so we do, two days later. We have a fairly decent conversation and he must have thought so too because afterward he asks me to dinner that weekend and I figure why not.

And so Saturday night I put on some of my glittery overpriced eye shadow I reserve for emergency dating situations and head out for a steak. Another pretty good discussion ensues but the whole time I feel like I am trying too hard. I am only two dates in and I’m already exhausted by the effort and distracted by the fact that I have neglected laundry at home.

This is not a good sign.

Before the date ends we decide to stop for a drink.

We end up seated at the bar with a couple acquaintances of mine, one of whom I just learned the day before had dated this guy briefly last year. I wonder if this will be awkward?

Well, depends on who you ask because before you can say martini on the rocks I find myself being slowly wedged out of the conversation. Is this a Harry Potter flick? Did someone throw an invisibility cloak over my melon? Because my date and his old flame are soon leaning into one another giggling away over some inside joke about a dart board. Fine by me that I’m not in on the punch line, the only thing bothering me at this point is that I am sitting smack dab in the middle and all their mutual chuckling is launching spit into my eyeballs.

I excuse myself to no one in particular, escape the saliva shower, and head to the lady’s room where I can laugh out loud in the handicapped stall at this entire situation.

Only me.

Only me . . .

The good news is that was my last date with the girlfriend of my girlfriend’s girlfriend’s boss. And the gooder news is that after my acquaintance saw him with me that night they have since rekindled their flame. I’m sure right now those two are playing some hot and naughty game of darts somewhere across town and covering each other with their spitty little infatuation giggles.

More power to them. I am glad I could be of help.

Now I can go back to focusing on the much more important matter of my unmentionables.

My laundry.

Beckons.
***************************************
Truly, I am thrilled that those two are reconnecting. She is a sweeatheart and he is really an incredibly nice, nice guy. I am genuinely impressed by how God works and honored that I may have played a part in the rekindling of something special. If those two end up happily ever after, I am requesting two pieces of wedding cake at the reception for my role in this sweet fairy tale!
~Audra

"Dating Land" Retitled

2010-02-08T07:00:00.003-06:00

I've been mulling this for a while and after a lot of thought I’ve decided to rebrand my blog.

Those of you who have followed me online for the past few years started with my first blog, Divorce Land. When I began blogging again I decided to continue the concept and rechristen my new blogging adventure: Dating Land.

Honestly?

That’s a great idea. In theory.

The truth is . . . I started Dating Land with a writing experiment. I used the blog as a place to write about a relationship that had just ended. Because I already knew the plot/conflict/characters I wanted to write the story in a “chapter” format. I basically wanted to see if I could compose a novella type story online and be successful since I had previously written self contained essays, not an ongoing story. Would I be able to attract readers? Retain them?

The resounding answer was yes.

People swarmed to “Dating Land” to read the story about Nick the firefighter. I was overwhelmed by the comments and emails I received and buoyed by the fact that I could write in a way that would hold people’s interest week after week and connect with readers chapter after chapter.

I have now transferred that energy to the novel I am working on and subsequently have been tossing around ideas about what to do with “Dating Land.”

Of course, everyone wants to be Carrie Bradshaw, but that isn’t realistic. Number one, my dating life just isn’t that interesting. Number two, if it were I certainly wouldn’t put it on the internet in real time. That would be, well, completely psycho. At least not without an alias (for myself).

I want to continue to blog because it is a great format that forces me to write on a regular basis. Plus, it showcases my writing style to potential editors. (Any editors out there wanna throw me a book deal the answer is YES!)

However, I no longer want the word “dating” in the title. Quite honestly, I am taking a conscious and decisive break from dating. Not only has it been a disappointing experience but it’s time consuming. And right now? I have two children who need me and a new job that I am extremely devoted to. Putting on mascara and leaving my house to eat a steak with a complete stranger doesn’t sound appealing at this precise moment in time.

And, I’ll also be quite vulnerable and honest on this topic as long as I am here:

The guy I dated after Nick this November was amazing and I fell hard. It didn’t work out but I miss him a lot. But I don’t want to put all those details on the internet. I want to be more respectful of myself and of him too. Plus, if I do start dating again, I am getting sick of that awkward confession that, “So, I am a writer and I have a blog on . . . um . . . dating.” thing. It’s just too hard to explain how that angle exists to attract readers and that I'm really not just throwing every little tidbit about my personal life on the internet when I meet someone new. It freaks men out and I don't blame them.

So . . . here's the deal: I’ll continue to write my funny little stories right here as always. But I’m going to explore numerous facets of life and it is not going to be solely about my dating ventures (or lack of). I’ve already been doing that if you’ve been reading regularly . . . I’ve written about a locked bathroom door, my visit with Santa, and even a great reunion with an old girlfriend. And I plan to continue that format. If I want to make the occasional commentary on love and dating, I absolutely will. But I’m not going to try to continue with a blog title that infers I write exclusively about dating topics, when I don't.

And so, my dear readers, I would be honored if you would continue to support my writing endeavors as I unveil my blog new title:

Chronicles of a Girl

Life will continue to be an adventure, I have no doubt. And I’ll continue to document those dynamic, insightful, truly hilarious, or sometimes just random moments.

Right here. As always.

Thanks for reading . Hope to see you back here every Monday and Thursday!

~Audra

Debauchery and Drunken Escapades

2010-02-04T06:00:00.001-06:00

The email started so innocently.

“I know we hardly know each other but I really feel compelled to write.”

And then? It was all downhill from there.

The author wanted to know why I was such a hypocrite. How I could be so active in my church but at the same time write a blog about nothing but debauchery and drunken escapades.

I splatter my keyboard with the coffee I’d been drinking as I read this, wasting a perfectly good mouthful of Starbucks raspberry latte in the process.

Debauchery? Drunken escapades? Dude. What blog are you reading?

He went on to basically tell me that I need to have my soul saved. Of course, my initial reaction is to type back and tell him, “Oh yeah? Well you’re a weirdo and you look like Charles Manson.”

So of course I do.

(Restraint and discretion are so over rated.)

After that tit for tat attack I break down and Google debauchery. Because honestly? I don’t even know what it means. If I’m guilty of it I should probably know what it is.

Turns out it’s a whole lot of sex. With a whole lot of people.

What?!?!?!

The closest I’ve ever gotten to a ménage a toi was walking in on my college roommate and her boyfriend. I screamed. She screamed. Her boyfriend laughed. And then I ran to the bathroom to scrub my eye sockets out because her boyfriend looked like Shrek with his clothes on. You don't want to know what he looked like with them off.

I still have nightmares.

I scan my memory for any writing I could have done that could be construed into debauchery and I am seriously perplexed. My blog reads more like Celibate on the Farm than Sex in the City.

Unless I have repressed some vague memory of a weekend stripping in Las Vegas I am pretty darn sure I’ve never experienced anything close to debauchery. The only conclusion that I can come to is that in this conservative pocket of the country single is synonymous with scandalous. If you aren’t married, well, then you must be out every weekend in hot pursuit of as much debauchery as possible.

And in my case, putting said escapades on the internet.

Well, Charles Manson’s evil weirdo twin.

I got news for ya.

The blog is called Dating Land. I’m single. And on occasion? I go on a date. And on said date I may indulge in a glass of, gasp!, wine.

And unless that date turns into a full blown relationship, no one ends up naked at the end of the night. I go home to my boring house and my boring life and sit down at my boring laptop and write about what it’s like to be alone and how hopeful I am that maybe someday? I’ll find that one person to spend the rest of my life with.

And the last time I checked?

That’s not a sin.

But judging others.

Sure as hell is.

That Sparky Spark

2010-02-01T06:00:00.000-06:00

I am now going to just write something so pathetically honest that everyone will outwardly gasp and exclaim, “How shallow!” while inwardly nodding in absolute agreement.

It’s okay. That’s what I always do too when people say this.

So here’s the deal.

When it comes to dating I’m really only looking for one thing.

That sparky spark.

That electrifying feeling that makes you feel like you just woke up from a long slumber, that life didn’t truly began until you discovered this person’s existence. Saw their face. Heard their voice. Someone you never get sick of talking to or hearing from, who even though you just met feels more familiar than your childhood home.

I know the technical term for what I just described is infatuation, but even finding that is not as easy as it sounds. And I should know. I’ve been single for three years. And I think I’ve been infatuated twice. Twice in three years? I catch a cold more often.

Trust me, I realize infatuation is not sustainable. It is merely the magic that love takes root inside of. Its as fragile as a bubble. Oftentimes, many relationships do not last long once it is crushed beneath the unromantic realities of life.

But it’s still important. It has the potential to be the start of something substantial. It can be that first chapter in a story that lasts the rest of your life.

So if I’m not “feeling it” with someone?

I call it off.

Call me shallow if you want to. I fully realize life is not all about butterflies and breathlessness. But you have to start somewhere.

And all I want?

Is to find that fire.

That starts.

With a spark.

Dating is Weird

2010-01-28T22:28:00.001-06:00

One of my newly divorced friends recently posted on her Facebook status this simple truth:

Dating is weird.

Ya think? No kidding, it’s weird. I mean really, what other human interaction do you have where you have to make witty conversation with a complete stranger over a steak all the while trying to discern if you ever want to see them naked?

That is like the weirdest thing you can subject yourself to as a human being. I am convinced.

The other part of it that’s so weird is that everyone tells you that in order to be really good at it you should stop trying. “It will happen when you least expect it,” they tell you with pity coated assurance.

What? Like a speeding ticket? Or a plantars wart? I never expected those. Other than a winning lottery ticket most surprises aren’t necessarily positive, people.

And finally, how weird is it that the single most important aspect of our human experience, love, is not to be sought after and pursued but instead, waited for. Everyone encourages you to not put effort into finding it. That is just odd, because everything else in life that’s worth achieving, from losing weight to getting a promotion, requires some effort. You can’t just sit around waiting for the magical hot ass fairy to transform your bumper. It’s called a stair stepper. If you want to do well in your career you aren’t just going to trip over a corner office and a secretary. It’s called hard work.

But apparently when it comes to love that’s more like waiting for a lightening strike and there is nothing you can do about it.

So yep. Dating is weird alright.

It’s an odd ritual usually involving awkward dinner conversation with a complete stranger. On top of that, it’s a thinly veiled activity geared toward a goal that you should not activity seek out but instead sit around and wait for, the odds of which seem to be similar to that of anticipating a rogue meteor crashing into your bathroom while you’re singing a U2 song. In the shower. On a Tuesday morning.

And frankly?

I am not sure.

You can get much weirder than that.

The Dating Land Mail Bag

2010-01-25T06:00:00.001-06:00

Every once in a while, I feel it necessary to put my fans in the spotlight. After all, the deluge of emails I get do help to fuel the solitary existence of my writing.

It’s really quite odd to me sometimes to actually comprehend how many people do read this thing. But more than that, it never ceases to amaze me how many people relate to what I write. Ever since the “I caught my boyfriend on a date with another woman at Granite City” story I get a lot of letters from people (men and women) who’ve just gone through a break up of their own. The stories and circumstances are varied, but the heartbreak?

It’s all the same.

Some of the letters I receive epitomize the power of a positive attitude and the ability to move forward and heal, such as this one:

I am thankful for the season of laughter with him and I must move forward. Tonight I am strong. Tomorrow I will be strong. I won't stop looking for love. I am one of God's beautiful daughters. I will be cherished and loved.

(This letter choked me up. What a positive outlook. These words were from a woman whose husband insisted they move across the country for his job, and once they were settled he announced he’d been having an affair for years and was leaving her.)

But some other letters? Well, they take a little different approach:

My ex boyfriend would be less of a sore spot if I were capable of developing feelings for anyone else. I don't know why I can't - I've got a veritable forest of d*ck at my disposal, so it's not like my options are all that limited, I'm just totally, wholeheartedly apathetic. Oh, and closed off.

(Oh trust me, I laughed so hard at the forest analogy I almost choked! But truly, with sarcasm like that as a life preserver? I think she’s going to be just fine!)

And some, well? They’re just brutally honest:

I just got done reading your most recent post on Dating Land, and I want to say, it really got me thinking. It also made me cry a bit because it reminded me of my life. I too, have had guys in my life lately who have made me cry. However, I have been really trying hard to be strong. I've told myself I don't "need a boyfriend" and that I should be strong and independent, etc. But your post reassured me that wanting love in my life is "nothing to be ashamed of." I also love that quote you put in one of your previous posts... "No guy is worth crying over, because the one who is won't make you cry." However, as you put it, I am human, and sometimes the pain just comes out despite my efforts to prevent it. Then I just can't stop the tears. Anyway, I wanted you to know I'm reading your posts, and am definitely getting something out of them, as I can really relate to your situation.

And so . . . thanks for reading, and thanks for writing. I’ll continue to document life’s journey and hopefully the connection that my writing provides makes everyone out there feel a little less alone in their very human experiences.

In truth, I think that anyone currently in their own version of Dating Land is any one of the above depending on the day. Sometimes positive and strong, sometimes apathetic and closed off, and sometimes just surrending to the reality that it can be overwhelming and even sad.

But wherever you are today on the journey, I do still want to perpetuate one perspective and that is this one:

Everyone deserves.

To be cherished.

And loved.

And that includes.

You.

I know, it's Thursday . . .

2010-01-21T06:00:00.002-06:00

. . . but I have this thing called "a job" :-) And it's been a GREAT WEEK at said job, but consequently, also extremely busy. I'll have a blog post for you tomorrow, Dating Land Fans.

I will tell you this though . . . this town is just too small. An acquaintance nonchalantly mentioned Nick in conversation yesterday and I had to learn that the girl I caught him on the date with in August: he is still dating.

That yucky feeling called "rejection" bubbled up and of course thoughts like, "Why wasn't I good enough?" surprisingly surfaced. I think that's just called "being human" so I am not going to worry too much about it.

I think everyone feels like that sometimes so if you have ever felt that too, all I am going to say is:

I understand.

~Audra
***************************************
UPDATE: About that Friday post, NOT happening. Be back on Monday folks!

Back to the Future

2010-01-19T22:27:00.000-06:00

It isn’t 1989 anymore.

“You know, you used to look like Madonna. Now? You look like Hannah Montana.”

This was my old high school boyfriend’s observation of my aging process when he friended me on Facebook after not seeing my face in over 20 years. (Apparently one set of blonde hair extensions later and I’m Miley Cyrus.)

I squint at the screen, assess his crow’s feet and thinning hair and refrain from typing back, “Yeah, well, you used to look like Rob Lowe. Now? I can’t even make a celebrity comparison.”

I’m not really sure where my youth went or that I ever want it back. For one, every woman who survived high school in the 1980’s looks better now than back when her dry permed disaster of a hairstyle was big enough to have its own zip code. And thanks to Brook Shields, who is the only woman on earth who looks good with bushy eyebrows, the rest of us only ended up looking like Bert without Ernie.

Era of bad fads and fashions aside, I’m also happy it’s not the 80’s anymore because now I’m a grown up. I know things.

At least I like to think I do.

This week I had to fly to Tampa for work and coincidentally, one of my best friends from high school lives in the area. We connected on Facebook (she used to look like a Poison rocker chick. Now? She’s a funky taller version of Reese Witherspoon) and decided to catch up while I was in town.

Her name is Kaylee and I would have died without her my freshman and sophomore years of high school. We lived, literally, in the The Middle of Nowhere, USA. Our only proof there was a world outside of our rural hostage situation was Mtv’s Top Ten Video Countdown, our after school salvation. Oh, and the 1980’s version of American Bandstand: Dance Party USA. Kelly Rippa actually got her start there, back in 1988 when her hair, and ass, were a lot bigger. (Seriously, she was a chubber. Believe it)

Kaylee was a year older than me in high school and I literally hadn’t seen her since she graduated in 1989. So when her shiny sporty car pulled up to my hotel on Sunday, I chuckled to myself as I remembered the numerous times she used to pick me up on a Saturday night back in high school. Once in a while, her sister would even let her drive her maroon Firebird. We’d crank up a little Poison and fly down the country highway to the next town where we’d cruise main for hours and try to lure cute boys into our orbit with our seductive mall bang frizz and come hither uni-brows.

Now, it’s twenty one years later and our reunion is one of hugs, laughter, and a lot better hair.

“I made a cd to commemorate the day!” Kaylee announces. She tosses me the case and I giggle as I read the list of songs: ACDC, Poison, and a little Beastie Boys.

Sunroof open and Brett Michaels blaring, the years between then and now fly into the happy Florida sunshine.

We chat effortless and catch up on each other’s families and careers. She is fascinated by my divorce. I am in awe of her marriage. We gossip about old friends, take pictures in the Gulf Coast surf and drink cocktails in the sunshine.

And all the while, I feel my soul recognize its place next to my old/new friend.

“Remember that Bon Jovi poster you had?”

“Sure do. I kissed it every night to the point my spit started warping his face.”

“Hey, didn't we make up actions to this Beastie Boys song?”

“We did! I completely forgot about that!”

"And guess what? I think I remember them!"

“I can’t believe how boy crazy we were.”

“Hey, I’m still boy crazy.”

“Ya think?!!?"

Time has marched on, shook us up, and spit us out in different places with different lives. But it has not robbed us of our memories of one another.

My afternoon with Kaylee was a trip.

Literally.

Because for one day in the sun?

It was 1989 again.
**************************************************************
Thanks for the time traveling, "Kaylee." Miss you already! Let's not wait another 20 years to see each other. If we do? I'll be pushing 60 . . . and by then? Yeah, well, I can't guarantee that the uni-brow won't make a come back . . .

1985 ~ Bowling for Soup

She’s seen all the classics
She knows every line
Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink
Even Saint Elmo’s Fire
She rocked out to Wham
Not a big Limp Bizkit fan
Thought she’d get a hand
On a member of Duran Duran

Where’s the mini-skirt made of snake skin
And who’s the other guy that's singing in Van Halen
When did reality become T.V.
Whatever happened to sitcoms, game shows
(on the radio was)

Springsteen, Madonna
Way before Nirvana
There was U2 and Blondie
And music still on MTV
Her two kids in high school
They tell her that she’s uncool
Cause she's still preoccupied
With 19, 19, 1985

She hates time make it stop
When did Motley Crue become classic rock?
And when did Ozzy become an actor?
Please make this stop
Stop!
And bring back

Springsteen, Madonna
Way before Nirvana
There was U2 and Blondie
And music still on MTV
Her two kids in high school
They tell her that she’s uncool
Cause she's still preoccupied
With 1985

Greetings from the Tropics!

2010-01-18T20:51:00.000-06:00

Well, not really the tropics . . . Tampa, but trust me, by comparison to the Tundra I just left, this is paradise!

On a business trip and I'll have to catch up with the blog a day later. Sorry, readers, but tune in Tuesday instead of Monday this week. I had a little flashback to 1987 today. When Trans Ams with T-Tops were cool, hair was huge, and Music Television played what it promised it would.

Stay Gold, Pony Boy.

I'll be back tomorrow!

Audra

The Little Girl in the Attic

2010-01-14T07:10:00.006-06:00

Miep Gies died this week at the age of 99.

She was but a humble secretary in Germany, a very simple woman. A woman who in her 30's went to work every day like many of us do. Whose days may have seemed as mundane as our own filled with tasks and to do lists.

And then life did what life does. It changed unexpectedly. Circumstances that Miep had no control over crashed into her life and altered reality into an unrecognizeable state.

World War II.

And Miep continued on, doing what she had to do every day. Although what that looked like changed significantly when the Jewish man she worked for, Otto Frank, asked her to help him hide his family and four others in the attic of the office building where she worked.

For more than two years, Miep sheltered the Franks.

She did what she had to do.

Today, my dear readers, I know many of you are facing your own struggles and adversity. So my advice to you is to simply remember Miep, and do what you have to do. As the look and feel of your daily tasks change, stay the course. Your simple devotion to the task at hand has the potential to resonate in ways yet to be seen.

A testament to that simple truth are the words of one little girl who changed the world with her innocent honesty and wise truths. She was able to write them, and we are able to read them, because Miep simply did what she had to do. She bought the groceries. Ran the errands. And ultimately, saved those words.

I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consiting of confusion, misery and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness. I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too. I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end. In the meantime, I must uphold my ideals for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out!

Anne Frank - July 13, 1944

You did carry those ideals out, Anne.

And we owe it all to Miep and her ability.

To carry on.
****************************************
Every once in a while "Dating Land" will deviate from the humorous twists of life, because sometimes....life just isn't funny. This entry today is for some dear friends of mine facing some tough struggles. Stay the course. Buy the groceries. Care for your children. Take care of daily life. Those insignificant things matter more than you will ever realize . . . God bless. And carry on. ~Audra

What's the Name of the Game?

2010-01-11T06:00:00.002-06:00

If I’m having a down day, this Green Day/Weezer/Off Spring fan will chuck her alternative/I’m cooler than an arctic glacier playlist out her sunroof and crank up a little ABBA. So if you see a blonde weirdo cruising around town in a black Altima belting the lyrics to “Dancing Queen” or “Take a Chance on Me” behind tinted glass windows? Yeah. That would be me.

Recently, the lyrics to another ABBA tune caught my ear:

What’s the name of the game? Does it mean anything to you?

Interesting. These lyrics were written when I was still in Pampers. Looks like the only thing that’s gone out of style are plaid bell bottoms and avacado appliances. Human nature seems to be still singing the same old confusing song.

Games.

And I am not talking about a good old round of monopoly with Uncle Chuck on Thanksgiving. I’m talking about the kind of games people play in this eternally confusing place that is Dating Land.

There are unwritten rules, codes of conduct, and hidden agendas that are enough to make me want to become an asexual amoeba and just throw in the proverbial towel. I am going on year three of singledom and I am probably more clueless than I was when I first said “I don’t” (got a divorce).

The biggest game that I, personally, just don’t understand is this perpetual need that most men have to string numerous women along at one time. One of my guy friends just confessed to flirting/texting/emailing/coffee-ing and simultaneously canoodling with four women.

Yes, I just said four.

When I asked him if he thought this harem approach to life was normal, he assured me that yes, it absolutely is.

Really?

It sounds more like a part time job.

I wonder if he ever gets them mixed up? Accidentally emails Amy and calls her Angela? Maybe texts Barbara but mistakenly called her Bonnie? Forgot he already told that same funny story to Angela on Tuesday when he meant to tell it to Barbara on Wednesday?

I bet when he was a kid he stood at the candy aisle endlessly trying to decide between a candy bar, lollipop or a pack of gum. Oh wait a second, the taffy looks tempting. What to do . . . what to do. I am sure that little twit stuffed them all in his pocket, snuck into the store bathroom and sampled them all. And then when he still couldn’t decide, he bought them, took them home to his bedroom where he took alternate bites of each one until they were gone. Never really deciding which one he liked best but finishing them all off just the same.

I’m a Hershey bar.

I freaking knew it.

Well this is one game I am not signing up for. First of all, when it comes to dating I do not have ADD and I think that is a good thing. If I spend a couple weeks talking to a guy and getting to know him then he can trust that I am not perpetuating the same level of dialogue or attention with four other dudes.

I look at it this way.

Some day. I am going to meet “the one.” And when I do, I want it to be a good story. I want to be interviewed on my 50th wedding anniversary and say, “When Bobby and I met, we were crazy about each other.”

I don’t want to say, “Well, when Bobby came along I had hard time juggling my time with him as I was also seeing Tom, Dick and Harry.”

You know what the grandkids would say to that?

Yeah, one guess.

Grandma was a whore.

That’s what they’d say to that.

So, okay, Bobby, wherever you are. When we do find each other? I can promise you one thing.

My only rule is that we give each other our full attention and just see where it goes.

Because I’ll promise you one thing. Any grandchildren we may have someday are going to be awfully proud of their Grandma. Because the only game she’s going to be really good at?

Is Monopoly on Thanksgiving with Uncle Chuck.

Because Granny's got a hotel on Park Place, baby.

Pay up.

I got nothin'

2010-01-07T06:00:00.000-06:00

Okay, I do have something but it's not done yet! I'm skipping today, tune in on Monday.

(Shut up, Naomi!)

;-)

Audra

Strippers and Cinderella Stories

2010-01-03T21:15:00.007-06:00

Artists, of all kinds, are truly tortured souls. We feel not only a sense of obligation to all humanity to use our gift to document our journey, but also experience a drive to create that is so intense it is practically involuntary.

Like breathing.

The purpose of my blog is multi-faceted. Yes, I write because I feel compelled to do so, and yes I blog because it’s somewhere that I can experience instant self-publication gratification. But it’s also a writing career necessity.

Take this story for example:

Diablo Cody was actually working as a stripper in Minneapolis and blogging about the vulgar and ridiculous adventures this “it pays the bills” stint created. Her humorous writing style caught the eye of a movie producer who happened to be, ah hem, surfing porn one cold and lonely internet night. He stumbled upon Cody’s blog and was so engaged by her wit and literary voice that he emailed her and asked her if she had anything else.

Her answer?

Yes. She'd actually just spent the winter sitting in the corner of a Starbucks at a Target store down the street from her apartment hammering out a story on her unreliable laptop.

The producer loved it and the rest is Academy Award history.

Cody's story won an Oscar for best original screenplay in 2007:

Juno

A fairy tale ending made possible because of one writer's determination to "put it out there."

To blog.

To write.

To breathe.

Does that mean I have a gold statue in my future? Who knows, but you can’t live it if you don’t dream it first.

So, here’s an excerpt from my novel, Dating Land fans. I am slowly chiseling away at it chapter by chapter. The blog is taking somewhat of a hit because of it, I completely confess, so instead of making excuses about how pathetic my dating life is and whining about my dry spell, I’ll give you a glimpse into something that I’ve actually been putting a lot of energy into.

(As always, thanks for reading . . . and yes, if someday Reese Witherspoon is up there getting a little gold bald man statue for playing a character based on moi, you are all SO invited to the after party!)

~Audra

Dating Land; The Novel

I have been divorced for all of two years so I am just now starting to figure out how to navigate this eternally confusing social scene. There are rules and guidelines and a whole butt load of things that I know nothing about, considering the last time I dated Kurt Cobain was still alive. Computers existed but they didn’t fit on anyone’s lap, at least not comfortably. Now, technology plays such a vital role in dating that I am oftentimes more lost than an Eskimo at the beach. For example, it took me a few go rounds before I realized that if I texted a guy and he didn’t text back immediately that that doesn’t warrant a panic attack, it may mean he just got a phone call from his aunt Debra. Now, twenty four hours later and still no reply? That’s code for “go away I do not like you and do not have the balls to actually tell you that in person. Read my silence.”

Honestly, there should be some kind of re-introductory program for people like me looking to date again after being married for so many years: “Dating Rules for the Desperate and Divorced.” Perhaps something modeled after the program inmates use when completing a significant jail term. Instead of, “So, Bobby Joe, since you went into the slammer in 1970 a lot has changed. This is a microwave and this is a dvd player,” my version would be “So, Audra Kutz, since you quit the single scene you no longer need to be home to take a phone call but you also need to learn how to text witty, charming, and “sexy without being slutty” messages in 160 characters or less while operating a motor vehicle, which is technically not safe but sometimes vital in certain dating scenarios.”

Sigh.

It’s enough to make me want to switch places with a reformed criminal. I mean really, how intimidating can a microwave be?

The "Hot Date" Test

2009-12-31T06:00:00.003-06:00

“Hey, how was lunch with that guy the other day?” Naomi is forever inquisitive of any and all interaction I have with the opposite sex. I can’t believe she didn’t interrogate me after my trip to the dentist last week, after all, he’s a male. (Albeit 62 and married, but still.) Perhaps her “I have a boyfriend existence” must be getting mundane since she’s endlessly searching for dramatic developments in my spinster/cat lady land life.

“That was lunch. He’s just a friend, why?”

“What makes you say he’s just a friend? How do you know he’s just a friend?” She narrows her eyes and I start wondering if she’s going to grab a spotlight out of her purse and begin a full on interrogation.

I briefly consider asking to call my attorney. “What has gotten into you? You have more tenacity lately than Tiger Woods in a brothel.”

“Well? Like I said, how do you know?”

This woman does not give up.

I grunt at her, cock my eyebrow upwards and announce, “I didn’t buy a new shirt. That. Is how I know.”

She collapses in laughter, surrendering to illogical logic.

Inside joke explained: I have this very very odd habitual pattern of running straight to the mall and buying a new shirt when I have a date with someone I really like. In fact, if it’s winter I’ve even been known to buy a new coat.

Twice.

In fact, Naomi likes to use my odd garment gathering as a barometer for just how of hot a date we're talking about here. “You like him? Alright, so how much was the shirt?”

In one case last year an ex-boyfriend of mine who I’d secretly pined for for months asked me to help him write his resume. Of course, I wanted to believe this was confusing boy code for “I can’t live without you, I want you back.” We agreed to meet for coffee to go over his career logistics but not before I went to the mall and bought the cutest damn shirt I could find.

(Naomi didn’t approve, she thought my history with him didn’t warrant the investment. Advised me to keep the receipt.)

I thought it was a wonderful wardrobe decision for what I was sure was to be the first step in an obvious reunion.

Yeah, not so much. Turns out he really was just a fan of my writing abilities. Because twenty minutes into our meeting I had to sit there in my cute new shirt and listen to him tell me all about his cute new girlfriend.

What a waste of my Wet Seal wandering.

(I did keep the shirt though. It really was cute.)

So, here I am. No boyfriend in sight but with a closet full of adorable tops, blouses and sweaters. Maybe I have enough of a collection now that I can break this bad habit, I have plenty of options now, right?

Oh hey, wait a second. I just got a text from Brad Pitt. What the? He’s finally leaving Angelina for moi? He’ll be here in four hours?

Hold on, I have to call Naomi . . .

Okay, Dating Land fans. I gotta run. She’s going to be here in five minutes.

We’re going to the mall.

Because there's a new shirt out there with my name on it.

Mrs. Audra Pitt

Odd Happenings in the Life of Moi

2009-12-28T06:00:00.002-06:00

I am going out for dinner tonight and when I do, I am having a beer.

And I don’t even like beer.

But it’s been one of those weeks. The kind where I've actually caught myself giving thanks that I am not pregnant, unemployed, or dealing with a leprosy diagnosis.

When you have to go that dark to cheer yourself up . . . yeah, it's been a rough go.

First off, my ex-husband got engaged. Which is just fine, but odd. It kind of feels like he's doing a remake of our life and I've been recast as a brunette with huge boobs.

Weird.

Secondly, my ex-boyfriend (no one ever mentioned in this blog) who broke up with me because I was 10 years older is now dating an older woman. But she doesn’t have kids. She has a dog.

Lovely.

Thirdly,a guy who I had not only amazing relationship potential with but who I could actually envision becoming my best friend (which is the fairytale everyone is seeking) is MIA and busy snowmobiling. I am trying to forget he exists. That is working about 80% of the time . . . alright, up that stat to 95%. I don't want to make myself sound like a pining woos. (Okay, maybe it's 92.5%...)

Last but not least, I think George Clooney just wrote to me on Match.com. But of course, he's slightly psycho.

Those celebs usually are.

On an up note, I’m making some great progress on my novel and am highly considering developing an allergy to dating until I finish that baby on or around June 1st.

If I do that, I have no idea what will happen to Dating Land.

Maybe I’ll just have to write about Naomi . . . she’s got more material than a fabric store going out of business.

We'll see . . .
**************************************************
Private Message to Team Anders:
My blog is about relationships. But no relationship is more precious than the love we have for our children. Dating Land's theme is dating . . . but behind the scenes is a real life, with real love, that comes in many many forms.

Endless thoughts and prayers over the years and miles to you and your family my dear friend . . .
~Audra

Just Hanging out in the Sahara

2009-12-24T06:00:00.009-06:00

"So, about the blog lately," Naomi announces one day. I sense a topic suggestion coming. With an English degree, and BBF status, Naomi is the default Dating Land editor. And she takes it seriously. (I wonder if she's noticed yet that I don't pay her?)

"And?"

"And . . . call me crazy but I think Dating Land needs to go on a, oh I dunno, date? I'm down with the Santa story and the locked door but let's go, already. You've sat around on your single arse long enough. Dating Land is in a dry spell."

"Arse? Are you Irish?" I sarcastically counter.

"Don't change the subject."

"First of all it's not a dry spell if it's self inflicted. Secondly, you know I wait a month or two before deciding on what material to use. I can't write about what's going on in the present. I'd be psycho writer dating pariah if I typed up my personal life in real time and put it on the internet. Gawd woman. I'm not going to make the guys I date into sacraficial lambs for the sake of my writing."

"What are you talking about? What "guys you date?" You've barely left your house in a month!" A more pathetic truth was never spoken.

"Hey," I protest, "I go to the grocery store. And . . the gym."

"Oh boy. The gym. It'd more exciting if you knew someone named Jim. What about that Johnny Depp guy you met? Mr. Baseball."

"Him? Must we bring that lunch meeting up?" Leave it to Naomi, the woman with a boyfriend, to categorize a rebound moment as a real date. "I treated that whole thing like a business meeting." I roll my eyes to no one but myself. "I am sure he thinks I am a weirdo the way I rambled on and on and interviewed him so coldly. Argh," I sigh in frustration, "that was just humiliating quite honestly. I wasn't over you know who. I should not have even gone."

"Yeah, well, you are a weirdo but in a good way, usually. As for that decision, little Miss Sabotage, rebounds usually result in casual sex. I'm not sure what you were doing that day. I don't know if qualifies as rebounding, because you certainly didn't get laid."

"Really? You can tie lunch to sex? Really?"

"I'm talented."

"You're ridiculous."

"I'm ridiculous? I'm not the one who blew the date with Mr. Baseball who lookes like a celebrity. Didn't you say he cooks?"

"Yep."

"Damn. Looks like People magazine's Sexiest man alive and a chef? Wow. You should get a medal for messing that one up."

"You know, we didn't have much in common. He doesn't read. Well, he can read, he just doesn't read. I can't date someone who doesn't read."

"Are you looking for companionship or starting a book club?"

"Bite me."

"Okay, forget I suggested this. Your dating life is deader than your grandma's libido," she finally surrenders.

"Ew, if my grandma has a libido I don't want to know. Besides," I counter in defense, "part of being single is NOT dating. Sometimes it's the healthier choice to just spend some time alone."

"True. But if you keep this up, you're going to have to change the name of your blog to Creeply Old Cat Lady Land. You do realize.

"Hey, I like my cats."

"My point. Exactly."

********************************************

Merry Christmas everyone! My plans for the holidays include overdosing on snowman shaped frosted cookies, pretzels dipped in sugar, and sitting in a recliner at my parents' farm watching waaaaaaaaaaay too much Pay Per View. It does NOT, and I repeat NOT, include anything that remotely resembles dating.

Hmmmm. . . . maybe I should start saving up for cat litter now . . .?

~Audra

Alright. Who Locked This Door?!?!?!

2009-12-21T06:00:00.001-06:00

“Mom, I can’t open the bathroom door,” my teen daughter nonchalantly informs me late one night.

“Oh for cripe’s sake.” I march to the door wondering at what point I turned into my own crabby mother. I once made the mistake of disciplining one of my children while standing in front of a mirror. There was my own mom, harping away. Wait a second. That’s me. Oh my gawd.

It’s true what they say, our children are our parents revenge. In fact, right after giving birth to my first child I called my mother not only to announce the news I’d just turned her into a grandma before she’d hit menopause but to apologize for the torturous experience of my own birth. She appreciated the sentiments, even if it was twenty one years after that hot July day in 1972 when I started screaming the moment only my head was delivered. She had to listen to my yelling for another twenty minutes while she labored to get the rest of me out of her.

(Sorry, Mom. What can I say? I’ve been emotional from the first second my lungs sucked air. Some things never change.)

I push on the bathroom door. Hmmm. I push harder. Throw a little shoulder into it this time. Nada. What the? What happened? Why the flip is this door locked? From the inside?

I interrogate my offspring. Of course, no one knows anything. I consider Chinese water torture but just surrender to the fact my kids may end up CIA agents someday the way they guard interrogating information. Gremlins apparently slunk their way into our neighborhood with the sole purpose of sabotaging our morning showers.

Fine. Whatever.

I live in an older character home and this particular door has a deadbolt that must be turned with some effort in order to secure the lock. How the hell the deadbolt ended up bolted is slightly mysterious. Hmmm, poltergeist? Who should I call? Locksmith or priest?

It’s pretty late by the time the mysterious bathroom ghost has pulled this prank so I decide not to call anyone and just tackle this baby myself before certifying my damsel in distress status. How hard can this be?

I find my toolbox in the basement, and yes, I own a toolbox. I assess the situation and settle on a needle nosed pliers. I can clearly see the back of the deadbolt through a small hole in the door. That’s gotta be it. One hour of grunting, groaning, slipping and sliding later, I am no further. (And yes, normally activities of this nature would fall into the fun things to do after midnight category, but not in this case.)

In this time all I’ve succeeded in doing so far is to remove the doorknob. That did nothing. Yes, I realize. But in a moment of desperation I decided to unscrew every screw I saw. Which was, I know, completely pointless.

Now my locked door has no doorknob. Yay.

At 1:00am I admit defeat and go to bed.

I have nightmares about having to spend the rest of my life showering at the truck stop down the road.

In the morning I make the damn call to the locksmith. He shows up. Takes one look at the door. Grabs MY tool and proceeds to do precisely what I’d spent hours the night before doing.

Four nanoseconds later he turns the bolt and unlocks the door.

Are you flipping kidding me?

I could have fixed this on my own? All I was missing was testosterone?

Fifty five dollars later I’m back in my bathroom and just irritated that I needed to call a man to do this. I was smart enough to figure out what needed to be done and how to do it. But in the end the only thing that inhibited my success was brute strength? Argh.

Well, that experience was a metaphor for a lot of things. There is something within all of us that tells us that if we can’t do something alone then we’re weak. Independence epitomizes success. That if we need help, we’ve failed.

I’ve had three friends call me this week because relationships have ended, and not all women either. One was a guy. But the feelings were all the same.

Hopefully, my shoulder and advice was helpful. I think it was, for they all thanked me for listening and sharing my wisdom.

I guess I just kind of hope that for them, I was their locksmith. I didn’t bring any special tools or new ideas. I just brought a little strength that I’ve picked up along the way.

And hopefully? Well, I hope my words were just the keys they needed.

To unlock a few doors of their own.
********************************************
No offense, Mom...you had your crabby moments but overall you were pretty fun! :-)

Why Drunk Dialing is Always a Bad Idea or "Sure. If you want to be a psycho, go right ahead."

2009-12-17T21:55:00.000-06:00

“Don’t call him.”

“I’m not going to!”

“Don’t text him.”

“I do not plan on it.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I!”

Two days later . . .

“I called him.”

“I knew it.”

The preceding exchange is one that has played out several times in my life. Although I’ve been on both sides of the dialogue. I’ve been the one harping my girlfriend NOT to call that jerk again. And, I’ve been the one being coached into silent power post-heartbreak.

Like warriors in battle, we hold each other up and cheer each other on.

I honestly have to say, I am pretty good at the letting go. I’m forever the romantic so the writer in me has a pretty consistent pattern that includes at least one obligatory and well written “woe is me email” a day or two after a breakup. But after that, I can pretty much put that puppy to bed and get on with my life, self-respect intact. Besides, I’ve tried the “pining and “groveling” hats on and they just aren’t flattering. I look much better in “independent” and “good bye loser.”

Some of my other friends? Yeah, they wrote the book on drunk dialing your dignity away. And I am talking about women pushing fifty. Seriously.

But the need to be loved is eternal and doesn’t expire when menopause hits.

Just this past weekend a good friend ended a long term relationship. And then. She proceeded to get.

What else? Completely smashed.

“Sharon,” one of the women in our post-break up platoon ordered her at the end of the night, “Now don’t call Brad. If you do . . . I am going to cut off . . . your left labia.”

After I finally quit laughing hysterically, I soberly underscore, “Now that is a pretty serious threat, Sharon.” And point out the logical consequence, “because what is your next boyfriend going to say?”

I deepen my voice and clear my throat. “So Sharon. I see you’re missing your left labia?”

“Ah yes,” I raise my voice a couple octaves and do my best Sharon impression, “the result of an unfortunate drunk dial late last year.”

Awkward.

My friends and I collapse into girlish giggles, but the point is that silence is serious. It’s no laughing matter.

When a guy is being a terd, I don’t care how terrific he was last Tuesday or how wonderful he was last week. The now is what matters. And if now he is more absent than a classroom of second graders with the swine flu then just let him be. Good gawd.

Don’t call him.

Don’t text him.

Don’t send him a smoke signal.

Silence is power.

Breaking it.

Is psycho.

Because you know what? If his idiot attack is temporary?

Then he’ll come back on his own terms.

And if he does.

Do you really want to have to explain . . .

. . . how you lost your left labia?

I didn’t think so.

All I Want for Christmas

2009-12-14T06:00:00.000-06:00

I took my little girl to see Santa last weekend. And as the line of parents and toddlers snaked its way toward the jolly old elf, it struck me that this may very well be the last time I make this obligatory parental Christmas trek to the mall.

She’ll be nine next Christmas.

And so, the idea of Santa Claus, at least the innocent belief that he truly does exist in the capacity I’ve taught her that he does, is something she will more than likely outgrow by the time the calendar reads December 25th again. This milestone strikes me out of the blue as I’m standing in line and realize that my child is a lot taller than many of the other children here to see St. Nicolas.

I embrace this precious moment before it melts like the fleeting snow and kneel down so I can enthusiastically whisper with her about what she is going to ask Santa Claus for this year. Her eyes and goofy little personality (where’d she inherit that from?) are shiny with anticipation as she lists out the toys and items she has on her Christmas list this year: a purse, Jonas Brothers boots, an American Girl doll, and maybe . . . a convertible?

“I think we can probably scratch the convertible, kiddo.” I tickle her tummy and she laughs at her own little joke.

My normally impatient child is the epitome of serene as the line slowly inches toward the elf on his throne. We watch enthralled as wide-eyed little girls and boys in their Christmas best are deposited on Santa’s lap and artfully tricked by the photographer to transform their awe, or terror, into smiles.

Soon, it’s her turn. She jumps onto Santa’s knee and all of her wishes spill out as she twists her hands and dutifully recites her Christmas list. I stand to the side and try not to be sad mommy mourning a milestone and instead just enjoy the sweet innocence of the moment, for the present is where life resides.

And right now. Its adorable.

When she finishes, we snap a photo too. Her wide smile needs no prompting.

As we say our farewells to Santa, she stops and announces, “Oh, Mommy, I forgot to ask Santa for something really important!” She rushes back and proclaims for all to hear, “Santa! One more thing. Can you please, please, please bring my mom a nice boyfriend? The ones she finds always make her cry.”

I laugh awkwardly. I know her intentions are so loving but I am embarrassed by all the other parents who just heard what she said. I feel like white trash single dating mom all the sudden. I make great efforts to insulate my children from my dating life but I am just human. And sometimes? Well, they have seen my pain.

I try to brush off the comment and gracefully usher her to the exit as I smile awkwardly and mumble meagerly in an effort to retain some level of dignity in front of all these strangers, “Oh, that’s not necessary. Mommy doesn’t need a boyfriend, she’s just fine, come on, sweetie . . .”

But before I can take more than one step, the kindly old man in the deep red velvet Santa suit gently takes me by the elbow and smiles warmly. His eyes shine as he pulls me close enough to see that yes, his beard is real, his voice a hushed whisper, “Its okay to ask for love for Christmas you know. It is actually my favorite gift to give.”

He looks up at my speechless expression, releases my arm, and promises with a wink and a grin, “I will see about the boyfriend.”

And I know it's so weird because this is just some old man at the mall in a rented red suit but I feel a warmth come over me that is just plain comforting. Like I just got a hug from my Grandpa.

I am no longer embarrassed.

"Thanks ..." I whisper back.

As my daughter and I leave the crowded mall hand in hand I think about that crazy old guy and what just happened and smile to myself.

For I realize. Well, Santa may not be real.

But love is.

And he was right. Looking for it.

Is not anything to be ashamed of.
*********************************************

But if you do bring me a boyfriend on Christmas, Santa? Please make sure he’s wearing more than just a bow. As much as I would enjoy that . . .

I do have children to consider.

Life

2009-12-10T06:00:00.000-06:00

No mistakes . . . just lessons.

**********************************
Two girlfriends had break ups today . . . so I made break up brownies, and break up tacos, and we drank break up wine.

Check back on Monday, Dating Land fans . . . because I do have a story.

Muah!
Love,
Audra

P.S. Nick was spotted with a woman at the mall buying a whip. Yes. A whip. Excuse me while I hurl . . .

Dear Marilyn . . . I get it.

2009-12-03T18:33:00.003-06:00

The truth is I've never fooled anyone. I've let people fool themselves. They didn't bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn't argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn't.

~ Marilyn Monroe

******************************
A new story starts on Monday, readers.

Thanks for reading!

~Audra

Chapter Twenty Six; Live Strong

2009-11-30T06:00:00.004-06:00

I run.

I started about four years ago. This former diva of domesticity and cookies decided to hit a treadmill and ended up inadvertently discovering just how life altering running can be.

And I’m not just talking about my ass. (Which experienced a significant alteration of its own to the tune of a size 4, thank you very much.)

I’ve since run my way through a divorce, dating debacles, and even a job loss. I attribute not just my survival of life’s suckier moments to running but also the capability it gives me to transform them.

And Nick’s departure was no exception.

I eventually did heal.

But not by retreating.

By running.

Oh, of course I cried. All of my September is a cloudy salty memory. But I punctuated my grieving by tightly lacing up my tennis shoes, cranking up my iPod, and sailing down the street on nothing but rhythmic breath and the measured cadence of my Aesics on the asphalt.

Mile after mile.

I ran out the pain.

I missed him. I cursed him. I loved him. I hated him. I second guessed myself. I wondered about this qwest I was on for love. It seems so futile sometimes.

Four weeks before I had arranged for my mom to watch my children on a particular upcoming weekend in anticipation of Nick’s birthday.

He was gone but the plans for my children to visit their Granny remained. So I took advantage of my freedom and signed up to run a 5K that was part of a larger-half marathon event. A symbolic gesture of my ability. To keep moving forward.

Even when all I wanted to do was sit down.

And sob.

I run 5K’s all the time. They’re kind of my thing. But today this race was different. Nick might be physically strong but when it comes to character and compassion?

This time.

I’m the strong one.

Because instead of staying home and lamenting the fact that I am not on his arm at the birthday party he'd spent weeks planning I am up at the butt crack of dawn.

Running a fucking race.

The starting gun fires. My running playlist echoes in my eardrums and my body moves in its rhythmical pace. The terrain is unfamiliar and far more hilly than what I am used to.

But I run on.

Because this isn’t the first time life’s put me on a course that I would not have charted for myself. It bends and lifts and plunges, forever unpredictable. Just like life. The trying times and the joyful possibilities. They are entwined and connected and dependent upon one another. And all of it must be navigated if the finish line is ever to be crossed.

Because the race doesn’t stop just because there is a hill.

And the road doesn’t end just because it curves.

In fact, neither does this sometimes tragic but forever beautiful.

Life.

Bring on the hills and let me see what's around that corner.

Because this chick runs strong.

And lives.

Stronger.

**************************************
It’d be poetic justice to report I not only finished first but set a world record wouldn't it? Maybe a little Olympic qualification? "Happy birthday, Nick. Who needs you? I’m a freaking rock star!" Yeah, not so much. But I did okay. Under a 9 minute mile and 4th place in my age division out of fifty some women. But running, for me, isn’t about the numbers. It’s about momentum. And energy goes one direction, babe.

Forward.

You are SUPER SEXY and I am DISEASE FREE!

2009-11-25T16:56:00.003-06:00

Yes. It's true. I signed up for Match.com.

And that line in the title is an honest to god/swear on the bible/not remotely made up gen-u-wine email that I received from a potential match.

Some guy in Nebraska. Who's the same age as my Dad.

I know! Can you BELIEVE there is such quality in the online lonely hearts club? Where have you been all my life STD free old man? Let me fly there immediately, sans condoms, and run off into the sunset with so you can tell me all about what life was like in the 1950's.

Ew.

Gag me with my computer mouse already.

I am sure I'll have plenty oh match dot com stories for ya shortly, Dating Land fans. But in the meantime, I'm slacking off on the bloggin' during this Thanksgiving holiday, but if you miss me...tune in tonight (Wednesday!) to KFGO and catch me on the air.

I'm going to read some of my match.com correspondence. You can't make this stuff up. Listen online at www.kfgo.com.

Thanks for reading!!!

~Audra

What is love?

2009-11-23T06:00:00.002-06:00

"Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get. Only with what you are expecting to give . . . which is everyththing."~ Katharine Hepburn

********************************
I apologize there is no blog entry today. I had the kind of weekend that inspires blog stories for later . . .

Ultimately what I fear most is that this journey so far is damaging my trust in others, and that much of it has been robbed of me already.

What happens when trust dissovles permanently?

And there is nothing left to give?

The answer to that question is what I am most afraid.

Of becoming.

Here's to love. And the trust in hope that allows all of us to do what Katharine Hepburn says.

To keep giving.

Everything.

~Audra

Chapter Twenty Five; Consolation Prize

2009-11-19T06:00:00.006-06:00

I am kind of a sap. I save things.

But not indefinitely.

I shred bank statements, throw out my children’s artwork (come on, how many popsicle creations does a person really need?) and sort through the family’s clothes every season. I donate, recycle, and basically just throw junk out that no longer has any use.

But when it comes to sentimental items? That’s a different story.

I keep everything.

Birthday cards from my high school boyfriend, letters my great grandma sent me in college, some junky old Christmas ornament I made in the first grade that my mom told me was beautiful (even though it’s nothing but about ten sequins glued to a Styrofoam ball).

I have all that crap.

Organized. Labeled.

Saved.

I am kind of a hoarder when it comes to matters of the heart.

I don’t know what I am envisioning. My great grandchildren going through my life in boxes some day long after my funeral and seeing that I had some kind of a life with a little bit of love sprinkled here and there? Maybe I’m collecting evidence simply to demonstrate that I was here on this earth for a little while.

And while I was.

It mattered.

And so, when things with Nick ended I didn’t throw anything out. Not that I had much. But I had a few things. He’d given me a coffee mug with the fire department logo on it. I use it. (Hey, it’s a perfectly good mug.) Although I feel like chuckling every time I do. It seems to represent the parting gift for a game show I was on and didn’t win.

“Thanks for playing! Here’s your consolation prize.”

Once you get past the heartbreak it honestly can be entertaining, the tangible remnants of a relationship that remain.

I once had a boyfriend who left his blender at my house.

Weird.

I did return that though. I really didn’t want to think about him every time I made a malt.

What I mostly have as evidence Nick was here are texts and emails he sent me. I don’t ever read them. But I love words, and those are meaningful to me. I know I’ll delete them eventually. But for now.

I just have them.

I also have pictures.

Every one he ever sent me. And he sent me a lot.

A picture’s worth a thousand words. After all.

Recently, I had blackberry issues. And I had to take my phone in. The texts remain, but several of the pictures are gone.

One of the pictures I’d planned to use at the end of this blog.

It was of the daisies he’d brought me. Bright, white, and beautiful on my kitchen counter.

I don’t know why we women take pictures of flowers when we receive them. Probably a meager attempt to capture the simple fact that someone thought you were important enough to acknowledge your presence with blossoms. Flowers mark our most memorable milestones after all. Birth. Marriage. Death. They announce that something grand and large has just taken place.

So when someone gives you flowers for no reason? They are a symbolic celebration.

Of just you.

And that. Warrants a photograph.

I lost that picture of Nick's daisies when I had my phone restaged.

But then, the other day, I pulled a book off my nightstand I hadn’t opened in quite a while.

And a pressed daisy fell to the floor.

I’d completely forgotten. I’d saved it.

Ironically, I’d placed it between the pages of a book about the love story of Spencer Tracey and Katherine Hepburn.

I picked up the crumbling remains of that flower and nonchalantly placed it on the cover.

An affair to remember. The title reads.

Ha.

Nice.

I think to myself.

How great of a relationship was this? Is it really worth remembering? I mean really.

What’s so great about a guy who roars into your life on a Harley?

And then leaves you with nothing but electronic correspondence, a coffee mug, and a dead daisy?

Doesn’t sound like an affair to remember to me.

Sounds more like one.

To forget.

I threw the brittle petals in the garbage. And headed to my laptop to hit the delete button a few hundred times.

And oh yeah.

Anyone out there need a sturdy coffee mug?

Because I have one.

That I really don’t feel like keeping.

***************************************************
Yes . . . that really is the daisy in the photo on the cover of the book. What? I had to take a picture.

Oh, hey . . . I'm going to be on KFGO again next Wednesday, November 25th @ 9:00 CST. Hope you can tune in! I'll be talking about heartbreak . . . and healing.

Chapter Twenty Four; Wake Me Up. When September Ends.

2009-11-16T06:00:00.001-06:00

Nick descended into my life with ferocious abruptness.

And that is exactly how he left.

For the first two weeks in September I cried a lot. After that, I just walked around like a zombie. Feeling nothing and still feeling everything. This horrible in between place called apathy that results when death comes prematurely to a promise.

I missed him. Well, I missed the idea of him. After all, what do you really have after just less than two months together? Get real. It’s not like I caught my husband of 20 years boinking his secretary. Whatever we’d had.

Was brief.

So what the flip was I bawling about?

What had I really lost?

Well. What is trust?

That’s a lot.

Because that is exactly what was gone.

Trust in myself.

In others.

Specifically. In men.

Everywhere I went. Anyone with a penis who even looked my direction was greeted with a glare that had, “Talk to me and I slap you, asshole,” written all over it.

For I’d also lost that hopeful little dream that all of us harbor. To meet that one person and know in one second that you are going to spend one lifetime together.

How ridiculous had I been? To secretly believe.

That it could happen.

To me.

That belief was executed that afternoon in the sunshine.

And the resulting funeral procession was a parade of one. Just me. Walking around in my life like a lost traveler who’d misplaced her map. And really not caring if I ever found it again.

Naomi was wonderful throughout my woe is me period. As were all of my friends. Of course, they took me hostage, took me out, and made toasts to things like castration.

Because really, they were grieving too. They’d fallen for Nick as well.

And now they too.

Felt duped.

“I think he’s just mystifying. The entire thing is mystifying,” was Allie’s assessment.

My girlfriends and I are gathered over a couple bottles of wine, hunkered down at a corner table in our favorite restaurant. Naomi’s contribution to the conversation is simply to mention castration.

For the fourth time.

And so goes my September post-Nick.

Intermittent chapters of crying. Interjected by girlfriend gatherings with our kindred spirits Merlot, Riesling, and Chardonnay.

Cheers.

To the beginning of the process necessary to take me back to the one place I must go if I am ever to give love a chance again.

Healing.

Chapter Twenty Three; Shattered

2009-11-11T20:44:00.009-06:00

It is Sunday morning. Two days after Nick told me he needed time.

Seven days after we’d just gotten back together. And now, we’re apart again?

I just didn’t understand.

I watch the families filter into the worship space at church as I stand behind the microphone and prepare my sheet music. I’ve been singing in church since I was 14 years old, up in the choir loft of my small town Catholic church.

This Sunday is my Sunday to cantor, to lead the music. And I couldn’t be more grateful. When I have the chance to sing at church, I always feel a profound sense of peace, and the presence of, well, The Holy Spirit. And right now?

I could use all the holy I could get.

The past few days I had been trying to process Nick’s Thursday words. He needs time.

Time.

I could still see his blue eyes in my mind. Leaning against the entry way of the fire station. Pleading with me to just give him that one thing he needed.

Time.

Whenever I sing, I always choose one person to focus on, to dedicate all of my words to. Someone in the pews who looks troubled. It helps to calm my nerves and remind myself that I am not there for my own glory, but for the glory of God.

The night before, an email came into my blackberry from a woman in the congregation who had been widowed two years prior. Her husband had died of cancer at the age of 44. And this week, it would have been their 25th wedding anniversary. Just last night I’d read her words on his Caring Bridge Site, “Dear Murray. I never thought I would celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary sitting on this bench next to your grave in a cemetery.”

I’d wept as I’d read her account of so many vivid memories of their wedding 25 years before. The ceremony. The reception. Their first dance to “Under the Boardwalk.” But my tears were not rooted in pity. I was almost envious. What deep love they had shared. Although he had died, they’d had 23 years together.

In this life of mine, and in my failed marriage, I’d never even had one.

And this particular Sunday morning, there she was. Sitting in the pews before me.

And so I dedicated every note I sang to her. To her grief, and to the love for her husband that could not be extinguished by death.

I let every measure be a prayer of faith. Faith in love lost. And in love found.

Love present. Love past. And love someday.

And not just for me.

But for all of us on this human road.

A profound sense of peace overcame me at the close of mass. And as I left the church, an old man stopped to shake my hand, “Great job today, young lady.”

I smile.

I feel peaceful. And I trust, that no matter how things are supposed to unfold with Nick, they will happen as they are supposed to happen.

Ding.

My blackberry beckons.

Someone loves me.

My girlfriend, Allie, is inviting me to join her and her daughters for Sunday brunch at our favorite restaurant. The August morning is unfolding into a gorgeous summer day, and I can't think of anything more perfect than pancakes on a patio with a dear friend and our children.

My youngest daughter and I are on our way, but shortly before we arrive, I look down at my phone and see another text from Allie.

OMG! What are the odds? Nick is here. Table next to us. He is with a woman, probably just a friend. Do you want to still come?

My heart skips a beat. I can’t not go; my little girl is anticipating her pancakes.
At the next stop light, I decide to text Nick and tell him I am on my way. I don’t want him to feel awkward. Maybe he would like to leave instead of sitting next to me during Sunday brunch? I should be respectful and give him a heads up that I will be there.

I don’t even think twice about who he is with. In fact, I know a lot of his friends, I figure I know the woman and fully expect to recognize her when I arrive.

On my way to meet Allie and her daughters for brunch. U r sitting next 2 her? I would just not come if awkward but kiddo is looking forward 2 it.

He doesn’t reply.

Odd.

He always replies.

When I pull into the restaurant I see him right away, baseball hat, Oakley shades.

He is laughing away.

I take a deep breath.

Allie was right. What are the odds? This town is not a metropolis, but it’s not that small.

I hug Allie when I get to the patio, deposit my daughter in her seat. Nick’s back is to me, so I walk up to him and gently put my hand on his shoulder.

He looks up.

“Hey . . .uh, hey,” he stutters.

I mutter quietly, feeling bad for the unintentional ambush, “Um,” I start, “I sent you a text message letting you know I was coming?”

“Oh . . . uh,” he mumbles, “I . . . uh . . . my phone is in my bag, I didn’t see it.”
That’s strange. Nick’s phone is on him at all times. It is like an appendage. The only time I’ve ever seen him not use it was on our first few dates.

Odder.

I look across the table. This is not a woman I recognize.

“Oh, sorry. Just wanted you to know I was coming,” I say quietly.

Awkward silence.

“Um, do you want to introduce me?” I prompt him.

Nick just sits there.

The girl at the table smiles broadly and says, “I am Brenda,” as she extends her hand.

Nick mutters, “Uh . . . this is Audra.”

I grasp her hand and wait for Nick to fill in the blanks about who Brenda is and how he knows her.

Silence.

That explanation never happens.

I look at Nick. He is looking away.

I look at Brenda.

And inside my soul I am flooded with the realization.

Oh my god.

He is on a date.

This is a date.

Nick.

Is on a date.

I do not yell. I do not cry. I freeze inside and somehow manage to utter, “Enjoy your lunch.”

I move in what feels likes slow motion back to my table and sink in disbelief. Staring straight ahead.

“Oh my god,” Allie whispers as the truth descends in her direction, “oh my god. Is that a date?” she whispers in hushed tones.

I stare at her. And do not answer.

My face void of color.

My silence is loud.

“Are you sure?” Allie prods, turning her own head to watch this reality unfold just mere inches from our own table. Our daughters laugh and squeal away. Their little voices sound like they are at the bottom of a deep pit. I feel my vision closing in.

Brenda is smiling at Nick, his back is to me, but her face is beaming. She is animated. She is giggling. Her leg is tucked up and she is hugging one knee.

My livelihood is sales. I get paid to be intuitive. To read people’s body language. To decipher what they are thinking. Feeling. Contracts with clients depend on my ability to read people. And Brenda’s body language is loud and clear.

She is in full on date mode.

I turn away. The voices around me drown in the deafening sound of my own heartbeat.

Allie looks at me with pity, “Are you going to be okay? What should I do? Oh, Audra, I am so sorry . . . this is unbelievable. He just told you two days ago he needed time! Who does this?! How can he be doing this? Is he really doing this? ”

I just stare at her. I don’t answer. I don’t know what to do. The man who told me just two days before I am the second person in his life he’s felt this strongly about.

Is on a date with another woman.

Right next to me.

The next 15 minutes march by like the cruel methodical beat of an executioner’s drum. I simply exist. I simply do what I must. I take my daughter inside to the buffet. I have no idea what she had for breakfast that morning. She could have loaded up her plate with nothing but butter and I wouldn’t have noticed.

I remember absentmindedly putting two strawberries and a slice of French toast on my plate as my hands shook.

I leave the buffet line, walk back out the door onto the patio, and stand in the darkest sunlight of my life.

I have a perfect vantage point of Nick as I walk back into the August morning.

I will never forget this vivid moment. I am wearing a pretty floor length strapless summer dress with a wide ruffle at the bottom. I’d fallen in love with it the minute I first saw. And it remains one of my favorite dresses, its floral hippie pattern makes me feel like a free spirit every time I wear it.

I feel the breeze gently moving its wispy material, my hair twirling ever so slightly in that same wind.

And behind my aviator sunglasses.

My eyes lock with Nick’s.

And as I stand there in that beautiful sunshine, in my beautiful dress, I watch everything I believed to be beautiful about Nick smash into unrecognizable slivers of something completely opposite of beautiful.

And while it does.

I just stand there.

Holding my goddamned plate.

Of French toast.

What was probably two seconds is seared into my memory forever as a defining and eternal moment.

Of ugly certainty.

And pain.

The term “heartbreak” is a dramatic one. In fact, who knows if our emotions have anything to do with our literal heart? But they definitely are connected to something. Because at that moment, in that sunlight, on that patio, something inside of me exploded into a thousand shards of glass. And the fragments raced through every artery and vein, ripping and tearing at my matter.

Hurting me.

On a level I did not even know.

I could hurt.

When I reach my seat I want to scream, but I can’t. I want to make a scene. But I can’t.

So I do everything I can.

To just.

Keep breathing.

After minutes that seem like centuries, Nick gets up to leave. His exit requiring him to walk within six inches of my chair.

And so I do it.

I say something.

I simply must know.

“So, uh, Nick,” I quietly say from my seat as I turn to him and tilt my sunglasses up toward his face. I lean back in my chair, my skirt cascading all around me as I shift my entire body as dignified as I can.

He stops. And slowly turns to me. He doesn’t even say a word as I begin, “Uh, just wondering.” I pause. He says nothing. I continue softly, “How do you two know each other?”

He does not make a sound.

He does not utter one word.

Brenda, still smiling, completely oblivious as to what is happening, chimes in, “Mutual friends introduced us,” cheerfully confirming the horrible truth.

It is a date.

Allie turns away from the scene. She looks as if she is going to be sick.

I stare not at Nick, but into him. And flatly respond.

“Oh.”

He says nothing.

He only.

Turns.

And walks away.

I just sit there like the stone I feel myself turning into. And watch him leave. And soon hear his Harley roaring to life in the parking lot. His broad form hurtles past the patio and I watch him go. Baseball hat on backward, sunglasses into the wind, and backpack over his shoulder.

And that was the last day. The last moment. The last time. I ever saw Nick.

For I never heard from him.

Ever.

Again.
*****************************************************
Dear Dating Land readers . . .
Thank you for your committment to this story. I know many of you will ask me...what happened next? Honestly? Nothing. I sent Nick three text messages from the restaurant basically asking him to "tell me what I just saw" and that if that was a date "you are a piece of work." I also remember telling him to "Get some balls and respond to me." (Not one of my finer moments . . .)

He never replied. I left him a message later that afternoon saying, "My trust in you is gone. I never want to see you again."

So. Who was Brenda? Was it a date? I will never really know. Because Nick never replied. He never explained. I sent him one email that week telling him my heart was broken. And another email a week later acknowledging my blog and that if he ever feels uncomfortable about my writing about certain dimensions of my life, then he just has to let me know. I will take anything down he dosen't like. He never replied to either email. And he never contacted me again. And I never contacted him either after I sent those two emails. I simply wanted him to know that I pride myself on my professionalism as a writer and feel it is a gift. Never will I use my passion for writing to do harm. And so after I communicated that . . . there was nothing left to say.

Besides? What was he going to say? I have tons of texts and emails from him telling me how much he loves my writing. I wrote an entire blog about life and relationships before I ever met him. It is something he told me over and over that he loved about me, that I was a writer, and that I wrote so beautifully. I'm not some chick who emotionally vomits on the internet. I harbor very deep writing aspirations and my goal is the same goal of all artists...to find that human connection and create something beautiful with it, something that says, "Hey, I know how you feel. I've been there too."

And that, was ultimately my purpose for writing this story. To simply share some human pain in an artistic way, a way that connects all of us to the larger human family. And to one another.

As for Nick, really, let's not be too harsh. There's two sides to every story and he has zero representation here. None of us are perfect and we've all done/said things that have hurt others. If anything, let's not just identify with ME in this story. I think the real lesson is identifying with him. When have WE been "Nick"? How have we hurt others? I think all of us have, in some way shape or form. And that's the real lesson here.

We all hold the power to shatter another human being. With our words. With our actions. Let us be cognizant of that power, and delicate with each other's hearts.

The coming Dating Land chapters will be some residual commentary on this story of Nick and I. . . but ultimately, I am done writing about him. I will instead focus on what having Nick come in, and out, of my life, has taught me.

And yes. I learned a lot. About other people. But also, about myself.

As for that day, in the long run. It was a gift. I know the chapter got long, but I felt it imperative to comment on my experience that morning at mass. For I feel, the serendipity that allowed me to be seated next to Nick that morning was God. God wanted to show me something. Even if it was going to hurt. He wanted me to know. He needed me to know.

It is now two and half months later. And yes, I think I did basically cry for all of September. October was better but I just felt numb. And I certainly didn't trust anyone with a penis, I can tell you that much. However, time is on my side, and time does heal. I went on my first date since that day on the patio just this past weekend. And so . . . I am trying to move forward.

Thank you for your devotion to my writing. Here's to life...and its endless joyful possibilities....

Blessings....
Love,
Audra
P.S. MUAH! :-)

Chapter Twenty Two; Where there's Smoke there's Fire

2009-11-09T06:00:00.000-06:00

“This is bull shit. A steaming pile of fresh bull shit. In fact, it’s the shittiest shit a bull’s ever shit. I’ll tell you that right now.” Naomi has just learned about my latest roller coaster plummet with Nick. And let’s just say she isn’t much of a Six Flags fan. “So where did this crapola leave off? Are you done or what?” she demands.

“Not exactly.” I shift my cell phone to my other ear. “He just wants time. He’s got a lot to sort through.”

“Time? Time for what? Weren’t you guys basically broken up all last week? Wasn’t that time? What the flip is his problem? Didn’t you just get back together on Sunday? What happened to Mr. I’m going to steal your tennis shoes so you don’t run away from me? What happened to Mr. I have to have your beautiful face on my blackberry as a screensaver? Was there an alien abduction we should know about? And did the aliens look like Katy Perry? Because he sounds like he helped her write the lyrics to that Hot and Cold song.”

“Funny, I had the same thought.”

“Damn right! Every time you call me I never know what you’re going to say with this guy. At this point he’s so unpredictable he makes my bi-polar aunt suffering from Alzheimer’s look stable . In fact? I give up. Please tell me you are giving up too. I teach high school and Nick’s drama would put most of my sophomore girls to shame.”

“No, Naomi, I’m not giving up. He was so brutally honest with me at the fire station, so vulnerable. I feel like it was a very profound conversation. I can’t just give up now. I feel like I am finally starting to understand him.”

“Mmmm hmmm.” Her disapproval is not subtle. “Yes, plastic please.”

“Are you at the grocery store again?”

“Heck yeah. I am raising sons you know. Feeding these guys is a part time job.” Her voice muffles briefly but I still can make out her orders to the bag boy. “Yes, I’ll take drive up, thank you.”

“Are you sure you can talk? Is now really a good time?”

“Honey, if I only talked to you when it was a good time I’d never talk to you. My life is more insane than an umbrella wielding bald Britney.”

And that’s an understatement. Naomi’s life is chaos. She works full time as a teacher and waitresses on the weekends to make ends meet. And I’ve never once heard her complain, at least not without a helping heap of coping mechanism humor to cushion the blunt edge of her reality.

“So what’s the plan? You’re giving him time aren’t you?” She mocks me by drawing out the word “time” like a warm piece of taffy.

“Yes, yes I am.”

“How much time is time? And what does that mean? Are you two speaking or what? Is this a day? A week? A year? Oh, good idea actually. Please tell me it’s at least a year. That way I can put it on my calendar in big red pen: “Drama Club Meeting with Audra.”

“We didn’t define a timeline and I didn’t feel like it was necessary. When I left the station he was so sweet. He texted me telling me I am unbelievably understanding and that I have such big heart. And we’ve been emailing a bit. So yeah, we’re still talking. I don’t think this constitutes breaking up, it just means we’re backing off a bit from seeing each other for the time being.

“Mmmmm. Hmmmm.”

“Stop saying that!”

“Stop saying what?”

“Mmmm, hmmmm. Like you think I’m nuts.”

“Ha!” Her laughter echoes through my ears. “Girlfriend, someone is crazy in this situation, and it is not you.”

“Come on.”

“Come on nothing. But I will say one thing. Nick has one thing right. You do have a big heart. A huge heart. Too big and too good for him. Because I’ll tell you something right now. I have a pretty good idea where all his ambiguity is coming from and I am just going to say it. Are you ready?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No.”

“Fine.”

“Listen. I’ve been around the boy block and they’re not that complex. If anything, he doesn’t need time to figure out if you’re the one. He needs time to figure out which one.”

“What are you saying?”

“I am saying Nick’s still very much in this game. But you’re not the only pawn on the board. All signs point in one direction and one direction only.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes.”

She pauses but only briefly.

“Another girl’s got his attention and he doesn’t have the balls to tell you the truth.”

“Ok now I’m going to call bull shit. You’re wrong.”

“Let’s hope I am, honey. But guess what?”

“What?”

“Time will tell. Because where's there's smoke . . . ”

She stops. Letting the obvious dangle in the air for me to grasp on my own.

I surrender a sigh.

Pause.

And whisper.

"There's fire."

Chapter Twenty One; Say It To My Face

2009-11-04T06:00:00.003-06:00

I have thought about this day a lot in the two months since it happened.

About how when I woke up that morning I was so happy that Nick and I had been able to be honest about this crazy momentum. About how we decided to continue to see each other. To just see where things go.

I’ve thought about the things Nick said that week. How he’d teased me for “running away” with my middle of the night email ultimatum. How he’d joked he was going to steal my running shoes so I couldn’t do it again. How he made a picture of us taken on our third date his blackberry screensaver. And about how happy we looked, smiling up from the screen with expressions on our faces that seemed to illuminate from some secret special place we had only just discovered within ourselves. How everyone who saw that picture seemed to freeze in awe. “Wow. You two look amazing together. I don’t think I’ve ever seen two people look happier.”

I still have that picture.

And people still say the same thing.

He wanted me to stay in his life. And all that week, I was consumed by the joyful possibilities that that reality presented. I was just given the chance to pursue a relationship with someone I thought was so honest. So smart. So kind. So interesting. And so real.

And even though it was August.

It felt like Christmas.

I’ve thought about how giddy my family and friends were to learn we’d worked things out.

About how even Naomi forgave his ambiguity, and made sure to remind me that if she is ever a bridesmaid that she looks terrible in fuchsia.

And about how all of that lasted.

Four days.

I’ve thought about how mad I got when I read that email from him on my blackberry. Telling me goodbye. That I deserve someone better. How he needs to go because if he stays he knows himself.

He’ll just hurt me.

I’ve thought about that roller coaster of emotions and I remember wondering how my life just turned into a Katy Perry song.

You’re in than you’re out. You’re up then you’re down.

I’ve thought about that afternoon at the fire station over and over. How I stood outside until I saw his pacing silhouette through the murky glass of the door. How I meant to knock. But instead pounded.

My little fists betraying my big anger.

How he’d walked out into the station foyer. His face twisted with emotion.

How I’d pressed my manicured finger into his starched blue uniform where his hard chest housed a harder heart and told him to say it.

Say it to my face. Fine. Tell me goodbye.

But tell me.

Why?

I’ve thought about how he’d taken me outside and sat on the curb. His head in his hands. As he tried to explain.

And how I tried so hard. To just understand.

I remember thinking I’d never seen him in his uniform before, and how that simple fact underscored how briefly we’d known each other. At the same time, I vividly remember having the thought, “His eyes are the same color as his shirt.” And how I thought that was so stupid to think that right now, how beautiful he looked.

I’ve thought a lot about that conversation. On the sidewalk. Where cars drove by. And construction noised hummed. How the world just kept going on around us.

Even though everything felt so halted. As if the earth had just decided to suspend its orbit around the sun.

I’ve thought about how Nick tried to so painstakenly explain to me the years he lived before he’d ever heard my name. Seen my face. And how those years made him who he is, a person he hasn’t yet shown me.

And he didn’t think I would ever want to see.

I’ve thought about how I sincerely, not desperately, pleaded for him to show me. Assured him that I wanted to know. That I could handle it. That I thought he was worth it.

And I’ve thought about the words he said. And the story he tried to tell me, an edited abbreviated version of his life that I could not possibly grasp in the half hour we sat crouched together on the unforgiving cement.

I’ve thought about how at that moment heaven decided to rain on us. Big drops of water splashing in our hair and on our faces. About how we didn’t move.

We just let it rain.

And how perfectly heaven scripted that part.

Because in my shock and confusion.

I wasn’t crying.

But the angels were.

Chapter Twenty; Joy and Pain. Sunshine. And Rain.

2009-11-02T06:00:00.002-06:00

Nick texts me for the next 24 hours like nothing has happened. He’s witty. He’s charming. He’s missed me.

We decide to talk on Sunday. My house.

And this is the part.

Where Audra Strong Confident Woman becomes Audra Insecure Needy Girl.

Case in point, I agonize over what to wear. I want to look incredible. But it’s a Sunday and I am home. What am I supposed to do? Time his arrival so he catches me in my front yard wearing Vera Wang and remark, “Oh, this old rag?” when he comments on the sequined floor length formal attire I just so happen to be wearing while I weed the flower garden?

Exactly. Ripped jean shorts and a tank top it is.

Hey, if I can’t be stunning, I might as well be unintentionally sexy (intentionally).

When I hear the tell tale rumble of his motorcycle I feel like throwing up. I am that nervous.

And then there he is. Standing at my back door. Oakley shades, baseball hat, and a backpack swung over his broad shoulder.

I open the door. And he walks into my kitchen.

And back into my life.

“I missed you.” My voice cracks and betrays my vulnerability.

“Me too.”

For two hours we talk in the Sunday sunshine of my formal living room, hashing out this crazy momentum, what we’re doing, and how we feel. He talks more than I do and I listen, hinging hope on every syllable he utters.

So when he leans across the couch, puts my face in his hands and kisses me . . . I feel like the upside down place that my world turned into six days ago is suddenly right side up again.

And when he takes my hand and leads me upstairs I feel like this is the point where the next part of my life, the happy part, is starting. This is it. He is the one I’ve been waiting for all of my life. I know it like I know my name. Love is real. It is not a fairy tale. You can touch it, feel it, and taste it.

The sun shines all around us that entire afternoon. Bright and beautiful, lighting the way. And it shines every day that week. On my life. And in my heart.

Until four days later.

When Nick sends me an email that starts with, “This is the hardest letter I’ve ever had to write.”

And all the light in my life.

Goes out.

But I don't cry in the darkness this time. Oh. No.

Instead, Audra Insecure Needy Girl.

Transforms into Audra One Pissed Off Woman.

You see, this email came into my blackberry. And I just happened to be three blocks from the fire station when I read it, where Nick is at right now. Coincidentally sending me his "Dear Jane letter" from the same computer he sat at when he first friend requested me on Facebook.

So yep. I hit reply. But my words are anything but a surrender.

Come outside. And say it to my face.

**********************
In case anyone is wondering, the date I wore the shorts and tank top was Sunday, August 23rd. The blog is not real time . . . I WISH I could wear shorts in November in this part of the country!

Thank you for reading Dating Land, see you Thursday!
~Audra

Chapter Nineteen; Drowning

2009-10-29T06:00:00.004-05:00

A few weeks before, I'd mentioned to Nick the great progress my little girl is making in her swimming lessons. During the conversation he'd commented offhandedly, “Can you believe some people don’t know how to swim?”

I hesitated.

I grew up on a land locked farm in Boonieville, where the only concentrations of H20 is found in low lying areas that trap run off. These murky muddy sloughs don’t even qualify as ponds; they’re more like mud puddles on crack. There is a fresh water lake in the town nearby but my busy farming parents didn’t have time to take my siblings and me there often during our redneck upbringing. Besides, when we did go that place was so foul we always ended up with “the itch” after splashing around in it for an afternoon. (If you’ve never experienced “the itch” you really haven’t lived. Let me tell ya.)

As a result.

I can’t swim.

Well, I can dog paddle. Okay, that’s a generous description. What I do is more like wild flailing of the limbs. It can’t be categorized as swimming. It’s just desperate anti-drowning motion, really.

And now here I am just a few weeks out from that conversation about swimming. Sitting at my desk, a sobbing wreck of myself reading this email from Nick.

Drowning.

In disbelief.

Of course, I write back.

But my thoughts are not well thought out thoughts. My words not well chosen words. Because come on, I am bawling, an activity rarely synonymous with dignity.

“I trusted you. I jumped. I jumped right into this lake of insanity because it felt so safe with you. But now, you are swimming back to shore without me. Knowing full well. That I can’t even swim.”

I punch the words out on my keyboard.

Flailing away. Trying to stay afloat.

But Nick doesn’t come to my rescue. His big strong arms do not pull me to the surface. Or throw me a life preserver.

And in his absence.

I sink.

For he doesn’t reply.

Not then.

Not ever.

For the next five days the silence is deafening. The only noise my own stifled sobs. Muzzled by the fact that I don’t have the luxury to be sad when I want to be sad; I have two kids who need me, whose world depends on my stability.

So I smile. Mute my emotions.

And carry on.

But every time I am alone. In the shower. Driving my car. In my bed.

I cry.

And while I do. I wait. For a call. A text. An email. For some sign that I didn’t just imagine the last six weeks of my life.

I miss him so much. Doesn’t he miss me? Isn’t he feeling this enormous empty hole?

Every time I hear a Harley on my street I run to my window like a dismal shadow of my strong self.

It isn’t him.

It’s never him.

But through it all I am hardly alone. In fact, I am flooded with love.

Because every day they text. Every day they call. Every day they email.

Are you okay? How are you doing today? Would you like to have lunch?

They are my saviors. My angels. My calvary.

My friends.

They circle the wagons of their hearts around mine. Take me out for a “break up dinner.” Naomi christens the gathering with a poem describing what she thinks of Nick’s impromptu departure. And you can only imagine the word she chooses to rhyme with his name.

We drink wine. I cry. They cry too. We drink to mystifying men. To confusion. To heartbreak. To the past. And to the future. To us and how weak we are as individuals, but how strong we are together.

But even with support stronger than a granite girdle.

I end up doing what we girls often do when boys leave us wandering around lost and confused.

I cave.

And collapse like an unstable mine shaft under the weight of this suffocating ambiguity.

I text him.

I think we should talk in person.

I justify that craving a conversation with him is warranted. If it’s going to end I just want to see him. I just want to hear his voice.

I don’t care if its weak.

I just want to know.

What happened?

He replies. My heartbeat suspends.

As I read.

I think a talk is long overdue.