Girl Bookworm Looks for Silly Boy Bookworm

Tuesday posts are going to be romantic in nature (though not always a misadventure in romance), and probably, since it is me + romance, it will be funny. To follow up the Cobbler story arc, I decided to post a stand-alone blog. Of an on-line profile I once used. One of several in a two-month period. Because I edited it once a week. Seriously, how can you boil yourself down to 1,000 words and the illusion of your perfect pairing? Which changes every time you go on a bad date.

For your enjoyment, here is an on-line profile with [present-day commentary]:

An independent gal [code: I don't want to be called/texted all day or see you every day] who can bake an apple pie [I'm a domestic goddess (but only in the kitchen)], watch a baseball game [my father once hoped I would be the first female pitcher in the MLB], and has a crush on Teddy Roosevelt [intellectual, physical, political, spiritual, presidential. In hindsight, I should have just described him in the last couple paragraphs]. 

There are at least three shelves of my multitude of bookcases for my to-read books, and I have several lists floating about for books to buy or check out at the library. [i.e. bookworm] I have two rescue dogs with whom I enjoy taking daily walks, going to the dog park, and hiking at the lake for a bit of off-leash fun. [Animal lover a must, and look! I am sort of outdoors-y.] My coonhound mix even goes volunteering with me as a therapy dog. [Okay, this kind of registers as bragging, but I was hoping for a "Heck yeah! Volunteering is important!" response.] 

Going to the movies is one of my favorite weekend activities--pretty much any genre but horror--and I get out to OKCMOA for titles that tickle my fancy when I can as well. [I am a cinnephile and I like Indie films--jeez, this also is reading pretentious. Maybe this wasn't a good exercise.] I enjoy traveling, preferably once or twice a year for a week or longer to a national park or overseas. [Short vacations should be staycations where you relax or catch up on cleaning and feel "in control" of your life again. But a long vacation is necessary for breaking free of ruts and boringness. To remind yourself there is more to life than what exists in your small bubble. You lose that bigger perspective if you never leave the bubble.] My brother lives in India, and I’m excited about the vacationing opportunities! [He totally does! And I totally am!] Of course, a weekend road trip to see a favorite band in another city or down to Texas for ACL is also a lot of fun. [This was meant to sound fun and free spirited and make clear that I love music and going to concerts. But the ACL reference seems elitist. I'm up to 3 jackass self-descriptors. Good thing this was only up for a week!]

Looking for someone to go adventuring with. [More precisely, someone who can turn everyday events into an adventure.] Someone who enjoys being silly [I'm ridiculous and I like people who bring out that side of me--serious is boring], has an even temper [I've had enough experiences to know someone with a short fuse is not only unattractive but also a terrible match for someone who tends to dig in her heels and match tones], and has his own interests and hobbies [Again, I cannot abide being smothered. Also I think it is so attractive when a guy is really good at something I'm not. As long as it isn't sports (baseball is okay--actually, baseball is great. Have you seen their uniforms?)]. 

I enjoy learning and being challenged. [A guy who knows words I don't? Instant attraction. Someone whose life philosophy challenges me to be a better person--to be nicer, to be more involved, to think of others before myself. I want that kind of challenge in my partner, and I want to provide it for him. (You get that from that 6-word sentence, right?)] Growing up with two brothers, I feel the need to prove that if you can do it, I too can do it (maybe not better—but I can definitely do it). [So this weird little tidbit was because I kept getting matched with rock climbers. What about my profile screamed, "I need a rock-climbing boyfriend"? For whatever brief amount of time I thought, Yeah, I could date a rock climber, this sentence served as the tomboy proof I would totally be up for rock climbing or camping or whatever. Totally not, it turns out.] And I like someone who can be spontaneous, or at least appreciate spontaneity. [Sometimes, I will blow your mind--and you better not be pissed about my random whimsy. Rather, you should be enamored of this whimsical elf.]

The Cobbler Part III: He Did It for the Cookies

“Hey!” The Cobbler turned around with a huge grin, somewhat allaying my fears that there was a mall rumor going around that I was a stalker. The package of cookies in my purse felt suddenly heavier.

“So what’s the bad news you had to tell me?”

His smile was replaced by a look of comical forlornness. “Sadly, I have to leave you.”

“You what?” I was 100% confused because he was acting like he was telling his sweetheart he had been drafted and we seemed to have crossed over into one of my weird historical fantasies that I absolutely do not have a dozen times a day.

“I have to leave you. I got a new store in a different state that is bigger and is a big step up, but I’m sad to leave Oklahoma.”

OF COURSE. Of course the guy who seems to actually be into me and I’m actually into him is leaving for an entirely different state. But, my ever optimistic mind reminds me, the state he’s moving to actually borders Oklahoma, so a long-distance relationship is feasible. (This is desperation at its most potent.)

“Congratulations. That’s great. But who will I come to with shoe problems?”

“Don Pete will be the new store manager, and he is this awesome five foot nothing guy. All machismo and good style. You’ll like him.”

“Don Pete sounds like a pirate.”

“Yeah. I guess he does,” the Cobbler said wistfully.

“Well, I guess it’s fate.” He scrunched his face in confusion. “I brought you some goodies finally.”

“You did not!”

I pulled out the burgeoning bag of baked goods.

He reached for the bag like a little boy reaching for a Christmas present. “What is it? Scones?”

“No. Actually. I brought a scone by last night after my shift but I sat on it. Ha. Ha.” My face turned completely red. My mouth had started talking without my permission. Oh jeez. Oh jeez. Oh jeez.

“They’re my chockablock chockfull chocolate chip cookies.”

“So they’re not from the bakery?”

“No. My recipe. Welp! Hope you enjoy them.” I started walking for the door.

“Where are you going? I have to critique your baking skills.”

“Really? You think I can’t deliver?”

“I’m not so sure. I think a professional should stay and hear her taster’s opinion though.”

He opened the bag finally. “Oh my gosh! There are like a million. This is a haul!”

“Yeah, you’ll have to share with your buddy. Heheh.”

“Oh I will.”

Why won’t he just take a bite so I can get out of there? 1) He’s moving out of town, so even though long-distance is plausible, I HATE long distance, so no thank you. 2) Something in his face when I handed him the cookies was too surprised, which reminded me of 3) What in the world had Not Irish Boy meant by “Look who’s here”? I had to get out of Dodge.

I edged for the door as he took a bite. He pinned me in place with his eyes before closing them in apparent ecstasy. Wordlessly he held the bag out toward Not Irish Boy, who took a cookie and unleashed an unabashedly loud moan. “These are good!”

“Glad you like them! Welp! Better be going.”

“Hold on. I haven’t told you what I think yet.” I turned at the door. He waited for me to walk all the way to where he stood at the back. Seriously. What was going on here?

“These…are a delight. Seriously, I am so sad to be leaving you. You’re the best. Is there another one of you? A sister? A cousin? A twin?! Do you have a twin who lives where I’m moving?”

I searched his face. Was he flirting? This seemed like super flirting. Flirting on steroids. But what would I know? “Nope. I’m pretty much one of a kind…”

I edged back toward the door, and he followed, continuing to pop cookies in his mouth.

“That is too bad. You’re the best customer I’ve ever had. I don’t think there will be customers like you where I’m moving. Mmm! It’s just too bad I have to leave.” He popped another one into his mouth.

At his point I had been trying to leave for a good 8-10 minutes. It had been obvious that I’d been trying to leave, and he had purposefully kept talking to keep me there. He had seemed to be flirting heavily, but then again, he had just called me a customer, which was like a knife to the heart. So I decided to just suck it up and go for it. No regrets.

“It is too bad. When do you leave?”

“Today is actually my last day at work. I finish inventory, and then I have two weeks off to move.”

“Well, I’d really like to see you before you leave. You should swing by Bakery sometime and visit me where I work for once. I’ll get you that scone.”

Something in his face changed that caused my stomach to twist hard and my mouth to dry. Like something had just dawned on him.

“I haven’t even started packing yet, but yeah, if there’s time, we’ll drop by.”

“Okay. Thx. Bai.” And I was out of there like a shot, dialing Sprinkle as I speed walked back to my car. I told her everything, ending with, “WE?! Who the hell is we?” This time I had remembered his name—first and last. Dick Sprinkle was on the case.

She called me a few hours later to tell me her findings: he was married with a kid, loved classic cars, and went hunting and fishing for fun. So, dodged a bullet on that one. I would never under any circumstances date someone who liked classic cars.

Thank God I hadn’t given him my number! Chip, if you’re reading this, you saved my bacon with your advice. The moral of the story is probably that if a guy really likes you, ladies and ladies, he’ll make it happen. You just have to make yourself available, and then know when to write him off for a lost cause. Also, don’t have a mall crush. Also, men will use you for your baking prowess. There were  a lot of lessons, I guess.

The Cobbler Part II: Lord Preserve Me and My Faint Heart

After leaving the store with a successful flirtation feather in my cap, I called Sprinkle on the way home. My recap was long and glowing, but she was only interested in one thing. A name. She tried to goad my memory. I was pretty certain his first name began with a B and the last name began with an M. Brendan Monocle. Brent McGrady. Bo Metcalf. I had no idea, and so Sprinkle’s considerable Internet PI skills went unused unfortunately.

I polled everyone I knew about how long to wait before going back and whether or not to just give the Cobbler my number or ask for his. The general consensus was that it was much easier to just include my number in with some sweets. One dissenting voice cautioned that if a guy was actually interested, he would ask for my number and to just give the sweets alone and see what he did. But it was one among a chorus saying, “Go for it, Buttercup! You got this girl.”

So a week later, at the end of one of my shifts, I baked a gorgeous orange-blueberry scone, wrapped it up nice and masculine, and wrote a card with some help: "Enjoy the scone! Next time, give me a call and we'll share one over coffee. -Buttercup Harding, my-dig-its"

With my heart in my throat and my bestie, Sprinkle, on standby in case I threw up out of nerves all over my crush when he let me down gently, I was ready to deliver my scone, complete with my number. On advice from my brother, I left my insoles for returning in the car. (The Cobbler was right: the Keens had broken in nicely. Not leather stocking nicely, but enough not to be hobbled with pain.) Brother suggested that returning the merchandise might send mixed messages, and if I was going to go through with this, I might as well commit. 

I do a walk by, and he's not there. I do another lap. Totally not there.

Well, I'll be damned if I'm going to drive all the way to the mall for no reason. I go out to the car and switch my scone for the insoles, go back in, and make the return. I call Sprinkle on my way back out to the car, filling her in on the disappointment. I would just have to come back the next morning to give it to him I tell her as I slide into my car and CRUNCH. 

I had sat on the scone. I sat on my baked heart.

The box and card were totally crumpled, but the scone was fine. At the first sound of destruction, I had jumped back out of the car like my bottom was on fire, so I guess that saved the baked good. I determined to buy a new box and just take it to him again in the morning. I was pretty sure he worked Mondays. [Not at all stalkerish to know a stranger’s schedule because you visit him at work so often—unsolicited.]

Monday morning dawned bright and brisk. I had forgotten to buy a new box for the scone. And what if it was stale? I hadn’t even bothered storing it correctly when I got home. This really worried me. I couldn’t give him a stale symbol of my affection.

After staring at the scone, willing it to give me some sign of freshness, I finally pinched off a corner to taste. The problem with this is twofold: 1) a tiny taste cannot convey freshness or staleness, and 2) IT WAS TOTALLY OBVIOUSLY MISSING A CORNER. So, I had to eat it all. It wasn’t stale. It was delicious.

Luckily my 3:00 am to 11:00 am bakery job meant that even on my day off I woke well before the mall opened. And, in the end, I think the scone debacle was a godsend because if I hadn’t had to bake something else that morning, I would have probably had some sort of mental episode from having to wait without any distractions.

I decided to make bite-sized chocolate chip cookies that are delicious—no lie. And, because they’re so tiny, the recipe makes about a million. So I dumped 5 dozen tiny cookies into a brown paper bag (like a lunch bag) and tied it with twine (so manly), and after a lot of mental back and forth, decided not to include my number.

The drive to the mall was torture. I was sweating profusely. My face was flushed, and as I walked through Dillard’s, several of the sales associates gave me worried looks. I probably looked like an alcoholic or substance abuser of some kind, which, as I emerged from Dillard’s into the open walkway of the mall, I realized they must be pretty used to on a Monday because it was filled with meth heads. You know their meth heads because of all the teeth they don’t have. There is also something in the air of how they carry themselves and wear their acid washed jeans.

Of course, it’s also possible that the sales associates now recognized me from my frequent visits and were concerned that I was going to have my heart broken by that rakish shoes salesman. Or there was a mall rumor about me being a stalker.

I made a beeline for the shoe store. He’s there. The Cobbler. He was helping a customer, but when I walked in he smiled and waved before attending to his customer’s requests. There was another sales associate there who looked exactly like the young long-haired drummer from the band Glen Hansard hires in Once. I expected when he opened his mouth that he would have an Irish brogue.

“Is there something you’re looking for?”

I had been lurking around the sales section, waiting for the Cobbler to wrap it up with the most indecisive male shopper ever. The Cobbler would occasionally look over with a smile or a wink (a wink! There are some people who think the wink is cheesy or weird. I personally love winks all the way from my delightedly flushed cheeks to my curled toes). This kept me hanging on despite all my nerves shouting, “Get out of here before you make a fool of yourself!” But no way, baby. I was committing to this foolhardiness.

“Nope,” I told the disappointingly American boy. “Just looking at the sales rack. Those Brooks?”

We talked shoe small talk until it became apparent that if I didn’t want to make a total ass out of myself, I would have to try some on. Not Irish Boy went to the back to check for my size, and the Cobbler came over to chat while his customer was walking around the store in yet another pair of shoes.

“Well. I’ve got bad news.”

“You do? What’s that? The number of meth addicts who shop at this mall?”

He blinked at me. “What?”

“Have you seen the people walking around?”

He looked out the store’s open doors just as Billy Jean and Billy Bob rounded the corner for the tenth time (I swear—I was keeping count while I was waiting).

“Yeah, I guess there are some pretty weird people here this time of day during the week.”

“Not a whole lot of teeth happening.”

He laughed. Hard. I beamed.

His customer asked for a different size or something, and the Not Irish Boy came back to tell me he didn’t have my size in the Brooks. So I thought screw it. I’ll come back later. I needed a curtain rod for the blackout curtains I had bought since I had to go to bed at 6 p.m. every night. Living. The. Dream. I’d just run down to some department stores, check out what they had going on, and come back in 30 minutes or something. Surely that would be enough time for the gentleman to make up his mind. There was no way in hell I was giving my bag full of cookies to the Cobbler in front of a customer. Dear Lord in heaven preserve me and my faint heart.

“You’re not leaving are you?”

I turned around at the door. “I’ll be back to chat. I have something else I need to do while I’m here.”

As I sashayed my way down to Penny’s, weaving in between tweakers, I glowed with womanly self-assurance. I mean, you can’t hear the wounded pleading in his voice—but it was there. That man was in love with me. This was going to be cake. I texted Sprinkle an updated while I dinked around. Bought a curtain rod. Tried on clothes I had no intention of buying. Browsed Claire’s because kids these days. Browsed Hot Topic because goths these days. Went back by the shoe store—and the customer was still there! It had to have been at least 30 minutes since I had left. I had waited 30 minutes in the store. And he had been there when I got there. Who knows how long he had been “shopping.” And this is not a big shoe store. Was he trying on every size in every shoe? What on earth?

I kept right on walking back to Dillard’s. Bought a blanket because when do you ever not need a soft blanket? And took all my purchases to my car. Having a mall crush is expensive, people. If for no other reason, don’t do it to preserve your folding money.

So at this point it had to have been at least almost an hour since I left the store. I walk by, and yes, the customer is gone. The Cobbler is sitting on the floor doing inventory. Not Irish Boy looks up and says, “Hey, Travis [aside: I actually don’t remember his name, but I know it absolutely did not start with a B], look who’s here.”

This causes my heart to lurch painfully. What did that mean? “Look who’s here?” Was that knowing tone because the Cobbler had thought I’d left and told this neo-hippy that he was bummed we hadn’t gotten to talk, that he loved me and wanted nothing more than to confess his love? Or did it mean, “Hey, look. Your stalker’s back”? What did the Dillard's sales associates know? What had their looks meant?!

[Next Tuesday will be the third and final installment of The Cobbler series where I might actually get somewhere with this guy...]

The Cobbler: Part 1 - Buttercup Forays into Flirting

About the time I took my blog hiatus (December of last year), I was hired as a baker at—where else—a bakery. All in the quest to open up a coffee shop that never materialized. To work in a kitchen, you must wear slip-resistant shoes or you will slip and you will tear/pull something that should never be torn/pulled.

When I was looking for slip resistant shoes, I went all over the freaking city, and I ended up at the mall where there was a uniform store, and uniform stores usually have slip-resistant shoes. After bebopping around the mall at all the department stores and that uniform store and Famous Footwear and others, I ended up at the last shoe store I hadn’t tried. Sadly, there were no slip-resistant shoes, but there was a very attractive sales associate. Super tall, beard, black-framed glasses, heroine-addict skinny. Rawr. And he was funny. We just talked about shoes and that I was a baker, etc. Nothing personal. But we were laughing and whatever. It was fun. So I left not looking at his name or his ring finger or anything because I had no intention whatsoever of ever returning. I'm not that kind of girl. 

However, a couple of things happened in quick succession afterward. I listened to an NPR story where a woman was talking about how she woke up at 34 and basically realized that she had forgotten to get married. And it was 36 before she met her husband, and 39 before she had her first kid. And it hit me that I'm pretty passive about my love life or, you know, just getting out there in general. I could totally wake up at 40 and realize I'd forgotten to get married—but man did I have a great career, or a wall full of degrees or whatever. The next day after the NPR story about freezing your eggs just in case you don’t have kids until your forties, I went to a movie with a friend and jokingly suggested we walk by and I'd point out my "mall crush." Just being silly. Her response: "You could totally tap that." Which was, uhm, unexpected. And I put the kabosh on that real fast—so I thought. But then after the movie we met up with our other friend, and other friend explained that this is how people meet people and I just had to ask for his number. Super simple, right?

So after sleeping on it and working myself up, the next day, which happened to be my day off, I drove to the mall and sat in my car and silently freaked out. I called Sprinkle for advice, which, you know, wasn't advice so much as just made me laugh and feel like it was more of a story/adventure than something real and possibly horribly humiliating. She convinces me to just do a walk by, see if he's even there. So I get out of the car and do a walk by—butterflies in my stomach the entire trek from car to mall entrance to store entrance—and I work up my nerve to look over to my right into the store just as he's walking out of the store, makes eye contact with me, and smiles. I lower my head and just keep right on a walking. It was not in the plan that he come out of the store (what?!) and see me and recognize me. 

Luckily, there was an Orange Julius and a convenience store type situation just around the corner. So I had an excuse for continuing to walk. After texting Sprinkle my moment of insanity, and her texting me more instructions [aside: she has no basis for expertise in this area. Not only has she been with the same guy since she was 18, but she also tried to set me up with a guy who a month later had a sex-change operation. Yet I continue to look to her for advice], I took a deep breath and walked back into the store. I had an excuse ready. I needed insoles. I really did. I don't have to spend money to get guys to flirt with me—or I don't think I do. 

"Hey." Weak wave, embarrassed smile.

"Oh hey! It's the baker. How you been?" said the Cobbler [nickname of hot sales associate, used here on out]. 

"Oh fine, fine. I couldn't remember if you had insoles." I still hadn't looked at him.

"Well of course!" He motions to a section of the wall in the very back corner that was all two feet wide, floor to ceiling. 

"Oh yeah. How did I miss your vast selection last time?"

He laughed. "I mean, we have at least...what? Three different types. What more could you need?" He walked to the wall and looked for the insole of choice. "What size were you again? Thirteen and a half?"

"Yep, yep. But let's try an eight and a half just for laughs."

He grabs the insoles and motions to the chair. "Okay. Now, I'm going to show you some magic because I'm all about the magic." 

I sit and try to get off my purse, which of course tangles on my scarf, so while I’m unwinding myself, I feel some hands on my ankles. The Cobbler is taking off my shoes for me, which feels weirdly intimate, and I might have been in mid-sentence and just stopped talking. Or whimpered. That part is a little fuzzy. 

"Okay," he says, grinning widely, "now stand on the insoles and stretch out your arms."

I do so.

"Now, I"m going to press down on your hands, and you're not going to go anywhere. The insoles are going to stabilize you." 

As he pressed down on my hands, I checked out those long digits for a wedding ring. There wasn't one. So, check that off the list. Now to get his name. I looked at his name tag, and then up into his eyes, and all I remembered was that there was a B somewhere. His first name maybe. Brian? Buck? Bob? Ben? Brent? Belvedere? 

During this time, he was listing off the reasons I wasn't falling and what my feet were feeling, which, apparently, was total awesomeness. I had my doubts—remember, I don't buy something just because I want a guy to like me. 

"Okay. I'm going to step on the ground, and you do your thing, and we'll see if I fall over or whatever."

He smiled. "I was just about to suggest that."

So we go through the ordeal again. I mean, we were practically holding hands. Ordeal might have been the wrong word. 

"Did you not find any shoes? That's why you need insoles."

"No, I bought some Keens. But they are killing my feet, so I thought I'd buy some insoles to switch out until they're all broken in."

"Oh man, Keens are going to break in real well. They're going to be like...like leather stockings on your feet." 

"Uhm, does that feel good? Are leather stockings really comfortable?"

"Leather stockings are the height of comfort. They're like moccasins. That's what I was thinking of. Moccasins. If I could make moccasins, I would be a rich, rich man. They're the most comfortable thing in the world."

"You know, they sell moccasin kits at places like Hobby Lobby."

"WHY am I not at home right now making moccasins? There was this customer one time who made his own moccasins. They were knee high and laced up starting at the ankle—he was kind of a weird dude—but his shoes were awesome. He was a security guard and said they were for sneaking up on the baddies. I listened to him walking around, and you seriously couldn't hear him."

I snorted. "Sure, soundless in a mall. Drop him in a forest and let him sneak up on a turkey. Then I'd believe those were quality moccasins."

The Cobbler's head dipped to the side and he paused, processing the turkey comment no doubt. And I paused to process it as well. Turkey. Not a deer or rabbit or any other average forest mammal. Classic Buttercup. I scrambled to take his attention off my weirdness as I bent to put my shoes back on. "So what kind of leather did he use? I mean, did he cure his own, or buy it?"

"I don't know. They looked good. He probably bought it, I assume."

"Because it's hard to find good leather for making moccasins. Don't ask how I know that."

He laughed and headed toward the register.

"So, how much are the insoles?"

"Well normally they'd be $35, but for you, they're on sale for $34.99."

"Oh man, gotta love those penny sales. Okay, I'll take them."

"Listen, your Keens really are going to break in well, and you're not going to need these any more. They have a thirty-day guarantee, and it doesn't matter what shape they're in when you bring them back to me—they could be covered in muffin batter, and I would still take them back."

"I hope I don't have muffin batter in my shoes. I mean, I'm into some weird stuff, but nothing like that." I laughed (joking, right? Everyone knows this is a joke.)

He laughed (he totally knew I was joking). "Well, whatever shape they’re in, I'll make the return if you don't need them anymore. And with the Keens, you shouldn't need them for long." He rang me up and leaned against the counter toward me. "Is there anything else I can do for you? Anything else you need?"

I thought about saying, "Yeah, your number." But nearly dropped dead at just the thought, and so said that that was all.

"Okay, great. I have to ask you, though..."

I looked up with big giant pink hearts in my eyes, I'm sure.

"I have to ask, where's my scone?"

"Your what?"

"You've been in a couple times and you still haven't brought me any baked goods from your bakery. Next time, I think you should definitely bring me a scone."

"I'm sorry. I had no idea you were a scone man. Next time, I will definitely bring some goodies."

So I left thinking he's given me two reasons, that he generated himself, for me to come back and visit him. Maybe...maybe it wasn't all in my head and it wouldn't be a lesson in utter humiliation after all...

The True Confessions of Buttercup Harding

Yesterday, Turner Classic Movies had an “adventure on the high seas” movie marathon—aka, pirate movies. Thank goodness the boring business of working with spreadsheets can be done while watching television! These adventures gave me a thirst to read a nautical tale. One packed with suspense and adventure. One that I could immerse myself in, become part of the story.

Enter The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. This Newberry winner, written by Avi, was required reading when I was in the fifth or sixth grade. I can’t remember which. But I can remember my overwhelming desire to hie off and join a ship’s crew. My parents should be thanking God that Oklahoma is landlocked.

Around the same time I first read that book, my family took a month-long road trip to hit all of the national parks west of the Mississippi. At the end of our journey, we visited Alcatraz, the United State’s most high security prison. Since its heyday during the Prohibition era, it has been transformed into a museum that tourists like my family can visit. My mother, being the dedicated lifelong learner that she is, insisted we all listen to the audio tour, not just wander through.

From the moment I placed those headphones over my ear holes, I was enthralled. The narrator had a History Channel-worthy voice. But even if the inflection and tone had been lacking, the ambiance noise in the background would have been enough to submerge me in that world. It changed from the clanking and cries of seagulls on the dock to the whispers of men in their cells to the shouts of violence in the mess hall.

As I walked the halls of Alcatraz, peering into the men’s cells that still had their effects on display, I imagined myself there, cutting hair in the barber shop, shanking any who dared threaten me in the cafeteria, attempting escapes with the inmates. I was thirteen years old. I wanted to be a forty-year-old mob boss. Felony is exciting!

While these youthful aspirations are—well I find them endearing. Others have told me that they’re weird. Apparently girls shouldn’t want to be Al Capone when they grow up with the sole goal of being thrown into prison. While I find them endearing, they’re more farfetched than the average ballerina or fireman dreams. The truth is that I would never be able to climb rigging without a) hanging myself, b) falling to my death, or c) vomiting myself to death from motion sickness. And as for being a felon…I’m a good girl! I just don’t have what it takes to be convicted. But oh, once I was there, in prison, I could be an awesome inmate. The best inmate. Which would basically mean I would get out on good behavior before I ever had the chance to attempt an escape.

But still the thirst for adventure chases me. Usually I’m fully content to live in Oklahoma. I love, love, love, love Oklahoma. I have seen the world. I have been to big cities and small all over our country and ten others. I have been on four of the seven continents. So anyone who considers themselves learn-ed and wants to correct my backward love of my state, they can stuff it. I don’t scorn your love of NYC or London or Tokyo (or wherever it is that you want to make your real home). So don’t scorn mine.

There are problems with Oklahoma, though. I will grant you that. For instance, adventure. What am I to do for adventure? Noodling just doesn’t do it for me. Nor does cow tipping, paintballing, or camping in the Ouachitas or the Ozarks. When I want adventure, a change in routine isn’t enough. It’s more than a need for adrenaline, too. I want danger. Not senseless danger, like sky diving. I want logical danger like mobsters or being on the wrong side of the law or sailing on the open sea.

So I have to ask myself, since my daydreams are so totally improbable, what is at the root of this thirst for big adventure? After staying up till four a.m. reading The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, I have a theory. What I yearn for isn’t just adventure. It’s that big life-changing event: mutiny on my ship, falling into crime, battling gross injustices, surviving a near-fatality. It’s experiencing something bigger than life, bigger than myself, and being changed because of it. That’s why simple adventures: travel, starting a business, going to a peach festival, noodling, etc., don’t satisfy that thirst.

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle ends with thirteen-year-old Charlotte unable or unwilling to be reabsorbed into her well-bred family after her two-month adventure on the sea. She’s changed too much. The last sentence of the book reads,

Something Zachariah told me filled my mind and excited my heart: “A sailor,” he said, “chooses the wind that takes the ship from safe port…but winds have a mind of their own.”

According to my theory, I want to choose that wind, and then fly before it, whether I head toward storm or fair skies. As long as I’m pointed toward the open horizon, it doesn’t matter to me. The adventure is in the not knowing. It’s in the bigness, grandness, and uncertainty of the journey, and especially the unknown destination.

If you know me very well or have been reading this blog, you’ll understand how paradoxical that is. I sometimes throw little temper tantrums (luckily my dogs are usually the only witnesses) when writing a business plan becomes overwhelming. Or when I don’t know who to call to get a particular answer. Or when I begin feeling the pinch of my shrinking savings account. Or something as tiny as the brand of dog food I buy being moved somewhere else in the store. Clearly, I don’t like the unknown. In fact, not knowing is my least favorite thing. It makes me feel vulnerable and stupid. I deplore feeling stupid. It gives me heart palpitations when I feel out of my element. The kind of adventure I want to chase is entirely about being out of my element!

So what? Am I crazy? My opinion might lack objectivity, but no, I don’t think I’m crazy. Or at least not for this. There are several basic human aspirations at play here. 1) The desire to do something bigger than yourself. Leave a mark on others, or, if you’re the right person at the right time and place, leave a mark on history. 2) The need to escape the responsibilities of your current life. I think psychologists would back me up on this. At one time or another, every person has dreamed, what if? 3) The even more basic, deep-seeded craving to give up control.

There’s this simultaneous need in human beings to be in control and the wish to give up all control. It’s tiring, isn’t it, trying to control every aspect of your life? We’re all a bit OCD on the inside. We believe if we can just choose our friends and choose our profession and choose our partner that we will have a good life. If we could see into the future, we would pick the right path when we came to a fork in the road.

But that’s a lot of responsibility! And it also is disproved day after day. Your partner cheats on you, a parent dies, you get fired, or you end up hating what you chose to do for a living. When things like this go awry, our need for control is aggravated. We go on overdrive, attempting to control everything and every one. All we want, deep down, is to give up control. It’s too much to do to control every little thing. And we keep messing stuff up. It gets worse, and we just want Mom or Dad to come pick us up and clean up our mess. Our grip on our lives is so tight, though, that it is painful, so, so, so painful, to pry our fingers loose. That pain reinforces the belief that we not only want to be in control but we need to be in control in order to avoid pain and failure.

And then I have a day like yesterday, when all I want to do is stand up and walk out, driven by a wind of my choosing with an unknown path and destination. I want to experience big things I have no control over. I feel I can be the right person at the right time and place—if I just let go. If I stop trying to control my life, narrowing it down and boxing it in to something manageable (because really, how much can any one person control? I can’t even control myself!), then my life could be epic! And that’s what I want for myself. Epicness.

Do you ever feel this way? What is your what if daydream? 

Teddy, Nick Cage, and Shrimp

"By acting as if I was not afraid I gradually ceased to be afraid." --Theodore Roosevelt 


For the last year I've been stretching my boundaries. I made the resolution to be adventurous. This was explored in many areas of my life: work, hobbies, friends, food, activities, social situations, etc. Instead of feeling trepidation, seeing only the awkwardness in any new situation, I vowed to pretend as if I was not afraid. You own twenty cats and always smell a little like urine? Sure! I'll try your brownies. A party that neither you nor I was invited to? Let's do it. That's what the most interesting man in the world would do, right? Oh? It isn't a party after all? Just an intimate affair. Well, I'm not an introverted weirdo. I'm sure this will end with me making friends or something...

After nearly a year of this, I propose that getting out of your comfort zone and experiencing adventure are not the same thing. In fact, they rarely overlap. It's also nigh impossible to find adventure. Adventure or, as most oft occurs to me, misadventure finds you. As will be illustrated in stories of things that have actually happened to me.

A picky eater at birth, I've challenged myself to try new foods and be open. No palatable epiphanies of yet. But I was going on a trip to new countries. Surely if I was going to have a victuals inspiration, it was going to be abroad.

When vacationing in Italy, we went out for pizza. We were greeted by hearty buono seras and ushered to a red check bedecked table. It was all very genuine, and the menu was filled with a variety of meats: salami, prosciutto (raw and cooked), sausage, and marine beasties of all sorts. Well, I was in Italy, was I not? A peninsula rumored to have wonderful seafood. I had not yet had seafood during the trip. True, I don't particularly enjoy seafood, but this was a TripAdvisor-endorsed restaurant and I was on an adventure. As my family members ordered their safe combinations--the 4 formaggio for my parents and the salami for my brothers--I smugly congratulated myself for taking a risk. They were all going to want a piece of my shrimp pizza and rue the day the stayed in their comfort zones.

Except the pizza smelled like it had been dipped into a polluted harbor. And the shrimp tasted exactly as they smelled.

One might be tempted to say, "Well, but you had an experience!" or something to that effect. We experience things constantly; why should we experience uncomfortable things that don't actually enrich our lives? This is not an adventure or even misadventure. Just another epicurean fail. The only thing gleaned from the "experience" is perhaps that one should not eat shrimp that were not harvested from the Gulf of Mexico. My palate was not expanded, my eyes not opened, nor my horizons broadened.

This is one of many stories I can tell about being purposefully adventuresome not working. At all. But non-adventures are boring. So lets talk about real adventure! Or, again, misadventure, as the case will probably be.

My closest friend in thought and behavior lives in Tulsa. I visit her as often as possible, and nothing is ever normal. This is probably because two weirdos weeble-wobbling all over Tulsa, which is no stranger to weird, will naturally attract a certain kind of attention and interaction. We never say to ourselves, "Let's go do X. It will be an adventure!" Both of us are quite a bit more comfortable reading or imagining adventure. Even acting it out with one another. We once had a full-fledged soap opera with the guy who lived across the street from her with his mother. We named him Steve and never once spoke to him in real life. But we had quite the sordid triangle going with me vying for his affections while his out-of-town girlfriend was...out of town. But all my imaginary book donating, leftover sandwich giving, and pants offering was for naught. A few weeks later he packed up his pirate's treasure chest, lashed it to the top of his Kia, and headed for parts unknown. Probably that skank in Vermont. Whom I also never met.

But real life adventure finds us nonetheless. On a trip to New Orleans, we of course scheduled a ghost tour. Stop after stop on our tour was disappointing. The squatty tourguidess regaled us with facts about old buildings, disproved ghost stories, and described pictures that reflected the glare of souls. Or lens flares as they are known by professional photographers. The high point of the tour was when she stopped in front of a gray stone mansion.

"This is Nicholas Cage's house."

She paused significantly, peering up at the group. It was as if she was surprised we weren't running to kiss the stones or swooning at the proximity of such a screen god. As the awkward pause lengthened she gathered herself, round shoulders heaving upward to add height to her toadstool frame.

"As you may have heard, he is in financial difficulties. Lost millions. He'll lose the house. Of course, the house was the problem to begin with. If he had come to me, I could have told him it was haunted, bad luck. Don't buy the house, I would have said. But he didn't, and now he's losing millions. Speaking of Hollywood, did you know Angelina and Brad have a house here? Oh no it isn't haunted. They love New Orleans. Treated like one of the locals."

And so we talked about Brangelina for twenty minutes till we hit our next stop. A school house.

"Isn't this beautiful?"

Her short arm lifted to display a classic French Quarter brick building. It was pretty, and it had nothing to do with Brad and Ange. We all nodded appreciatively, encouraging her toward this new topic. Some even ooooohed in response, remembering the awkward pause at Nick's house.

Her smile fell in sync with her arm. "Well it wasn't built for you."

You could hear the collective intake of breath. Now she had our attention.

"The French Quarter has people who live here and make a living here. Don't throw trash where we make our livelihoods. This isn't Disney World. That concludes the tour. Remember, us in the hospitality industry survive on tips. Thank you in advance for your generosity."

She had snookered us! The ole lead with a question and then thrash you with righteous indignation when you answer positively. We didn't stick around to see if anyone tipped her; just sauntered off, hands in pockets, whistling softly. But I would garner a guess that she doesn't make very much in tips.

That is adventure. It is the unexpected. That's why it can't be sought. But when you're in the midst of it, you can make the decision to stick through it and pretend as if you're not uncomfortable, committing to the unfolding of events; or you can drop out, as many in that abysmal tour did, and miss out on memories and one of my favorite verbal tricks to play on people.

You like this blog? Well I didn't write it for you!