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Created by derek on Aug 19, 2008
Last updated: 02/05/10 at 11:56 AM
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My language teachers, and a fellow language student, showing off the Brazilian version of Quirkyalone (or SoSingular)Happy International Quirkyalone Day, or, I could also say, Feliz Dia Internacional de SoSingulars! This year will be the eight annual celebration of International Quirkyalone Day, a holiday that I have grown to love–for me, it’s on par with Thanksgiving as my favorite holiday. IQD is not anti-Valentine’s Day. It just happens to fall on the same day. IQD turns a cliche-ridden day of angst into a liberating opportunity to connect with others (or to celebrate alone). There are thousands of ways to celebrate IQD. Here are 10.
Usually I throw a party in San Francisco to celebrate, but for the first time since launching IQD in 2003, I am on the road on February 14. I am actually in Curitiba right now, a Brazilian city famed for its progressive urban planning. On IQD, I will be in the mad sea of Carnaval in Recife and Olinda, Northeastern Brazilian cities. Recife and Olinda boast a wild and participatory Carnaval (that some say is the best in the country), featuring a wide diversity of traditional music and dance: samba, axe, the drum-driven beats of maracatu and fast-paced frevo. I’ll make sure to hold up a sign, Happy IQD!, at some point. Check back here for a photo.
The photos above were taken last week in my second week of language school in Florianopolis, with my friends, teachers, and fellow students. Quirkyalone was published in Brazil with the title So-Singular. I am traveling with a copy to share and it’s a pretty fun way to learn the nuances of a language, reading my own book.
This is me (in the black dress) learning some Maracatu in Florianopolis.
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http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2010/02/05/happy-international-quirkyalone-day-from-brazil/
A preamble: First, apologies for the long gap in posts. I’ve been distracted from blogging by much tumult in my life, a combination of family stuff and a long-anticipated dream that has required much planning. As I post this, I am sitting in Logan Airport at the Fox Sports Box bar, sipping a Cosmopolitan and using the fabulously free holiday wifi provided by Google. I’m about to fly to Brazil for 4-6 (or really, who knows how many) months for a very unplanned adventure. Below is something that I wrote to explain this period of my life to myself (and others). In many ways, this is an extremely quirkyalone journey, but in ways that might not be immediately apparent. How much I will write and share online, I haven’t decided. Check this space, or my personal site. Somewhere along the way, or when it’s all over, I’ll be posting stories and reflections.
“For me the first great joy of traveling is simply the luxury of leaving all my beliefs and certainties at home, and seeing everything I thought I knew in a different light, and from a crooked angle.”—Pico Iyer, “Why We Travel”
I am officially in a “life churn” mode. When I’m feeling more Australian and mystical, I might call it my walkabout. I like the violence in the words “life churn”; there is something comfortingly accurate about the language. There is something violent in making big life changes. For me, that was disassembling my apartment of four years. My couch is scattered to the Craigslist winds. A friend is driving my Corolla “Martha,” and my belongings are in beautifully taped purchased boxes (a move so adult and unlike all my others) and squeezed into an 11 x 6 storage unit.
Three suitcases worth of clothes for all seasons are at my mother’s house in Rhode Island, where I am staging my vagabonding adventures. I obsessively compare flights on Kayak and Vayama. I’ve purchased way too many Lonely Planets, because it’s way too hard to decide where to go. For the next six months, I will mostly be on walkabout: so far the known countries are Iceland, France, and Brazil, but honestly anything could happen. That is largely what I am seeking: the unexpected.
My friend Chris coined the term “life churn” a few years ago when we were walking through Prospect Park in Brooklyn. We were talking about our respective homes, where we had lived since college graduation (New York City for him, and San Francisco for me) and whether we should move.
We’ve both been stay-ers for the previous ten years and wondered if we were missing out by being so faithful to one city. Chris suggested that life churns are good for you: they shake things up and get you out of old patterns and into new ones. It’s part of the whole “change is good” philosophy (or assumption). The term “life churn” sounded genius to me, and I filed it away as part of my private lexicon.
We didn’t even define life churn, but it seemed so intuitive. A life churn can be violent and bumpy, but it is a kind of rebirth, a cleansing of the old to make room for the new. It forces change. Common life churns are moving, giving birth, starting new careers, and going traveling.
Moving is a classic life churn. It’s a confrontation with your possessions and also how you organize your life. We give birth to a new life by purging what we no longer want, and deciding what we do want.
A life churn might be imposed, but it has the connotation, I think, of being chosen. A life churn seemed exotic and desirable three years ago, because I was going on ten years in San Francisco and starting to feel a little bored and boring.
So now, after much effort, and violence of packing, the churn is on! I am lucky—I never believed I would have an opportunity to dip into a state of “mini-retirement,” as Tim Ferris, calls it, or vagabonding, as my friend, the travel writer Rolf Potts calls walkabouting. I always believed you work continuously, and three weeks for a vacation was a lot.
After returning most of my keys (and having nearly none—isn’t the mark of stable adulthood a whole big mess of keys?) and saying goodbye to my fantastic friends, then spending two weeks with my family, I spent ten days in Iceland, a beguiling place. I chose Iceland because of a book. Eric Weiner, the author of the Geography of Bliss, suggested Iceland had something to teach about language, creativity, and happiness. It seemed like a place I needed to know as a reference point since language and creativity are sources of happiness for me (more on that in a separate post).
In December, I am going to France simply because I love speaking French and it has been 13 years since I have been. I am perpetually interested in the fantasy I have cultivated about France compared to my lived reality, which I have mainly found French people in France to be too rules-oriented and formal for me. I stayed with two French families as a teenager and my romance with the French language is enduring. I’ve met French people when traveling or in the U.S. that I have enjoyed, so I’m curious about whether my experience would be different as an adult. I want to give France another whirl!
I’m taking these relatively short trips to Iceland and France between the Thanksgiving and Christmas because I want to be with my family at both holidays this year. After that I am launching off into the principal walkabout: some not-yet-totally-known, but likely in the range of 4-6 months, in Brazil.
Brazil is where the real walking-about begins. The other stuff feels more like tourism/travel to me. I will have the time to form relationships for longer than a week, and I know I will meet new BFF in Brazil. That’s the way it goes there—in Brazil, you become BFF first and then see if the friendship sticks. This analysis is courtesy of a Brazilian friend I met at a yoga retreat in California, and it definitely squares from my experience of two trips to Brazil in 2008. I’ve already been adopted twice in Brazil: once by a couple and once by a family. Both of them met me at street parties. I love the people who adopted me.
My principal interest is becoming fluent in Brazilian Portuguese and playing with becoming Brasileira, being as integrated as a white girl from San Francisco and New England can become. I am attracted to the Brazilian spirit of warmth, joy, humor, and even the way they avoid talking about personal problems. I mean, it’s great to talk about personal problems, but I think I talk about them too much. Brazilians mainly gloss over them.
“Tudo bem?” is the Brazilian way of asking how are you? The question answers itself implicitly. The question is “Everythign well?” and there can only be one answer: “Tudo bem.” There is no other option. I am a worrier, so I think living in Brazil and saying “tudo bem” for three to four months might help retrain my brain to believe that everything is fine.
I want to see the world with new eyes. I want to stir up my thoughts. I want new cultural reference points and learn in ways that newspapers and books cannot teach me. My point is to relax, but not in a resort. I want to exist in languages other than English. Thinking and speaking in other languages expands my minds–words describe emotions and things we don’t have English. I feel younger and more playful, expanded.
I want a break without thinking about work, as heretically un-American as that sounds. I am betting that a break will make me more creative, inspired, and focused in the future, after my brain has been energized from seeing the world at crooked angles.
The hardest part for me about taking a “career break” is feeling like I am sinking into a state of nothingness because I am not defined by my work. Will I never do anything interesting, extraordinary, remunerative again? In my confident moments, I believe it’s going to be fine and something new and interesting will occur or come to me when I get back. The best things I have done, like writing books, are projects that I never expected to take on. I welcome the unknown.
The most important thing for me to learn is to become more comfortable with peaceful not-knowing, to be more comfortable with doing nothing. If I can learn how to do that, that would help me chill out more and not believe so many of my swirling, counter-fighting thoughts, and that would be a lifelong gift to myself.
A few days before leaving San Francisco, I met an unusually chatty guy in a café. He wanted to know about my life, and so, my only story to tell at that moment was that I was leaving for a while. He asked me some basic questions. “You’re giving up your apartment. Do you feel like you are taking a risk?” Yes, I do. I gave up something pretty good: affordable rent, a garage, a washer-dryer, a dishwasher. Those are all the easy-making trappings of thirtysomething adulthood that I was so happy to arrive at.
Yet there were big problems with that apartment. I have the audacious feeling that life could be even better: a better couch, bookshelves, apartment, project, boyfriend. It’s an act of faith, trading in one life for a future one. For some reason I have a gut instinct that traveling to another country needs to happen first. There is no empirical evidence for going to Brazil being the bridge to the rest of my life, but that is what something inside me tells me to do it. Honestly, it’s scary to follow a gut instinct, not really knowing why I am doing this, but instinct is the way I have always felt my way through life. We shall see!
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Related posts:An Unexpectedly (Quirky)alone New Year’s in Rio de JaneiroWhat It Feels Like to Travel Alone in Brazil
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2010/01/12/my-big-life-churn/
“Dear Quirkyalone: Advice for QuirkyLiving” is a guest column by Lisa and Christina (crossposted at Quirkyalone). When you’re making up your own road map for (quirky)living, you need thoughtful advice. We’re here for you. Quirkyalone and Onely welcome your questions; send them on to onely AT onely.org.
I have gone out on 4 dates with a guy. We have a great time together, but I’m not feeling any chemistry. Is chemistry always an instant feeling or can it come along later? –Aimee
Hi Aimee,
Thanks for your classic question. A key tenet of Quirkyalones (or Quirkytogethers!) is that we enjoy spending time on our own, and so we won’t commit to any romantic relationship unless our partner really makes us go, “Wow!” Not as in, “Wow, I can’t believe how long his nose hair grows,” but rather, “Wow, how did I get so lucky to meet and connect with this person who makes me all tingly and goofy?” For Quirkyalones, chemistry is a must–but what is it, and how do we recognize it?
Like all classic questions, this one is difficult and has no clear answer, except for maybe “It all depends,” which I won’t say because that’s the world’s most annoying response (albeit always the truest). So let me break “It all depends” down into some arbitrary specifics for you. I believe that there are approximately three kinds of “chemistry”:
Type 1 Chemistry: Slam-click at first sight.
Type 2 Chemistry: Slam-click after a series of interactions, where you recognize attractive aspects of the person that were not apparent at first sight, and respond to them emotionally or physically.
Type 3 Chemistry: Intermittent giddy feeling that stems from recollections of and references to a long history together and which could not be provided by a recent love interest (think of a couple celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary walking on the beach hand in hand). We will not discuss Type 3 in this post.
In your situation, it’s not a bad thing that you didn’t immediately feel the SLAM-CLICK of Type 1 Chemistry. However, I think that four dates is probably enough time to start SLAM-CLICKing in the style of Type 2, where you discover that your date has a great laugh and a fascinating knowledge of 18th century Czech watercolors, and you can barely keep your hands off him whenever he tells a Tuvia Beeri anecdote. If this doesn’t happen, then you might have made a new friend, but not a Chemical friend. If you really want to click with your date, but you don’t feel the Chemistry, try giving him chances to generate that connection. For example, if you admire artistic men but the last time he touched an easel was with fingerpaints, don’t just assume he can’t match your interest. Ask him to a paint-your-own-pottery studio and see how he engages with the project. He may surprise you!
I would be more concerned if you said you had instant chemistry from the very second you first bumped into each other at the gallery. This Type 1 Chemistry is fun, but you should take it with a grain of salt. Here’s why: it’s hard to tell the difference between a real connection and a connection manufactured by your brain’s subconscious reaction to the other person’s smell, look, voice, and mannerisms. For example, you exchange hellos with Steve and immediately like him. A lot. What are you basing your opinion on? Your subconscious brain carries a plethora of data it uses to make sense of the world, which it then feeds to your reasoning mind. To give a simplistic example: Steve’s nose might resemble the nose of a beloved aunt who died when you were four years old. Your subconscious remembers your aunt’s face and tells your thinking mind, “A nose like this once belonged to a nice person who gave me cookies,” but the message garbles in translation to your conscious, which hears, “Steve has a nice nose–I can’t wait to eat his cookies.” SLAM-CLICK. It’s a powerful illusion. Enjoy it, but don’t expect it to inevitably carry over into Type 2 Chemistry, which is what you want if you’re aiming for a long term relationship.
If any readers out there *are* feeling Type 1 Chemistry, don’t panic. It might be for real! Test it: Try to articulate why you are drawn to this person. List certain attributes that appeal to you, rather than “She makes me feel all giddy, full stop.” For example, “She makes me feel giddy because she can untangle a Gordian knot,” bodes well. “She makes me feel giddy because of something about her,” might also bode well, but it could just as easily bode badly. It all depends.
–Christina
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http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/12/07/dear-quirkyalone-the-laws-of-chemistry/
Dear Quirkyalone: Advice for QuirkyLiving is a weekly guest column by Lisa and Christina at the singles’ advocacy blog Onely. Our column appears here every Monday — but we’re running low on questions!
So, dear readers: Do you have dilemmas, conundrums, burning (or mundane) questions about quirkyaloneness and quirkytogetherness? What questions do you have about optimum quirkyliving? What’s come up in your life recently where you could use some advice, a pep talk, or maybe even some tough love? When you’re making up your own road map for (quirky)living, you need thoughtful advice. We’re here for you — and more importantly, we want to HEAR from you!
Please send your questions and concerns, compliments and complaints to: onely AT onely.org
In the meantime, Happy National Singles’ Week! We’re celebrating with a blog crawl sponsored by Single Women Rule — check it out!
– Lisa and Christina
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Related posts:Wanted: Your Dilemmas for a New Advice Column (+ Win a Copy of Quirkyalone!)Dear QuirkyAlone: How do I make new friends?Dear Quirkyalone: Advice for Quirkyliving
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/09/21/dear-quirkyalone-send-us-your-questions/
Welcome to the online candy store of love, our dystopic world of disposable dating. Internet dating can become an exercise in ego stroking and gratification, getting emails and winks about how pretty and wonderful you are. It can be a perpetual dip into window shopping for love, rather than a means to an end of actually meeting someone and patiently getting to know them. Find a flaw, and it’s on to the next person.
In cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, where online dating has been destigmatized, it’s easy to meet someone new for drinks, much harder but to build a relationship that spans longer than four dates. So perhaps the answer is not to shy away from online dating, but to transform it.
Perhaps one solution is Radically Honest Online Dating (RHOD). The idea came to me, as most ideas do, from a conversation with a friend.
Forget doing a public relations job on yourself and selectively presenting your best headshots. Post neutral to unflattering photos. Don’t brag about your achievements. Talk about your self-doubt on the way to achieving them. Whatever you have to offer, and where you need support. Unlike most people, who either lie or present a stream of bland clichés, the radically honest ad is an exercise in being very bravely honest in an ad, or maybe, in a document that wouldn’t be publicly available to everyone, but that could be shared with people who seem interesting.
We’re all dying to be accepted as we are, so why not just put it out there from the very beginning?
The idea originated in a conversation with my friend Rod, a biologist from Colorado. He told me about his yoga teacher Chad who teaches his students about “radical integrity.” Radical integrity means discovering and accepting yourself, presenting yourself to the world as your really are rather than selectively sharing the charming details. In essence, it’s about getting comfortable with your angels and demons, and being transparent about all of them.
Rod explained, “There are always places life challenges us where we have no talent. His point is that these places can be admitted or hidden. Dating his way, we are looking for someone who says, ‘Wow that’s tough, but I can handle it and maybe even support you here.’ In the absence of openness, that person will not be found.”
To prove his point, Chad posted an online dating ad. He posted photos of himself entering a room, taken spontaneously at random angles—nothing flattering or glamorous. He talked about qualities he enjoyed about himself and posted eight weaknesses expressed through difficult periods: gambling and drug addiction and depression.
Three hundred people viewed his ad. Fifteen people wrote him. Most called him sick; a couple tried to get him banned from the site. Others offered advice on how to take better pictures or to emphasize his redeeming qualities. He ignored them. Rod explained, “Smoothing out his profile prevents him from meeting his goal: seeing where he does fit in. Ad if nowhere and with no one, then so be it.”
Two women contacted him with interest. The most notable was a translator from Mongolia. She wrote him, telling him she accepted him. The first time they spoke, Chad burned through 750 minutes on an international calling card. From Rod’s point of view, their call was proof that a deep connection with a woman was possible. Or was she just looking for a way out of Mongolia? Was Chad even looking for a partner, or to prove a point?
Rod accused Chad of doing a “social experiment.” Chad denied it, saying his effort at meeting a partner was real. If it were a “social experiment” he would not have used his real name and picture.
Rod threw his story down like a challenge. Would I ever write a radically honest personal ad? The idea thrilled and terrified me. The radically honest personal ad stands so in contrast to our marketing-based approach to online dating, which I can’t say has been terribly effective. Bragging or outright lying is the natural inclination for most people when writing an ad. A Cornell study showed that over 80% of participants lie about their height, age, or weight. Those are just stats—honest details are hard to come by when you read through profiles on match.com, which all seem to be advertising the same fun-loving, laid-back, good-hearted guy.
But what would you actually write? It’s hard to imagine radically honest details that wouldn’t be repellant. Would I comb through my journal for low moments in past relationships and post excerpts from my journal, describing sensitivity to criticism or talk about being 36 and not having a baby daddy? Or my tendency to leave just one dirty dish in the sink, never wanting to completely finish the dishes? Aren’t these admissions intimate, and isn’t intimacy earned through trust? Wouldn’t it destroy the mystery in getting to know someone to put everything out there in an ad?
To be so naked on a public dating site, I don’t know if I could handle that. I can reveal a few intimate things in this essay, but all I am seeking is to accurately express an idea. Doing it in a personal ad is scarier, because the idea is that we’re going to meet, and then, you already know all this stuff about me. (Theoretically everyone knows everything about everyone now if we express ourselves online using our real names, but that’s another story.)
When you post an ad, you are necessarily objectified, a piece of entertainment, consumed, then click, on to the next human being baring her soul. Immediately I thought of all the people who could see a revealing ad: colleagues, potential future employers, exes, and friends. Isn’t a radically honest ad potential career suicide? Online dating can feel like a spectator sport in sociology, studying how people market themselves. We all have to be careful about what we put out there.
Yet, there’s something about the idea of radically honest online dating that I love. I’m so over the clichéd way we market ourselves online and return each other so quickly. Kind of like Zappos—it’s really easy to try on those shoes and send them back in a box. It’s so easy to lie, too. You would theoretically get fewer responses but perhaps more people who really get you. It only takes one.
I don’t know that you would fall in love with someone by reading about his or her flaws. Maybe you would just be looking for the problems of a former partner for a re-do, or someone with the opposite problems to try something new. But it would be more authentic. I’d be more interested in checking out that site than trolling match.com.
Maybe instead of “who I am” and “what I’m looking for” we would be prompted to write our strengths and weaknesses.
The radically honest personal ad is a way of showing that you are a work in progress.
Radically honest online dating could make us treat people less disposably; being honest reminds us that we’re all human, not just consumer objects to be tried out for a glass of wine or a make-out session and then so quickly forgotten. We might meet fewer people, but treat them more humanely because they are more human.
Radically honest online dating probably appeals to only a self-selecting group: self-examiners (people who go to therapy, men’s groups, yoga, and other adventures in self-improvement). Self-examination is not for everyone.
Radically honest online dating reminds me of a book that my writer friend Andrew Boyd wrote called Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe. One of my favorite daily afflictions is “Loving the Wrong Person.”
Andrew writes, “We’re all seeking that special person who is right for us. But if you’ve been through enough relationships, you begin to suspect there’s no right person, just different flavors of wrong. . . it takes a lot of living to grow fully into your own wrongness. It isn’t until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problems—the ones that make you truly who you are—that you’re ready to fine a life-long mate. Only then do you finally know what you are looking for. You’re looking for the wrong person. But not just any wrong person: the right wrong person—someone you can gaze lovingly upon, and think, ‘This is the problem I want to have.’”
P.S. Rod is going to post a Radically Honest Online Dating ad. In a follow-up I’ll let you know whether he finds the right wrong person for him. Let me know if you use this technique and how it works for you, too.
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Related posts:Online Dating Essay: “The X Factor”“How to Date in a Post-Dating World”Quirky-Er Dating Sites
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/09/16/radically-honest-online-dating/
“Dear Quirkyalone: Advice for QuirkyLiving” is a weekly guest column by the authors of the brilliant blog Onely. It appears every Monday. When you’re making up your own road map for (quirky)living, you need thoughtful advice. We’re here for you. Quirkyalone and Onely welcome your questions; send them on to onely AT onely.org.
Dear Quirkyalone,
Why are there so many more Quirkyalone women than Quirkyalone men? –Cynthia
Dear Cynthia,
Let me start by saying that the Quirkyalone movement–and the singles’ advocacy movement in general–needs and wants more men. More men! More single men’s blogs! More single men commenting on blogs! More single men writing about, talking about, thinking about, and waving a banner for Quirkyaloneness. The concept of being happily single and not settling is not unique to women.
While not unique t0 women, the experience of being able to hold out for one’s dream man or woman (and being ok if that person never comes) is a relatively new experience for them. For most of this history of the human race, females were usually forced to settle. What choice did they have? They were not fully allowed into the workforce or given control over their own finances, inheritances, birth control, etc. Sometimes they even did more than settle: they connived, competed, and prostrated in order to snag a man, any man, who: wanted them; could feed and clothe them; could care for the children the woman would inevitably conceive. If the woman had luck, she married someone who refrained from abusing her out of his own moral sense, so she didn’t have to rely on the vagaries of a patriarchal law system to protect her. Renee Zellweger’s man-eating and manipulating character in the historical fiction western Appaloosa is a good example of this desperate search for protection. Toward the end of the movie she gives a tearful speech where she defends her actions, pointing out that her entire survival depends on her ability to get and keep a man.
Perhaps the large number of Quirkyalone (and Quirkytogether) women reflects a backlash (consciously or not) against this oppressive legacy. Perhaps in the collective female consciousness, or through stories passed down from generations of mothers to daughters, Quirkyalone women retain the memory of their ancestors’ frustrations and abstain from all but the most stellar relationships out of respect for those before them who didn’t have the choice to be single.
Another reason for the higher visibility of Quirkyalone women may be that they are primed, biologically and/or culturally, to reach out to other people for friendship and support, to share their feelings, and to provide and seek empathy with others. Because of this, women tend to have larger or stronger networks of friends and extended family for emotional support. This is helpful characteristic if you want to be happy in the absence of a dedicated romantic partner. What’s more, these sorts of communication skills lend themselves to participation in an advocacy community, whether at meetings or group happy hours or online blogs and listserves.
Women are used to talking about relationships. We are used to reading pop culture articles telling us how to have relationships. We are used to being told how to find and keep a man. We are therefore used to judging ourselves according to our relationship status. From that point, it’s a relatively small mental leap to say, “I have judged my single status and found it. . . not really as bad as all the magazines make it out to be.” Men, however, do not spend as much time–indeed, are not encouraged to spend as much time–thinking about relationships. So they are less likely to end up browsing the internet for “ok to be single” and stumble upon Quirkyalone.
All that said, there’s no reason more men can’t discover their inner Quirkyaloneness. In fact, it’s important to encourage men to integrate into the Quirkyalone movement, exactly because they may have a tendency not to reach out and communicate as intensely as women, leading (depending on the person) to the unhappy isolation so many people couple up to try to avoid.
We welcome comments from our readers about good sources of the male Quirkyalone voice. I know there are blogs by single male parents out there. What about single male non-parents? We’d love to hear from any male Quirkyalones or Quirkytogethers. What has the single life been like for you? For more on this topic, please see Calling All Men!.
–Christina
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Related posts:Dear Quirkyalone: Advice for QuirkylivingThanks for the anxiety, LoriDear QuirkyAlone: How do I make new friends?
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/09/14/dear-quirkyalone-where-are-all-the-quirkyalone-men/
“Dear Quirkyalone: Advice for QuirkyLiving” is a weekly guest column by the authors of the brilliant blog Onely. It appears every Monday. When you’re making up your own road map for (quirky)living, you need thoughtful advice. We’re here for you. Quirkyalone and Onely welcome your questions; send them on to onely AT onely.org.
Dear Quirkyalone: I’m a Quirkyalone from SF, kinda floating between school and not school right now, and I was wondering: I often feel like the rest of my generation of college aged folks is only interested in interacting with one another while drunk. In recent exchanges at parties, I find that I am remarkable to my drunk acquaintances, yet less so on days after when they become sober. Why do you suppose that is? – Gian
Dear Gian,
In order to answer your question, I’m going to make two assumptions:
1) that your new acquaintances were not simply too drunk to remember you afterward; and
2) that when you say “in days after” you’re not talking about “the morning after”.
I think you already know that you can’t use a person’s drunk personality as a barometer for how they’ll treat you in the sober times. Now with that caveat out of the way, let’s look a little deeper:
Drunk people are likely to be more interested in anyone and everything. That’s why people drink–to see the world in new ways. Or maybe that’s LSD. But in any case, when your drunk interlocutor told you, “Gee, your worm farm sounds just fascinating,” he (we’ll assume he’s a he) may very well have meant it. Alcohol suppresses activity in the prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain responsible for planning and decision making. So at the time of your conversation, his impaired prefrontal cortex caused him to “forget” or overlook how much worms remind him of some unfortunate experiments on the playground in middle school, or the fact that dirt in his fingernails gives him the willies. But when his brain sobered up, the realization that he’s not really that into mulch and compost came blasting back into his consciousness, along with the headache. Hence his decision, “I guess I won’t call that nice worm girl after all.”
Another possibility is that in his haze of drunken hopefulness, he assumed that when you said ‘mulch and compost’ you meant something else. Then once his full facilities returned, he realized, “Oh, she probably really did mean mulch and compost. Sigh.”
And still another possibility is that those “folks” may have been embarrassed at their former exuberance–while they were drunk, they dropped their guard, exposed some of their inner selves, right?–and so they tried to compensate, to regain some of their cool, by being less exuberant in the sober light of day. This sheepishness is ironic because often those same people drank in order to become more confident–and college students are particularly susceptible to this phenomenon, being relatively young and insecure.
You might want to look for a different crowd, maybe one with some older people. You can have platonic friendships with men and women of all ages. You don’t say whether you’re into drinking yourself, but if it’s something you don’t want to forego completely, then maybe spend Friday drinking with your current friends and try a dance class or anatomical drawing course on Saturday, where you might connect with people who have interests other than alcohol.
–Christina
P.S. To all our readers in the U.S., happy Labor Day!
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I had no memory of where I parked my car. Why? While I was parking the car, a friend called. Against my better judgment I took the call. I wanted to talk to him, and I found myself so engrossed in the experience of telling him everything that happened with our mutual loved one (who is suffering from cancer) over the last month, that I had apparently no memory of where I parked the car. All I could remember was the sensation of walking over a pedestrian overpass, and looking for the spa, where ironically, I was going to relax.
The theme of the day was multitasking. I blamed multitasking for the incident. I lost my car, but first believed it might be stolen. It’s always fun when those two questions obsessively course through your brain: Did I lose my car or was it stolen? After 30 minutes of scouring for it on foot, I flagged down a cop who amazingly helped me find the car by driving around with me. He was my savior. After thirty more minutes we found it. I gushed, “Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart.” I think he thought I was the most tightly wound woman in San Francisco.
Some defenders call it, “continuous partial attention.” I think they are kidding themselves. Just that morning, I found myself unable to stop emailing while listening to an absolutely riveting KQED Forum radio show about our increasing propensity to text, IM, email, and watch videos while doing everything else. The Stanford study expected “heavy media multitaskers” to have special abilities, but instead, but all they found were deficits in their memory, efficiency, attention, and organizational skills, as compared to non-heavy-media multitaskers. HMMs have the illusion of productivity, but the brain’s switching costs, from emailing to IM to video to writing, are too high. The brain can only process one string of information at once.
Add a new symptom to the list: I realized that I suffer from multitasking-induced dementia. The moment of parking my car didn’t even happen because it doesn’t get etched into my memory. I remember many details of my phone call with Robert, and nothing about the street where I parked my car.
What does this all have to do with quirkyalone?
We have to stop the multitasking madness. At least, I know I do. It’s antithetical to the vida quirkyalone, or the good life, in any sense. When we multitask, we don’t suffer only cognitively. I believe we suffer emotionally too. That’s the study I would like to see next. What does multitasking do to our mood and self-esteem? If you’re me, you feel like an idiot because you lose your car! More generally, if you are moving so fast and doing so many things, you’re not present for your own life. If you don’t notice your surroundings and take pleasure in the moment, you’re not living la vida quirkyalone.
Our quirky divinity emerges when we are more grounded and still. That’s when the answers become clear, that’s where joy lives. I am such a believer in stillness and focus and doing one thing at a time, but I have to remind myself of the value of stillness over and over again. I have to exercise willpower to do just one thing: eat, write, read, watch a movie, even now. The temptation to pick up my laptop is there. It’s a message I need to hear so many times before it sinks in, before I acquire the willpower to put my phone in my purse and zip it closed. I really believe it’s the key to happiness and ease for me. It’s crazy how we are trying to alter our brains to do more than one thing at once. . . it doesn’t work.
So today I forgot my phone at home and I will be without it for a few hours. I am giddy about that. I just wrote this blog post, only checking my email once and going online to research the study! What a victory. I am breathing deeper.
What are your thoughts on multitasking? Can you multitask and be happy, or are you trying to cut back too?
P.S. Here is a short video I made with my aunt and her caregiver about quirkyness. . . listen for the end for some profound thoughts about stillness and quirkyness. It’s a little hard to hear at the end, but it’s very spot-on for this topic.
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“Dear Quirkyalone: Advice for QuirkyLiving” is a weekly guest column by the authors of the brilliant blog Onely. It appears every Monday. When you’re making up your own road map for (quirky)living, you need thoughtful advice. We’re here for you. Quirkyalone and Onely welcome your questions; send them on to onely AT onely.org.
Dear Quirkyalone: Are single people over a certain age too picky? Is that so wrong? – Special K
Dear Special K,
Here’s my short answer: No, and No.
But to be more specific:
First, I’d like to consider the phrase “too picky.” The way I see it, being “picky” is not in and of itself a “bad” thing, though our culture often seems to say so. Let’s say we’re talking about food: If you order the specialty burger at your favorite restaurant that comes loaded with toppings – in this case bacon, blue cheese, arugula, avocado, and mushrooms – but the taste and texture of mushrooms make you want to puke, it’s pretty reasonable to ask for the burger without the mushrooms. If you are too shy, uncertain, or simply unaware to articulate this taste, you’ll likely leave the restaurant dissatisfied and/or hungry. In that sense, then, I would call awareness of your distaste a positive “pickiness.” In the same way, if you know that you don’t ever want to have kids, but you meet someone who is attractive in many senses but wants to have eight children with his future partner, then it makes sense to steer clear before the meal comes – that is, before you learn the hard way that no matter how much you love him, you just can’t eat those mushrooms.
If, however, your imagined (as opposed to proven) sense of (dis)taste keeps you from being open to new or different culinary experiences – let’s say that you’ve never had sushi before and refuse to try it, or let’s say that you had tofu once at a hospital cafeteria and you didn’t like it then but now have the chance to try it again in a five-star restaurant and you refuse, even though your dining companions say it’s the best dish they’ve ever had – I would say that you may be “too picky.” In much the same way, I suppose that, yes, it is possible to be “too picky” when it comes to potential mates. If you meet a plumber but refuse to date her simply on the basis that you’ve never dated a plumber before (or because you assume every plumber is blithely unaware of his or her buttcrack showing), then you might be missing out on a world of new experiences and perspectives to which you would otherwise not have exposure (not to mention never learning the answer to the question: where do all those pipes lead?). Or, let’s say that, several years ago, you had an office romance that turned terribly sour – an experience that prompted you to write off all future office romances. Since then, however, you find that you have formed a deep connection with another office mate who is clearly a better match, and you find you have strong romantic feelings for him. In cases like these, it doesn’t always make sense to dogmatically stick to those hard-and-fast rules that we make to protect ourselves. In certain circumstances – especially if we proceed with a cautious optimism and honesty about the past – the tofu may, in fact, be worth trying again.
No matter how picky you are, as a Quirkyalone, the most important thing is that you’re comfortable with, and honest about, your likes and dislikes. If you truly hate dogs, it’s not fair to yourself or your potential partner to date a dog-owner. If you need someone to call you every night before you go to bed, then it makes no sense to date a bartender who works the night shift. Sometimes our friends and family may make us feel bad for those things we consider to be “dealbreakers,” but ultimately, this is your life, and you really shouldn’t settle. Do what makes you happy, but be honest about it.
You mention something about age above, but I’m really not sure what age has to do with it. If anything, people “over a certain age” (whatever that means) have more life experience and, thus, more awareness of what they can and can’t live with, as well as what does or doesn’t make them happy. To me, that doesn’t seem “wrong” at all.
– Lisa
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Choosing to remain single in a coupled world is sometimes a lonely gig, never more so than when all of your close friends are smugly cocooned in their couple-bubbles. It can make you feel like the last single person on Earth.
As once-single friends morph into couples, it often becomes irritatingly apparent that they no longer understand the challenges or perspectives of singledom. You sometimes feel like hitting them over the head, yet you still love them and yearn for common ground to maintain your friendships. This painful conflict is played out to hilarious effect in the engaging Web series Imaginary Bitches.
Eden is the last single girl in her circle of friends, refusing to compromise her standards simply to have a boyfriend. After an amazing date with a guy she really likes, Eden calls each of her friends to share her exciting news, but they’re only interested in talking about their relationships. Increasingly dispirited with each aborted call, Eden discovers, to her astonishment, that she has conjured an imaginary friend named Catherine—a friend who’s avidly interested in discussing all the details of Eden’s date.
But Catherine proves to be less a “friend” than a total bitch, with something nasty to say about Eden and all of her real girlfriends. That’s right, Eden herself is not exempt from Catherine’s bitchiness. Furthermore, Catherine is soon joined by a second imaginary bitch named Heather. The imaginary bitches quickly establish their presence in all of Eden’s relationships, leaving her to deal with the fallout even as they help her sort out her friendships and her love life.
It’s Sex and the City meets Ally McBeal—except that Eden (played by Emmy award-winner Eden Riegel of All My Children and Year One) is the only one who can see the imaginary bitches. Eden delivers all of the bitches’ lines, parrying her real girlfriends’ careless cruelties with a brutal honesty offset by a disarming sweetness and genuine dismay. It’s the best of both worlds: total honesty without consequences.
When Eden’s real girlfriend, Brooke, hangs out with Eden and the imaginary bitches, Brooke asks what the bitches are saying about her. Eden replies, “Catherine is saying that you’re a fat, selfish bitch who likes me being single because it makes you feel superior . . . But Heather thinks you’re pretty. Sexy, in fact. And that if [your boyfriend] is amazing enough to abandon your best friend for, then she’d like to take him for a spin. Like, have sex with him.”
Eden’s real girlfriends eventually band together to stage a coup against the imaginary bitches, eagerly informing Eden that they’re going to get her a boyfriend “so you can be one of us!” But Eden hesitates, saying that Heather thinks Eden’s friends “sound like body-snatching aliens, and that the boyfriend is a plot to turn me into a relationship pod-person.” The real girlfriends wonder if imaginary bitches can have boyfriends, and discover that yes, imaginary bitches can, but “different kinds of boyfriends than you guys have—not losers.”
Through all the casual and deliberate indignities that Eden suffers—from being excluded from couples dinner parties, to going on blind dates, to trying to cultivate new single friends—Imaginary Bitches is a fun, catty look at being single in a coupled world. Season One is available on DVD, as well as on the show’s website and on YouTube. You can watch all 13 episodes in less than 90 minutes.
The following episode (“A Spiritual Bitch-Bath”) shows the tart and tangy flavor of the series. The imaginary bitches take it upon themselves to deal with the “pseudo-spiritual psychopath” who stole Eden’s previous boyfriend. Which makes us wonder: Are the bitches really imaginary? Or simply invisible to the non-psychotic?
My own imaginary bitches are telling me to shut up and watch the episode!
Bitch back in the comments.
____________________________
Zeitgeist: Quirkyalone Pop Culture is a regular column appearing on (most) Fridays.
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“Dear Quirkyalone: Advice for QuirkyLiving” is a weekly guest column by the authors of the brilliant blog Onely. It appears every Monday. When you’re making up your own road map for (quirky)living, you need thoughtful advice. We’re here for you. Quirkyalone and Onely welcome your questions; send them on to onely AT onely.org.
Dear Quirkyalone,
Many of my friends are having children, and this is putting pressure on our friendships. Not only do they have next-to-no time to catch up, but all our conversation centres on their children. So it’s time to find new friends –but this is proving really really difficult. Can you talk about the phenomenon of having very few friends and where and how to make new friends (either single or childfree friends)? Thanks.
–Singal (in Australia)
Dear Singal,
I think many readers will identify with your problem. But before I answer your question, let me offer some annoying unsolicited advice: don’t give up on your friends right away. Friendship is about weathering life changes together. It’s normal for people–especially Quirkyalones or Quirkytogethers–to develop different goals and interests through life (would you want to be friends with them if they didn’t?). Consider yourself lucky that your friends are not taking up B.A.S.E. jumping (or something more terrifying, like scrapbooking). Some relationships can survive such shifts in interests, and others can’t. In any friendship, one person will sometimes tax the other’s patience–think of vacation slideshows. But when a friend really hurts or neglects you, try to decide what would be least stressful: abandoning the friendship, or taking action to fix it–whether through a frank talk with your friend, a simple apology, a monetary stimulus, interpretive dance, whatever. Use this handy formula:
(Cumulative joy obtained from interactions with friend) - (Total angst acrued from friend’s transgression) > (Anticipated angst of addressing the issue)
Your friends simply may not realize that no matter how smart and cute they think their children are, other people will never find them quite as interesting, unless the kids poop sparkle turds. So next time you tire of hearing about the baby, try gently saying, “Hey, I do want to hear about little Sally’s croup soon, but actually right now I was hoping we could talk a little bit about this book I was reading, because it reminded me of our trip to Gettysburg that one prom night. Once I get that off my chest I’ll be able to pay closer attention to the subtleties of Sally’s hacking.” After a couple of these suggestions, your true friends should get the hint that you’re feeling neglected, and they’ll act accordingly.
But supposing they don’t make more of an effort to incorporate you? Well, then, I like meetup.com. (It’s in Australia too.) The site helps connect groups of people share a common interest, such as Italian language, basketball, or astral travel. It’s not a dating site, so you seldom encounter the meatmarket mentality (disclaimer: Onely takes no responsibility for any very rare occurrences of smarmy arm-stroking and close-talking).
However, the best way to make new friends is to focus less on meeting people and more on pursuing your own interests. Let the connections happen naturally from that. For example, get a puppy because you think dogs are adorable, not because the dog park is a good place to strike up conversations.
If you do meet someone you think has friend potential, remember that making friends and dating share many of the same strategies and pitfalls: Show interest but not desperation or fear. Maintain eye contact. Let them sniff your hand first. (Oh wait, that’s dogs.) Laugh at their jokes unless they’re not funny. Share parallel details from your life (but don’t interrupt with your own stories or try to trump someone’s ancedote with your own).
Readers, how do you maintain old friendships and form new ones?
–Christina at Onely
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“Dear Quirkyalone: Advice for QuirkyLiving” is a weekly guest column by the authors of the brilliant blog Onely. It appears every Monday. When you’re making up your own road map for (quirky)living, you need thoughtful advice. We’re here for you. We welcome your questions; send them on to onely AT onely.org.
Dear Quirkyalone,
When a woman is in a relationship with a guy who everyone else can see is treating her badly, what goes on in the woman’s mind that prevents her from seeing these very same things? How does she qualify staying with this guy and why? What’s behind the excuses she makes for him?– Bobby
Hi Bobby,
This is an excellent question indeed. While I can’t claim to be able to speak for the woman in question, I can offer a few theories (which, as a side note, could be applied to either men or women, as well as lesbians and gay men):
1. She might subscribe to the faulty equation: Being coupled > being single.
Contemporary Western culture tends to ascribe more value to men and women who are coupled over those who remain single for most of their lives. This kind of valuing occurs in our informal, everyday social lives: Take, for example, the officemate who squeals with delight when she learns you have a date next weekend but doesn’t appreciate your love for gardening. And it happens more formally in our financial, legal, and religious lives: Many religions see marriage as a contract between two people and God (the Catholic church recognizes the institution as a holy sacrament). Paradoxically, single people (those who do not dedicate their lives formally to God, at least — such as priests or nuns) are usually not perceived as having an equivalent contract and could therefore be seen as less holy (read: less valuable). And even in secular life, married people generally pay less in taxes, have the right to make medical and other important decisions for spouses in times of need, and ultimately enjoy far more legal privileges than singles.
Put in this context, who wouldn’t want to be coupled?
Unfortunately, the woman you describe may understand these societal pressures to be ultimate truths. Put in terms of “truth,” the value of coupling stops being subjective and can instead be described by a simple mathematical equations: Being coupled > being single. Bummer.
2. She might suffer from low self-esteem.
When someone lacks confidence and self-esteem, it’s easier to look to others instead of oneself for approval and acceptance. Romantic relationships — healthy or not — often provide a steady source of this kind of affirmation. Cutting off this kind of support may simply prove too much of a risk for your woman-friend. In fact, romantic relationships are one of the few culturally acceptable spaces in which partners can almost demand such affirmation. Relationships become unhealthy and dysfunctional when partners a) demand too much or refuse to be emotionally satisfied, no matter how much the other person gives; b) withhold emotional satisfaction/affirmation in order to hurt the other person; c) abuse the trust of the other person by exacerbating his/her self-esteem issues.
If you suspect your friend might be in an unhealthy, dysfunctional, or abusive relationship, you might encourage her to seek professional help.
3. She might not be comfortable with herself or know how to be alone.
Beyond the above possibilities, the woman you’ve asked about above may simply not be comfortable with herself or with being alone. Perhaps she’s a social extrovert and prefers constant company over silence - a relationship might seem to be the best way to provide this, even if it’s not what others call a “good” one. Maybe she doesn’t like to cook and would rather eat at restaurants, but feels terribly uncomfortable sitting alone at a table in public — having a relationship, even a bad one, may provide that small comfort. Or possibly, given how “normal” culture makes coupling out to be, this woman has never even considered what it would be like to be single.
In that case, you might suggest she take a solo road trip (as I once did after a breakup) or some other activity that she’d usually do with someone else — and ask her how being alone changed the experience in positive or surprising ways.
Whatever the case, it’s obvious that this woman isn’t experiencing the joys of Quirkyliving if she’s settled for a bad relationship… You even might give her a copy of the Quirkyalone book — at least to show her that there are alternatives to the way she’s currently living!
Good luck, Bobby. Thanks for the question, and I hope you’ve found this helpful!
– Lisa at Onely
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You’d think it was the first time anyone’s ever gotten a divorce.
Sandra Tsing Loh’s recent admission in The Atlantic that she’s divorcing her husband after 20 years (following her own extramarital affair) has ignited a firestorm of high-minded controversy debating the pros and cons of marriage. The story was picked up nationally, with nearly all the major news outlets chiming in online, on air and in print.
The particular point of contention is Ms. Loh’s theory that perhaps the reason we have a divorce culture is because we marry too often. Citing “all the abject and swallowed misery” she observes in modern marriage, she wonders, “Why do we still insist on marriage?”
Then she really gets down to it, ending her polemic with a
“final piece of advice: avoid marriage—or you too may suffer the emotional pain, the humiliation, and the logistical difficulty, not to mention the expense, of breaking up a long-term union at midlife for something as demonstrably fleeting as love.”
Not to pick on Sandra Tsing Loh, but by saying that it’s now better to be single just because she’s getting divorced, she has succumbed to the common tendency of viewing her own personal choices as a referendum on what everyone else should be doing. And so has everyone who has joined this odd debate.
So . . . is it better to be married or single? It’s a ridiculous question, of course.
The name of the game is happiness. Fulfillment. Living an abundant life. For some people that means marriage, for others it means independence. A lucky few—married or not—manage to create committed relationships that don’t require sacrificing essential parts of themselves, or (even better) that actively support the things they value most in themselves.
Aaron Traister is a great example of someone who enjoys being married. In an article on Salon.com he says, “The years since we got married have been the most challenging and at times most frustrating years of my life. They have also been the most productive, happiest and most hilarious.” His description of his marital bliss doesn’t whitewash the daily realities: the financial problems, the demanding children, the constant home repair, the lack of romance and, inevitably, the lack of regular sex.
With all due respect, his bliss is my worst nightmare. If I were living his life I’d be torn between shooting myself or my partner. But that’s exactly the point—his marriage makes him happy. For him, it’s a source of contentment, humor, challenge, and personal growth that fulfills him on many levels.
He admits to being fed up with
“divorced people speaking as though they are oracles from the future who know how the rest of our unions will turn out. All the marriage bashing going on out there feels like a way of shedding a certain amount of personal responsibility. By telling the world the institution is flawed, or that we’ve somehow outgrown it, nobody has to own up and admit that it was their interpretation of it that was screwed up.”
Traister’s frustration with divorced marriage bashers is the reversed mirror image of the annoyance that quirkyalones often feel when the smugly coupled get on their high horses about singledom. Just because they found being single frightening, or lonely, or too non-conformist, they’ve decided that being single is a problem that needs to be solved rather than admitting that it simply wasn’t a good fit for them.
I’m not against marriage—I never have been. Like all quirkyalones, I am passionately against settling. Against making convenient choices at the expense of the things that make me truly happy. Against living an unfulfilled life.
As a serial monogamist with long stretches between relationships, I probably look more committed to being single than I really am. But I have those long stretches precisely because I take commitment so seriously. I put a lot of time and emotional energy into my relationships and I don’t give up on them easily. I’m willing to commit to maintaining a strong connection with a man whom I love, and who loves me in return.
And I am utterly unwilling to put even minimal effort into preserving a relationship that has ceased to be a source of happiness in my life.
Like Sandra Tsing Loh, most divorced people consider divorce one of the biggest failures of their lives, but I think that viewpoint misses an essential truth. I would consider a 20-year relationship a success if it had mostly contributed to my happiness, and a failure if I’d spent the majority of that time being unhappy and resentful. Likewise for a six-month relationship. Ditto for six weeks.
We live in a world of opportunity with abundant options. If we’re unhappy for any reason, we have the power to change our circumstances. We have the power to choose happiness.
So instead of arguing over whether it’s “better” to be married or single, let’s embrace happiness as a goal with its own reward—whether we create it as single people, or partnered, or married, or some personal variation that works only for us.
____________________________
Zeitgeist: Quirkyalone Pop Culture is a weekly column appearing on Fridays.
Photo credit: “Happiness Buttons” by Megan Elizabeth Morris via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.
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“Dear Quirkyalone: Advice for QuirkyLiving” is a weekly guest column by the authors of the brilliant blog Onely. It debuts today and will appear every Monday. When you’re making up your own road map for (quirky)living, you need thoughtful advice. We’re here for you. We welcome your questions; send them on to onely AT onely.org.
Dear Quirkyalone,
Besides Oprah, who is a good model of single living in our culture? –Special K
Dear Special K,
Good question. I think it’s much easier to come up with examples of poor single role models than admirable ones. Momentarily blocked for ideas of my own, I googled “single role models.” Here’s a sampling from the first page of results:
Using Role Models to Succeed With Single Women
Lack of Male Role Models For Young Children From Single-Parent Families
They Were Single Too: 8 Biblical Role Models, by David M. Hoffeditz
“Oh dear,” I thought, “Surely there must have been a few notable singles since John the Baptist?” With Google apparently hijacked by heteronormatives, I was forced to actually search of my own brain for ideas. Here’s a sampling from those results:
Notable Singles Nowadays
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor:
She is not only a “wise Latina”, but she has supported gay rights, which is crucial for being nominated as Supreme Quirkyalone. Singles, as a (somewhat) oppressed demographic themselves, should be accepting of all kinds of relationships, not just couplings and definitely not just heterosexual couplings.
And speaking of Supremes:
According to this Ebony article, singer Mary Wilson “says that being single has allowed her to develop in ways that being married did not. ‘Now, I can play without asking permission from my husband or parents,’ she says. ‘I like the idea of being able to make my own choices about what to do.’ ”
Radio news show host Kojo Nnamdi:
Topics on his NPR show have ranged from synthetic biology to Edgar Allan Poe. He’s smart, articulate, world-wise, curious–and single, according to his MySpace page, or a page that claims to be his. (I’m not a stalker, I swear. I haven’t even had a MySpace page since the restraining order.)
S. Ann Dunham Soetoro:
President Obama’s mother Soetoro seems like a classic Quirkyalone–independent, passionate, determined, with a romantic streak. Janny Scott summarizes Soetoro’s life succinctly in this San Francisco Chronicle article. According to Scott, Soetoro spent her childhood
. . . wheeling westward in the slipstream of her furniture-salesman father. In Hawaii, she married an African student at age 18. Then she married an Indonesian, moved to Jakarta, became an anthropologist, wrote a dissertation on peasant blacksmithing in Java, worked for the Ford Foundation, championed women’s work and helped bring microcredit to the world’s poor.
Soetoro fell hard for her husbands but didn’t follow them blindly if their dreams conflicted with hers. Her marriages “faded,” as Amanda Ripley puts it in this Time article, but she had another man in her life: someone she remained close to even when life circumstances required that they live apart, someone she influenced with her compassion and curiosity, someone who became the first Black president of the United States.
And lest we forget that role models come into our lives in ways other than on the magic rays of mass media, I want to nominate a couple “real” people from my own life:
Dr. Kate:
My doctor is an MD who incorporates holistic and “alternative” (definition: not lucrative for big pharma) healthcare techniques into her practice. She is booked up months in advance because she’s not only a great physician, but a great empathizer who always takes her time with each patient. She adopted a baby girl and lights up with joy whenever she talks about her. As a single woman, she has managed to combine career and childcare, largely on her own but also with the help of loved ones other than a husband.
Uncle Bill:
My uncle lives in a little cabin on a lake in Michigan. For years he worked the night shift at his machine plant so that he could enjoy daylight on the lake. He gets more pleasure from walks in the woods, 1960s eight-tracks, puzzles, kayaking, and watching TV specials about the Bermuda Triangle than most people would get from eating hashish brownies in a champagne-filled massage jacuzzi under a starry tropical sky while having sex with Brad Pitt. (Or Angelina. Or both.)
And About Oprah:
Actually, I’m not all that sure that Oprah is a top model of healthy and happy single living. I know, blasphemy! But Quirkyliving is about embracing your idiosyncrasies, even if society tells you they’re inappropriate. (With exceptions for pyromania and public toenail-trimming.) [Editor's note: Some of us are not willing to give up our predilection for public toenail-picking!] Oprah’s yo-yo dieting and spread-eagled triumph poses when she squeezes into a waist-cinching dress to show off her body so tiny that her head looks like a lollipop–that doesn’t scream Quirkyliving to me. It seems more like a cry for acceptance into the world of mass media, a male-dominated world that still tells women they must be thin to be listened to, respected, and have sex lives.
Oprah is a brilliant, beautiful woman and a media queen–she could completely rewrite the rules, but instead she follows the slim-down status quo.
Readers, who are your models for healthy and happy single living?
–Christina of Onely
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http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/08/09/dear-quirkyalone-advice-for-quirkyliving/
Dilemmas, conundrums, burning (or mundane) questions about quirkyaloneness and quirkytogetherness: We all have them, and we want to hear yours. What questions do you have about optimum quirkyliving? What’s come up in your life recently where you could use some advice, a pep talk, or maybe even some tough love? We’d like to know, because we’re launching a new quirkyalone (or more broadly, quirkyliving) advice column. It will answer everything you ever wanted to know about quirkyliving and were(n’t) afraid to ask. The advice dispensers will be the lovely and talented writers over at one of my favorite blogs Onely.
We’ll be launching the column this month. Send your questions to onely AT onely dot org.
To sweeten the deal we’re sponsoring a contest for the first question askers. Send a question to the Onely ladies and let me know you have done so by leaving a comment on this post “I asked a question for the new quirkyalone advice column.” Leave your comment by Thursday, July 16. I’ll choose one of you at random; you’ll get a signed copy of Quirkyalone.
We’re ready and waiting to pore over your problems, so bring them on!
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Related posts:Quirkyalone Media Empire About to Expand: Want to Join Us?Wanted: Your To-Do Lists for a New Book!A Sweet Quirkytogether Vows Column in the New York Times
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/07/07/wanted-your-dilemmas-for-a-new-advice-column-win-a-copy-of-quirkyalone/
Transparency is a major buzzword in Internet circles these days. It’s about sharing who you are through YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, enough to make you seem more real and a little vulnerable. Transparency is said to bring us closer together. In business and government, transparency theoretically makes institutions more accountable.
It’s strange to be a nonfiction writer who has always specialized in writing about culture through the prism of my own life now that everyone is sharing tidbits of their lives online. I’m suspicious of the belief that we should all be transparent. I know how carefully I and other nonfiction writers and memoirists consider which stories and details to share. We don’t tell them in real-time. It’s impossible to predict how careless sharing will haunt us in the future, whether in the workplace or a relationship.
But now I feel blocked, I decided to give the whole transparency thing a try. What’s the worst thing that can happen? If there’s anything I’m passionate about, it’s honest communication.
I have decided that it might be interesting to be more transparent at this moment about my tangle of ambivalence regarding quirkyalone ten years after originally writing an essay defining the term (and five years after publishing my book).
In December 2008 I came up with the idea of redesigning this site to turn it into a group blog and magazine with daily, fresh content. The quirkyalone outlook can be applied to politics, travel, marriage, relationships, friendship, community, (online) dating, pop culture, and more. When I put out the call, smart bloggers responded that they wanted to contribute. It took five months to execute on the redesign–and now it’s time to start. But I am stymied and unmotivated. Why is that? My way to get unblocked is often to write. Often by writing things become more clear.
So here goes.
I am afraid that by continuing to put my energy into a website about singleness that I am writing myself into a future of eternal singlehood. Let me be clear. One of my worst fears in life is to be misunderstood, especially on gut issues like the ones raised by Quirkyalone about love and relationships. I do not want to be single forever. I want to be in a long-term relationship. Why do I feel the need to say this?
Around New Year’s I ran into an old college friend whom I saw for the first time in seven years. He introduced me to his friends as the lady behind the quirkyalone movement, but he apparently hadn’t really absorbed the full definition. He asked me if I have to tell new boyfriends about quirkyalone as if I am telling them I have herpes, as if it’s something that needs to be disclosed at the beginning of a relationship. He thought being quirkyalone meant I wanted only flings. I was speechless.
For months, I worried that other people might think the same thing. Have I been sabotaging myself all these years by unknowingly putting forward the impression that I only want to be single?
Does putting all this energy into building a website and community of self-respecting and proud single people mean that I will only attract singleness myself? Am I telling the universe I only want to be single in some horribly Secret-ish way? Does Quirkyalone intimidate men? Do they not ask me out assuming I prefer to be single?
There is no shocking revelation here: no polyamory, no deviance. Wow, I want a long-term partner, how crazy is that? But somehow it’s very important for me to be clear.
But now that I’m in my mid-thirties, it’s unacceptable to me for my career and my creative work to even potentially be at cross-purposes with my hopes for my personal life. The differences between quirkyalone at 25 (when I first conceived this idea) and at 35 now are a rich topic that I want to explore in a separate piece, but it’s abundantly clear that this is a decade when I need and want to be entirely clear-eyed and clear with others about what I want out of my life. That includes a husband (or long-term relationship), a child (I think!), continued creative vitality, strong friendships, a feeling of civic community, and closeness with my family. That’s my abstract list.
You notice I put husband first. In some way, I have been afraid to articulate that wish: to myself (because I feared, well, what if it doesn’t happen, you don’t want to be disappointed) and to my quirkyalone readers: because I was afraid of making you feel less empowered or even betrayed. I felt an obligation to put on a publicly content face about being single. It’s messed up, when I think about it with any depth. I was willing to sacrifice honesty and even my potential success at finding love (by not being honest) because I was afraid of betraying to my single readers? WTF?
I can’t wave the flag for something that I don’t believe in. Or in an idea that doesn’t serve me personally. Which means, I need to redefine quirkyalone now, ten years later.
In some subtle and yet fundamental way, I want to redefine quirkyalone with yet another layer. This has never been a simple or easily explainable idea. It’s not like “metrosexual”: it has ambivalence and paradox baked right into it, the comfort in being single combined with the aching yearning to find the right partner.
More and more quirkyalone is about connection for me, the idea that it’s impossible to be connected to others without being comfortable alone. It’s about being connected in a time when our attention is growing more fragmented, as we multitask, twitter, glance at our phones and our video streams. It’s about being comfortable with your aloneness and connected to your deepest self, whether you’re single or partnered. For many of us, I think being quirkyalone is a prerequisite to being in a healthy relationship. It’s about confidence and presence, so you can be fully present for someone else and appreciate them for who they are without judgment or squeezing them into a predefined box or list. Solitude can be experienced alone or with others. With others: it’s just about focusing on the world which you inhabit together.
I am not saying that being in a relationship is better than being single. I’m saying that there are ways you can only grow when you are single, and ways you can only grow when you are partnered. Perpetual, lifelong singlehood is not optimal because it shuts off the possibility of certain kinds of growth. I have spent enough time being single, and it’s time for me to learn and grow in a new way by being partnered with someone. For others, it’s time to grow by being single.
It makes me feel happy to be honest. In a way, writing this post reminds me of the blissful exhalation I felt when I shared my original quirkyalone essay with a roommate 10 years ago before it was published. Writing feels like thought exhalation to me. I slept deeply that night because I exhaled something that was hard to articulate, but true, and it was a great relief to see that she got it. I look forward to more writings about all these messy complexities.
Expect more transparent truths about me and quirkyalone, and more transparent truths from the writers who are going to join this blog soon.
I’ll be introducing them one by one over the coming weeks.
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http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/06/21/the-truth-about-me-and-quirkyalone-ten-years-later/
Today I am oh so pleased to unveil the new, resdesigned quirkyalone.net!
The new site has been designed to showcase popular content so that when you land on the blog, there are easy ways to click and find more of what interests you. The changes include:
- Daily fresh content on the blog. Soon we’ll be adding new contributors writing on the single life, quirkytogether marriages, politics, pop culture, travel, and more.
- Top tabs surfacing the most popular and featured blog posts along with contributors and archives
- Sample chapters from the book
- Cool new galleries to display images, like those in the IQD party pack
- Threaded comments (now you can reply to someone else’s comment on a post)
Thank you to Randy Jones from Aquatoad Design for working with me on every last detail. Thanks also to Sara Cambridge, Matt Albiniak, and Bonni Evenson.
Please take a whirl around and leave comments with any bugs you find. I was eager to launch before I head to New York for a sure-to-be wacky and surreal Twitter event: the 140 characters conference, where I will be a “character.” In all the last-minute madness, I haven’t had time to do full QA on QA–so eager to hear about any bugs you find! Looking forward to your comments, feedback, and ideas and the continuing evolution of quirkyalone.net. xo Sasha
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Related posts:Happy Birthday Quirkyalone.net! Today You’re FiveQuirkyalone.net EndorsesInternational Quirkyalone Day RoundUp
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/06/13/the-new-quirkyalonenet-launches-at-last/
I’m doing double duty right now, testing out a product that we’re building at my day job. It’s called Tinker, and this is a Tinker embeddable widget. This widget allows me to pull in tweets that mention the word Quirkyalone from Twitter. Tinker is kinda neat because it allows you take the pulse of [...]
Related posts:This Is Your Brain on TwitterQuirkyalone at the OscarsQuirkyalone Movie Night at the Kabuki: A Private Screening of Sex and the City
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/05/26/quirkyalone-chatter-on-twitter/
Sometimes authors talk about their books as babies. With no disrespect to the mothers of human beings, it’s true that when you publish a book, it feels like giving birth. You can’t just forget your new child either once it’s out. You take care of it over the years, pushing it out into the world, [...]
Related posts:Want to Write for Quirkyalone?Email of the Week: Essay from a Fellow QAAnd More from the U.K.
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/04/28/whats-your-quirkyalone-story/
1. Meet a friend at a café. Bring post-it notes.
2. Give your friend and yourself five post-it notes each. Tell your friend to write down the five most important things in his or her life, right now, at this moment. Do it yourself. You could write anything: a person, a feeling, a place, a way [...]
Related posts:Can romantic comedies wreck your love life?
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/04/23/find-your-life-purpose-in-five-easy-steps/
Here’s a preview of what’s to come has Quirkyalone expands to become a group blog. This piece is written by my fantastic, quirkytogether poet friend Elline Lipkin. It’s cross-posted on girlwpen.com.
Lisa Belkin, ever on top of the nuances and foibles of dating, mating and family making in our time, points in a recent Sunday New [...]
Related posts:Do Single Mothers Have to Be Nuns?How is a male strip show different?A QA Talks Back
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/04/16/is-it-time-to-wake-up-to-the-male-biological-clock/
Guilty as charged: Like many women, I sometimes read the New York Times Sunday Styles’ section wedding announcements. I’m not so much keeping score (I don’t really care about marriage-as-status), but I am looking for inspiration in the slog for committed romantic love; at the same time, I sometimes avoid this section. There are too [...]
Related posts:Quirkyalone (and SingleEdition) in the New York Times!A new way to meet people: Quirkytogether.comDisgusting and Intertwined: The Quirkytogether (?) Couple of Dennis and Elizabeth Kucinich
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/04/14/a-sweet-quirkytogether-vows-column-in-the-new-york-times/
We all love catchphrases to define who we are. But given that we are all such complex snowflakes, it’s hard to find just the right one. Who really calls herself a “lipstick lesbian”? What urban man unironically embraces “metrosexual”? And yet, it’s fun to have a term for yourself, isn’t it? It can be [...]
Related posts:New Books of NoteNote from a Returning Expat (Quirkyalone)QA in Rio
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/04/13/a-new-parlor-game-define-yourself-through-your-favorite-books/
Note: This piece was also published on the Huffington Post. I find myself evolving into a technology social critic, perhaps a new evolution in career as an uncredentialed urban anthropologist. So watch for more stuff like this in this blog space, as well as more directly quirkyalone-related stuff, especially as the group blog finally launches [...]
Related posts:This Is Your Brain on TwitterWho’s going to SXSW?
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/04/13/twitters-aspiring-micro-celebrities/
Suddenly I’m going to SXSWinteractive this weekend in Austin! I love spontaneity. I have no planned agenda and won’t be speaking on any panels, just soaking up all the creative and entrepreneurial energy. (A nice contrast to the dour headlines, I hope.) If you’re a blogger, entrepreneur, artist, or otherwise creatively inspired person who will [...]
Related posts:And More from the U.K.
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/03/11/whos-going-to-sxsw/
Two weeks ago, on a Friday night around midnight, I was loitering on the sidewalk outside a San Francisco bar with two friends, about to head home but not quite ready to call it a night. A guy standing nearby on the sidewalk told us that that our red, green, and blue jackets, respectively, made [...]
Related posts:Quirkyalone at the Oscars
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/03/10/this-is-your-brain-on-twitter/
In the spirit of community, transparency, and perhaps out of sheer decision-making desperation, I want to invite you to help me choose a tagline for the new incarnation of this website! A redesign is coming, yes! And with it, a beautiful clean look and a new cast of characters group-blogging with me on all [...]
Related posts:Maureen Dowd . . .Quirkyalone?Must-See Quirkyalone Movie of 2008: Happy Go Lucky by Mike LeighCan romantic comedies wreck your love life?
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/02/26/tagline-mania/
Every so often, something random and serendipitous happens that lifts my heart and makes me feel more hopeful about humanity. A few weeks ago, I was reading the corporate bios describing the founding team of the company where I work at my “regular job.” In addition to 25 years of corporate experience, Dianna Mullins mentioned [...]
Related posts:File Under Shock and Awe: Arkansas Bans Single People from Becoming Foster ParentsWomen Writers Tell All: Single In the City
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/02/26/warning-this-post-about-a-little-known-scholarship-for-single-parents-may-make-you-cry/
Who are you rooting for Sunday night at the Oscars? Do you see any quirkyalone heros or storylines in the mix? Happy-Go-Lucky is nominated for best screenplay; earlier, I called it the must-see quirkyalone movie of 2008. So I’m definitely rooting for Poppy and Happy-Go-Lucky in the writing category. Rachel Getting Married is pure art. [...]
Related posts:Must-See Quirkyalone Movie of 2008: Happy Go Lucky by Mike LeighThe Self-Help OscarsMaking Marriage Fun Again
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/02/20/quirkyalone-at-the-oscars/
Didn’t make it to our most excellent IQD celebration in San Francisco? My friend Liz compared the event to a church gathering. It really felt warm and intimate as we settled into the cozy and colorful Red Hill Books for wine, mingling, a reading of the original essay, and a discussion of quirkyalone at various [...]
Related posts:Before the Mortgage Reading and After-Party
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/02/15/iqd-photos/
Listen online at 11:30 am on KALX. After years of doing lots of mainstream media on Quirkyalone Day, it’s a pleasure to do an interview with a cool student-run station!
The DJ Erin is doing an awesome set list in advance. It will make for many excellent quirkyalone mix tapes. I think you’ll be able [...]
Related posts:USA Today Online ChatMe and To-Do Lists on Australia Radio National
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/02/14/special-quirkyalone-day-chat/
International Quirkyalone Day is tomorrow! Here are ten ways to celebrate.
1. Explore a new part of town — be a tourist in your own city.
2. Get a massage.
3. Buy yourself new underwear.
4. Rearrange your furniture.
5. Be creative, doing whatever it is you like to do (write, paint, sew, upholster furniture, surf, make art of out [...]
Related posts:Ten Ways to Celebrate IQDTomorrow is Quirkyalone Day: Here Are Some Ways to CelebrateCountdown to IQD
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/02/13/ten-ways-to-celebrate-iqd-2/
I always thought it was possible for a single mother to date, and even, hey, get laid, but after reading the recent New York Times Magazine story “2 Kids + 0 Husband = Family,” I started to get scared. (Not that I’m a single mother, but hey, it could happen.)
The article documents a “trend” [...]
Related posts:Single Mothers in China Forge a Difficult PathWomen Writers Tell All: Single In the CityA QA Talks Back
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/02/08/do-single-mothers-have-to-be-nuns/
Apparently I am not alone in asking if we are experiencing the end of aloneness. A few days after publishing this blog post, “Are our phones robbing us of solitude?”, I heard KQED’s Forum, our local public radio civic affairs program, take on this very question.
The guest was William Deresiewicz, an English professor who [...]
Related posts:Party in BostonQuirkyalone on KQED Forum, Friday, January 19, 9 amHow can a Social Butterfly be a QA?
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/02/08/zeitgeist-alert-the-end-of-aloneness/
Here are some upcoming International Quirkyalone Day parties. Remember, it’s is a grassroots movement–don’t ask when Quirkyalone Day is coming to your town–bring it there yourself.
San Francisco
Quirkyalone Day Party: A “Matters of the Heart” List Slam
Saturday, February 14, 7 pm
Red Hill Books
401 Cortland Avenue, San Francisco
Bring a list related to “matters of the heart” [...]
Related posts:International Quirkyalone Day PartiesInternational Quirkyalone Day Parties: The ListSixth Annual Quirkyalone Day Party in San Francisco
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/01/29/upcoming-international-quirkyalone-day-parties/
I’m hard at work on what I think will be a very exciting direction for quirkyalone.net. The plan is to transform Quirkyalone into a group blog, even verging on magazine, with a number of bloggers posting on topics relevant to our lives. Whether it’s how to spot another quirkyalone on an online dating site or [...]
Related posts:Want to Write for Quirkyalone?Special Invitation for Quirkyalones: StyleMob!Quirkyalone Community: Is It Ironic?
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/01/28/quirkyalone-media-empire-about-to-expand-want-to-join-us/
Profound thought while walking across the street on a beautiful, sunny afternoon in San Francisco, checking my email on my iPhone: Are we ever really alone anymore?
Taking long walks alone is something that I cherished in my pre-cell phone days, and something I lauded in Quirkyalone as a source of creative inspiration. Long walks alone [...]
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http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/01/25/are-our-phones-robbing-us-of-solitude/
Just as one holiday season comes to a close, it’s time to get ready for another: IQD. Watch this video from Countdown with Keith Olbermann (IQD was story #1!) to inspire you in your own party planning . . .
Related posts:International Quirkyalone Day on MSNBC-TV41 Days Until International Quirkyalone Day!International Quirkyalone Day Q &A
Related posts:International Quirkyalone Day on MSNBC-TV41 Days Until International Quirkyalone Day!International Quirkyalone Day Q &A
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/01/16/international-quirkyalone-day-is-coming-up/
Quirkyalone is a new about being single (and indeed, about relationships) that has sparked a worldwide conversation and movement. The concept was originally introduced in an essay that I wrote ten years ago, and in 2004, in my book Quirkyalone: A Manifesto for Uncompromising Romantics.
Ten years after the original concept was introduced, I am [...]
Related posts:Special Invitation for Quirkyalones: StyleMob!International Quirkyalone Day RoundUpQA in Rio
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/01/13/want-to-write-for-quirkyalone/
My friend Jenny just reminded me that I have a New Year’s problem, which tends to emerge in a particularly virulent way when I travel. The problem is mad indecision. I feel the full force of the road not taken. In San Francisco, I can accept an uneventful New Year’s Eve with close friends, but [...]
Related posts:Quirky-Er Dating SitesWhat It Feels Like to Travel Alone in BrazilNY Reading Report
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/01/13/an-unexpectedly-quirkyalone-new-years-in-rio-de-janeiro/
Thanks to Princess who spotted a big milestone today in the forums. The quirkyalone forums are officially five years old! We launched this site when my book Quirkyalone: A Manifesto for Uncompromising Romantics was published on January 6, 2004, and the forums launched January 12 due to popular demand from readers who wanted to connect [...]
Related posts:Iowa Library Jumps on Quirkyalone BandwagonLibrarians Prepare for Quirkyalone DayHappy Quirkyalone Day!
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2009/01/12/happy-birthday-quirkyalonenet-today-youre-five/
This shocking news just in: My love life may be over. Or at the least, my fantasy love life. According to a new study by researchers at the University of Edinburgh, people who frequently watch romantic comedies often have unrealistic expectations of romantic relationships and are put at a disadvantage in their relationships.
They found fans of films [...]
Related posts:The Greatest Love of AllWest Coast TourAre You Too Busy to Fall in Love? And other dispatches from recent panels
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2008/12/22/can-romantic-comedies-ruin-your-love-life/
GET YOUR OWN BLIPBACK!
Related posts:Single at the HolidaysHow do you celebrate the holidays?
Related posts:Single at the HolidaysHow do you celebrate the holidays?
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2008/12/17/how-do-you-cope-with-or-enjoy-the-holidays/
Have you ever gotten sucked into something that you were also ashamed to read? It happened to me yesterday. I was listlessly checking my email when I noticed a text ad that I must have seen more than 10,000 times. “How to catch and keep a man.” Those ads are as oddly ubiquitous as the [...]
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2008/12/09/is-it-me-or-is-christian-carter-of-catch-him-and-keep-him-the-devil/
With the economy in shards, and ever-more disturbing manifestations of consumerism and greed in the news, will this finally be the year that we confront our holiday consumption addiction? I’d hate to tell people to not spend money, spiraling the economy into a deeper dive, but something has got to give.
Every year my parents, my [...]
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2008/12/03/breaking-the-christmas-present-addiction-giving-presents-rather-than-experiences/
Beyonce may be married to Jay-Z, but that doesn’t mean she wants to be perceived that way by fans. In order to keep her connection to single women fans alive, she’s created a new alter ego “Sasha Fierce.” Is “Sasha Fierce” a sign that being single is desirable, or just that Beyonce understands the power [...]
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2008/12/02/beyonce-takes-on-a-single-alter-ego-sasha-fierce/
What is the appropriate age for baristas, video store clerks, and waitresses to start calling a woman “ma’am”? Please tell me, because I would like to know. I have become semi-obsessed with this question over the last couple of months. It’s possible that people have been calling me “ma’am” for years and I never really [...]
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2008/11/29/maam-vs-miss/
Perhaps I was too jubilant over Obama’s victory to notice. . . not only did Californians vote to take away the rights of same-sex partners to marry, voters in Arkansas voted to ban single people from acting as foster parents. Meanwhile, the state never has anywhere near enough homes for children in the state’s care. [...]
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2008/11/29/file-under-shock-and-awe-arkansas-bans-single-people-from-becoming-foster-parents/
Leave it to the British to create the most quirkyalone movie of 2008. If you haven’t seen Happy Go Lucky, starring the (could there be a quirkier actress) Sally Hawkins, you must run, not walk, to your local independent theater. The movie is more character-driven than plot-driven, as we float through life with a 30-year-old [...]
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2008/11/29/must-see-quirkyalone-movie-of-2008-happy-go-lucky-by-mike-leigh/
Where is the sexual energy in San Francisco? I am frustrated. I have recently come back from Rio, which is perhaps the sexiest place on the planet, and now I feel like I am living in a sexless universe. I am not talking about hoochie mamas dressed like Janet Jackson at the SuperBowl or random hookups or even on-the-street-make-out-sessions, though those are nice and there are plenty of those to see while you drive around Rio. I am talking about a sexual energy crisis.
http://quirkyalone.net/index.php/2008/11/03/the-sexual-energy-crisis/
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