I'm Back And Ready To Overshare My Friends' Love Lives

I intended to just be gone for four days, but it's been a week. I'm so sorry my beloved blogosphere. But I'm back. You can read about all the things I've been up to in my week here. There's another post too, but it hadn't been published at the time of this post, so just check out the main blog to read it.

I'm glad to get back on track with writing. Some interesting things have been happening and I'm dying to share them with you over the next week!

By the way, everyone I write about in this blog are real people with real lives. Don't let the fake names and cartoon photos at the top of each post fool you. I'm not that creative.

Blog Issues

I've been having issues loading my blogs. This one hasn't really had a problem, but frustration with the other two blogs has led me to just give up until I sorted out a solution. I have done what I could with content removal and that seems to have solved the problem. So you will be back to your regularly scheduled drama tomorrow or the next day. It's really harder to blog everyday living in Chicago than it is in St. Louis.

Big Bad Thursday: A Little Bit Married

***Big Bad Thursday is all about Bad. He's one of my best friends and was a charming, if commitment-phobic bachelor. He finally realized a woman was worth giving up complete and total bachelor-hood. So now Bad and Jordan are in love and working towards building a life together. They live in a wonderful apartment in Chicago and they are quite a fabulous couple.***
Read Big Bad Thursday posts.


Last week, I linked to a post that talked about housewarmings. I figured it was appropriate since Bad and Jordan are only a number of months into co-habitating. And they are planning on moving to a place with more space soon, so they have a lot of room to work with in terms of celebrating having a home together.


But I don't really have anything to update about their relationship right now. I will hopefully have something next week. I'm trying to get to go out with Easy and I and some of our friends for St. Patrick's Day. Observing them together as a couple always gives me something to blog about. And you tend to get more detailed updates when it is face to face.


But since I have nothing right now, I'm trolling the internet looking for something. Headed to Google to see what new links I can find. The question is what to Google? Bad and Jordan have been together for a while, and it doesn't seem like they're in any rush to get married. So I will google "dating, but no marriage in sight" and see what that gets me.


I thought I might get a whole bunch of self-help or whiny articles about women who were frustrated at not getting married, but I found a really interesting article. It's on CNN.com and it was posted up last June. It's an interview with a woman who wrote a book about couples who are "a little bit married." They have never tied the knot and yet they still make long-term life decisions around each other without the rush to the altar. You can read the article here.


I love this article, especially in terms of Bad and Jordan. I don't know what will happen with them and marriage, but I'm not too worried about it because it seems that they are good where they are. They have each decided the other person is the person they want to be with and they make life decisions together and with each other in mind. She moved to Chicago to be with him (and go to grad school), so they are the exact type of couple described in this article.


And this article does not pass judgement, it simply points out a trend. I'd be interested in reading this woman's book to further explore her reasoning she sees behind the trend other than financial independence and availability of birth control.

Tip Top Tuesday: Being Unapologetically You

***My girl Top is unique and one-of-a-kind. This makes the story of her love life especially interesting. Just when you think you've got her figured, she makes an unexpected move. She's my career-minded friend who's always focused on self-improvement. She's also super-independent yet a closet nurturer. Read and learn how to be fabulous.***
Read Tip Top Tuesday posts.


Last week, I told two stories about Top that revolve around her world as a single girl. The first was a story about her mother looking forward to grandchildren, but not a son-in-law. The second was about another step towards closure with her Ex.


I wanted to write that blog post, but I did worry about if it would be too personal. But Top said she read the post, liked the post, and was glad I wrote it. She said she liked that for once, I wasn't sugar coating things. I had a good reason for sugar coating things, but she was right.


Worrying about people who may come across this blog and easily figure out who these people are that I write about could get folks in trouble. I do leave stuff out of the blog when it's requested, but I guess I don't have to work so hard to sugar coat things when it's not requested. I just don't want to cross that line of telling something to the whole world that was told to me as a friend. I already feel like the world's biggest gossip. But turning my friends' love lives into a soap opera-y blog has been fun for me, and fun for some of them as well.


Now, moving on to what I'll discuss about Top for this week. I started by Googling "single and fabulous", since that's how I would describe Top. She's one of my only friends who says she's okay being single, and that doesn't have an implied "but". But, that search didn't yield the type of results I was hoping for. I did find some interesting blogs to read. But I tried again with "single and happy". After sorting through the links that suggested tips on how to be single and happy, I found three posts that simply talk about it as a normal state of being. Top isn't really needing the self-help stuff to teach her how to be single and happy. She's got that part down.


Here are the three links:
Single and Happy: It's the Norm, Not the Exception

Single And Happy: It's The Freemales

Single And Happy


All three articles talk about how it's normal, and even, gasp, a good thing to be single and be happy. It's certainly preferable over settling for someone who isn't the right person and contributing to the high divorce rate. Top would rather be single if she can't be with the kind of man who works with who she is as a person without constantly projecting onto her. I think even if she did find that man, it would take a lot to get her to decide giving up her singlehood was worth it. This man would need to put in a lot of time, convincing her over time, that he was worth it.


There are definitely more articles about this that fit who Top is outside of America. I guess that works seeing as how she intends to move out of the country possibly for her next big move. I don't know when it's going to happen, but Top is the kind of woman who can make something like that happen. I am excited for the possibility that she'll branch out even farther. I'll be living vicariously through her, going where she wants, and doing what she wants. And most of all, making no apologies for putting herself first.

Sonny's Sunday: Engaged, But Also Real People With Real Feelings

***Sonny is an old friend of mine. We went to elementary, middle, and high school together. He's also my friend who's doing the super-adult thing. He and his new fiancee Cher just bought a house. They're working on planning a life together. Even with all that stability, their love life is still interesting.***

Read Sonny's Sunday posts.

Last week, I wrote a post about Sonny and Cher's upcoming wedding. I mentioned that the details can't really be sorted until they make their cruise reservations in June. That led to me to link to a website that helps plan destination weddings. It was a cute and interesting website, and it made me excited to think about Sonny and Cher's upcoming wedding.


Their wedding is still more than a year away, which made me think of yesterday's post for Noni's Stargazing Saturday, in which I talked about long ass engagements. I don't think that really applies to Sonny and Cher though, because they have both a ring and a tentative date set.


There's really nothing to update in terms of their relationship or progress as a couple that I know of. So I'll be linking to something from the Internet. I think I'm going to Google the term "surviving being engaged" to see where that leads me.


I found an amazing new blog to read called Wedding Bee. The post I read is called "On Surviving "The Happiest" Time Of Your Life. You can read it and check out the rest of her website here. This takes an interesting view of engagement. It takes off the rose colored sunglasses to remind the world that life doesn't stop because you're engaged.


Sure, you're living out one of the major life goals of most human beings, but it doesn't make you immediately and permanently impervious to things like sadness, stress, and arguments. I don't think Sonny and Cher argue all the time, but they do argument. I think they do a good job of not feeling like their relationship is going to fall apart every time they do argue. And they don't seem to be letting their wedding planning interfere with being on top of the other details of their life. This article is really a good read for any couple that's engaged but also have full lives outside of wedding planning.


I never thought I'd suggest more people should be like Sonny and Cher (they are their own unique people), but in this respect, hop on the not-solely-living-to-plan-your wedding bandwagon. Embrace the other parts of life, and don't freak out if you and your beloved fiance(e) have an argument. Be happy, but don't feel even worse if that's not your permanent engaged state.

Noni's Stargazing Saturday: Deciding To Get Married Without Actually Getting Married

***Noni is one of my really good friends from college. We were even roommates for a year and some change. But now she's back in school back home where she's from. And she's starting a family with a baby boy and working on herself and her relationship at the same time. Things won't always be easy, but they're usually always interesting.***
Read Stargazing Saturday posts.


Last week, I linked to an article from Your Tango that talked about making time as a couple when you have a child in the house. I thought that would be a good article for anyone in Noni's and Eric's situation.


I was hoping to have more to say about Noni's actual love life this weekend, but alas, it's not to be. She's still super busy and all I know is that a lot has happened, but things are fine. She's still with Eric and they're still raising their son together and she's still in school. At least that what I take "things are fine" to mean. So I'm trolling the internet, looking for something interesting to link to related to Noni's love life as it currently (I think) stands. I Googled the terms "engaged forever" and "engaged too long". Noni and Eric have been engaged forever it seems. Way before she got pregnant, if memory serves me correctly.


I found an interesting forum topic on DrPhil.com. You can read it here. It doesn't really apply to Noni and Eric because as far as I know, she's not begging him to get married and he's not making up all kinds of excuses to avoid it. On to the next.

The next post comes from DearCupid.org. You can read it here. This one was interesting. The woman's sister had been engaged for fourteen years! To each his/her own, I suppose. But the advice given was varied and mostly based on peoples' own experiences. Why don't people give actual advice instead of "this is what I would do if you were me"? Not even "if I were you". Sigh.

The third and final link is from BlackandMarriedWithKids.com. That sounds exactly like Noni and Eric, so I was hoping this would really apply to them. You can read the post here. The article is titled How Long Is Too Long To Be Engaged. The suggestion offered in this one is a year to have both the ring and the date set.


I find this third article the most interesting (and fitting for Noni and Eric) because it's gets right down to the nitty gritty. It sets a specific time for how things should be, but allows for exceptions. Noni has a reasonable exception to the rule: some birth certificate issues. It can keep you from hopping on a plane out of the country, and apparently can keep you from getting married. I'm not sure if Eric ever gave her a ring, but apparently, they're still good if there's no ring involved. It's more like they've just decided they will get married, but they aren't yet officially engaged. I guess.

Noni's Stargazing Saturday: Keeping The Romance Alive, Theoretically

***Noni is one of my really good friends from college. We were even roommates for a year and some change. But she's done with school (for now). She's starting a family with a baby boy and working on herself and her relationship at the same time. Things won't always be easy, but they're usually always interesting.***


I have been trying my hardest to track down Noni. All I can get are a couple of texts here and there so I know she's either alive and well or being held captive by someone who's able to master her text tone. But between family, work, and school, she's got a lot on her plate right now, I so I don't fault her.


I'm heading to Your Tango right now to find something to link to in reference to a young engaged couple raising a child. Of course, I could post something about a person addicted to emotional extremes. Let's just see what catches my attention on the site.


I found an article that is exactly the type of article I was looking for (and couldn't find) on The Frisky last week. This article is called How To Keep The Romance Alive As A Parent. This type of article is perfect for Eric and Noni because so much of their lives revolve around their kid and working to take care of the kid. They don't spend a lot of time on just the two of them.


This article is written by a woman dealing with a six year old. Noni's and Eric's son is only one, but I think it paints an interesting picture of what they have to look forward to. I imagine their son will be the type who asks a million and one questions, including "what are you doing in there?" But the article does provide a good way of looking at things.


For instance, it's important to note that setting aside time for sex around your child's schedule does take some of the spontaneity out of it, but it's the perfect time to really focus in and pay attention to your partner. They get your undivided focus in a way that they might not if you had all day to lavish them with attention. This article says you should appreciate that set aside time together because it's more focused.


Also, it says to make the most of the little moments you can snatch throughout the day. Noni and Eric ride to and from work together every day. They do have some time together before they pick their son up from day care. They could use that time for adult conversation that's focused just on the two of them and save the discussions of whether or not they need to pick up diapers for after they pick up their son.


All in all, I like this article. I hope it would be useful to a couple getting adjusted to life with a child versus life without a child. Hopefully, next week, I'll have something to report about Noni's actual love life.

A Blog Introduction

I already write two blogs. The first one is A Researcher of Life, which is basically a personal blog that talks about my life that I'm trying to build for myself in my 20s. The second one is My Life's Love Medley, which is a lovely amalgamation of the love lives of 8 of my closest friends.



So why do I need a third blog? I'm not sure I do. This may end up being absorbed into my main blog, the narcissistic one, in a few posts because I find I have not enough to say to fill an entirely separate blog. But for now, I feel that I have enough to say about the world around me to fill a separate blog.


I feel pretty often like writing a blog post about Egypt/Tunisia/Bahrain/Libya or Chicago's mayoral race or Obama's stance on gay marriage. I also want to write about books I read, like Spousonomics and all the Charles Dickens classics. And yes, I even want to write about the upcoming announcement of the next cast of Dancing With The Stars.


But I feel like writing about that on my other blogs would take time away from something else I love discussing: me and my friends. Talk of Easy and my nonexistent career are consuming that blog. So I need somewhere else to talk about politics and economics and the media and the weather.


That is what I hope this new blog will be. Will anyone bother reading it? I don't know. I do know I don't have the desire to go searching on the web for people who are interested in reading the types of things I like to say. That's why my first two blogs only get a couple hundred reads per month. But that doesn't matter. Because I have things to be said. And I'm far too wordy for Twitter.



So begins Rants About The Real World. I may split up the days based on the different topics I may want to discuss, but for now, I'll just let it be and see what comes pouring out of my mind on a variety of subjects. Check it out if you'd like. At least for the week I'm promising to give it before deleting it and absorbing it into the other blog.

Camille's Wishful Wednesday: Enough About The Mystery Man, Completely Single Is Better

***Camille is a friend of mine I know from church. She is classified on another blog I read as a "hopeless romantic", and I think that describes her pretty well. I also think she's incredibly well-balanced and able to work on multiple parts of herself at once. She is a law student, a Sunday school teacher, and an all-around good person. She has some pretty concrete ideas about men and the type of man she'd like to end up with. But she's doing the in-my-20s-dating-follies thing as well.***

Quick Recap [The last post I wrote about Camille was back at the beginning of January. I was still looking forward to there being more do to about this mystery man Camille's classmate told her about. Well, since that time, I've heard nothing of this mystery man. So I'm shelving his existence until something more develops.] Read Wishful Wednesday posts.


There needs to be more to Camille's love life than the possibility of a man. Although, I did meet one of Easy's friends who I think might be pretty great for her. He's awesome and seems to have no bum-tendencies. Not that Camille dates bums, she just doesn't seem to attract the right element all on her own. I mean the butcher? Law school guy?


If I'm going to set Camille up, it's going to be a long setup. I haven't even mentioned this guy to her, though I did mention him to Gloria. I'd rather just get to know both of them and their interests in the opposite sex, see if they match up, and then have a dinner party and invite them both to see if there's interest. That's way better than a traditional setup, at least in my mind.


But since Camille is single, she's is embracing being single. Well sort of. There was that incident last weekend when we all found out this chick from our church is getting married. She's younger than all of us. Camille didn't respond well. But other than that, she's fine.


I think her Valentine's Day is a good example of her embracing being single. She spent most of the day in the library studying. And also she got her teeth cleaned. And also, she bought herself something from Tiffany's. So I think that worked a distraction plus getting something for herself instead of lamenting not getting something from a man.


But in an effort to stick with my new plan for when there's not much to repost for a friend, I am linking to another blog post that fits her situation. The Frisky is one of my favorite sites to stop by and check out and they always have something for the single girl.


Here are four interesting articles:
I've Taken Responsibility For My Singlehood, Now What?

Mind of Man: Why You're Not Married"
Do We All Need To Learn How To Date?
4 Tips For Women Who Want To Make The First Move"


If I had to pick one, I'd pick the second one. That's based on discussions I've had with her about marriage and her largely negative reaction to the news of an associate's engagement.

So if you're single and wondering why you aren't married, let Mind of Man on Frisky give you the answer.

Focus on Me Friday: I'm Not Spontaneous, Just A Hedonist

***If ever one wonders why I feel like my life could be a movie (or better yet a sitcom), it's because stuff keeps happening that seems like it could be written for storyline purposes.***

This post is inspired by a post by Wombat. It made me think about how I definitely have some sweep-a-person-off-their-feet tendencies. Sometimes it's on purpose, sometimes it's not.

I don't really consider myself a spontaneous person so much as a go-with-the-flow hedonist. I feel like spontaneous people get bored or restless if things are too planned and that's never me. So, we've established I'm not spontaneous. But for some reason, I spontaneously suggested to PT that I go over his house last night just to give him a massage.

Yes, you read that right. I suggested it. We were talking earlier about his day. It was a mostly good day, but shortly after the end of the actual school day, there was an issue he had to take care of that caused him no small amount of stress. I had just come from a meeting and was feeling pretty wired myself. So when he finally got home at like 10pm, I offered to come give him a massage. Don't know why, the only thing I can think of is my tendency to try and sweep people off their feet.

Seriously, who does crap like this? Certainly no one I know. Of course, PT agreed to let me come over. Cause who's gonna turn that down? So even though I was good and in for the night, I headed over there. I told him I couldn't spend the night because I had to be up at the ass-crack of dawn to take my grandmother to the doctor.

But I decided to just stop kicking myself for texting before thinking and go over there and enjoy his company. We just laid on his bed and talked about our days. I kinda wish I could do that every night. No, I really with I could do that every night. It just feels good to have someone to talk about all that stuff with. I don't know why, but it's different talking to PT than it is talking to friends or family.

And then I gave him a massage. His shoulders were so tense and his neck was really stiff. But about 15 minutes later, he was very relaxed. You could visibly see the difference. That made me very happy just to make him feel better. And then he turned to me and said, "thanks so much for that baby. Now what can I do for you?"

With responses like that, it's no wonder I like being around him. I can tell because of little things. For instance, he likes rubbing my feet. Not in a foot fetish kind of way, but in a they're-attached-to-your-body-and-as-my-hands-roam-they-invariably-land-there-too kind of way. Normally, I recoil from that, but with PT, I just let it happen. When he touches me, it doesn't tickle, it feels good. Always a good sign.

I'm Entering A Blog Makeover Contest

Kaye is doing a makeover for my main blog. She is now doing a blog makeover giveaway and I'm hoping I can with that so I can get this blog a makeover too!



If you want to sign up, go ahead. But also, wish me luck because I love her blog designs!