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Authors: Stacey Ballis
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being grown-up enough to guide my own communications.
I’ve actually never been to Tennessee, but I hear it is beautiful. And that the pie and hoops are always worth the visit. I have met a few people in the country music business and they rave about Nashville. Keep meaning to go check out the barbecue.
Other than buckets of work, and projects around the apartment, and the demands of one small dog, I’ve mostly been trying to hang out with friends and family, testing new recipes with a couple new ingredients I am playing with, and helping one of my best pals prepare to host her first Thanksgiving.
What’s been fascinating in your world?
Alana
I shoot this off trying not to think too hard or edit too much. I’ve finally gotten to an age when it is tiring enough to just be me; trying to be some super-duper-specialuber-desirable version of me to attract a guy is just a game I don’t have the energy for anymore. This is who and what I am, and if you are the guy, you will get that and be fine with it. So I don’t try to be any wittier than I actually am, and instead make a conscious decision to just be completely myself and let the chips fall where they may. I mean, I do spell-check and reread a couple times to be sure I don’t sound like some mouth-breathing idiot. But I don’t overthink or overedit content.
“This is very exciting,” Bennie says when I call her to share the latest on the RJ front. “You are getting your birthday wish, I can feel it.”
“We’ll see. That was a tall-order wish.” Last year, when I turned thirty-nine, I looked at the universe and essentially had a heart-to-heart. I said I was grateful for the blessings in my life of good friends, and loving family, and a mostly great if insane job, and my health, and Dumpling, and a pretty good sex life. And I said that I did have faith that “the guy” was coming, and that I would not spend my life without a real partner. But, if the universe wasn’t too enormously busy, might it be possible for whoever he was to hurry up a bit, because I did not relish the idea of waking up on my fortieth birthday alone.
“That was not a tall order. That was a perfectly reasonable wish. You are entitled to a real guy, and you are entitled to want him to show up in time to usher in a new decade. And who knows, this might be him!”
“This might be a married guy looking to play around. Or one of the endless ‘love to e-mail doesn’t ever pull the trigger on a date’ guys that linger around dating sites. Or we’ll meet and I won’t be attracted to him. Or he won’t be attracted to me. Or we’ll both be attracted and then the sex will be bad …”
“Stop.”
“What.”
Bennie sighs. “Just stop. Why is it so hard to believe that he might just be a great guy who seems to already sense that you are a great girl, and you will meet and be great together?”
“When does
that
happen?” I laugh. My actual dating life over the years hasn’t been that much of an improvement on my online theoretical dating life, and the older I get, the less patient I get and the more jaded and cynical.
Bennie chuckles. “Okay, you’re right. He is a fundamentalist Mormon who wants you for his seventh wife, and will expect you to breed at least eleven children and be in charge of hand washing all your sister wives’ sacred undergarments.”
We both giggle. “Okay, okay. Maybe he will be totally normal and he and I will have a very pleasant first date and take it from there.” I say this, but deep down I’m thinking it is much likelier that I am headed for the sequel to
Big Love, A Jewess in Juniper Creek
.
“Much better. Now, more important, is my room available the weekend after New Year’s?”
Bennie always stays with me when she comes to town. “Your room is available whenever you would like to come inhabit it. Did Maria summon?”
“Yep. She wants to totally redo the workout room now that she has dropped the strength training and treadmill in
I’ve actually never been to Tennessee, but I hear it is beautiful. And that the pie and hoops are always worth the visit. I have met a few people in the country music business and they rave about Nashville. Keep meaning to go check out the barbecue.
Other than buckets of work, and projects around the apartment, and the demands of one small dog, I’ve mostly been trying to hang out with friends and family, testing new recipes with a couple new ingredients I am playing with, and helping one of my best pals prepare to host her first Thanksgiving.
What’s been fascinating in your world?
Alana
I shoot this off trying not to think too hard or edit too much. I’ve finally gotten to an age when it is tiring enough to just be me; trying to be some super-duper-specialuber-desirable version of me to attract a guy is just a game I don’t have the energy for anymore. This is who and what I am, and if you are the guy, you will get that and be fine with it. So I don’t try to be any wittier than I actually am, and instead make a conscious decision to just be completely myself and let the chips fall where they may. I mean, I do spell-check and reread a couple times to be sure I don’t sound like some mouth-breathing idiot. But I don’t overthink or overedit content.
“This is very exciting,” Bennie says when I call her to share the latest on the RJ front. “You are getting your birthday wish, I can feel it.”
“We’ll see. That was a tall-order wish.” Last year, when I turned thirty-nine, I looked at the universe and essentially had a heart-to-heart. I said I was grateful for the blessings in my life of good friends, and loving family, and a mostly great if insane job, and my health, and Dumpling, and a pretty good sex life. And I said that I did have faith that “the guy” was coming, and that I would not spend my life without a real partner. But, if the universe wasn’t too enormously busy, might it be possible for whoever he was to hurry up a bit, because I did not relish the idea of waking up on my fortieth birthday alone.
“That was not a tall order. That was a perfectly reasonable wish. You are entitled to a real guy, and you are entitled to want him to show up in time to usher in a new decade. And who knows, this might be him!”
“This might be a married guy looking to play around. Or one of the endless ‘love to e-mail doesn’t ever pull the trigger on a date’ guys that linger around dating sites. Or we’ll meet and I won’t be attracted to him. Or he won’t be attracted to me. Or we’ll both be attracted and then the sex will be bad …”
“Stop.”
“What.”
Bennie sighs. “Just stop. Why is it so hard to believe that he might just be a great guy who seems to already sense that you are a great girl, and you will meet and be great together?”
“When does
that
happen?” I laugh. My actual dating life over the years hasn’t been that much of an improvement on my online theoretical dating life, and the older I get, the less patient I get and the more jaded and cynical.
Bennie chuckles. “Okay, you’re right. He is a fundamentalist Mormon who wants you for his seventh wife, and will expect you to breed at least eleven children and be in charge of hand washing all your sister wives’ sacred undergarments.”
We both giggle. “Okay, okay. Maybe he will be totally normal and he and I will have a very pleasant first date and take it from there.” I say this, but deep down I’m thinking it is much likelier that I am headed for the sequel to
Big Love, A Jewess in Juniper Creek
.
“Much better. Now, more important, is my room available the weekend after New Year’s?”
Bennie always stays with me when she comes to town. “Your room is available whenever you would like to come inhabit it. Did Maria summon?”
“Yep. She wants to totally redo the workout room now that she has dropped the strength training and treadmill in
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