Spleen Dawg's Diary

A note from SSG:

Spleen was my college roommate (and friend!).  We met in August of 1993 (good LAWD) and have seen each other through classes and finals, beers and boyfriends, chins split open and ankles broken, many, many moves both on and off the dance floor and SO MUCH more.  I have leaned on her A LOT and over the last couple of years even more so.  If you're ever looking for a person who has a 24 hour shoulder to cry on, who will listen without trying to make things better, or less difficult, who just lets you talk and doesn't judge anything you say--she is it.  I'm currently taking up residence on that shoulder, but when she has a vacancy I'll let you know.  While this is a snippet from her diary, I'll share this one thing from mine--many, many pages begin with this sentence: "Thank GOD for Spleen."

So here I sit, a Monday night wondering how I too can be a serendipitous gal, temporary style while my beloved Sters is off traipsing around France eating baguettes and drinking wine.  And with a little Bridget Jones Diary movie in the background it hit me, that perhaps it comes down to a similarity between Ms. Jones and myself, minus the location of sunny San Diego, versus London ... and did I mention I don't smoke?

As a 30-something, I can relate to the lovely Bridget Jones living the life of a Singleton for so many years.  In the version of Spleen's Diary (that would be me, yes Spleen is my nickname), there is a high number of ridiculous escapades that basically involve me attempting to date and dealing with the repercussions of it all.  As one can imagine, I could go on and on with such a subject and take over as a serendipitous lassie for a couple of weeks.  With that in mind, I'll try and hold back a bit and do my best to enrapture you with a few highlights in just this one entry.  

The first story that comes to mind, which will basically wipe away any possible respect you were starting to conjure for someone you don't even know, involves my attempt at the oh-so-fun experience of internet dating.  Yes, I tried Match.com and ... eeek.  There I was, off to lunch with a good looking guy at a nice restaurant in Balboa Park, including fairly interesting conversation and maybe the possibility of a second date.  After lunch, I excused myself to use the restroom.  Of course, after careful speculation as to "what to wear" on such a date, I came up with a lovely outfit that involved a jean skirt.  A little longer than normal, but stylish all the same and you may wonder, why all the details?  Well, despite lifting up the skirt to sit down on the toilet, I did not pull it up far enough and on that I blame the length of the skirt and perhaps first-date-nervous-miscalculations ... all to result in a GIANT we spot about a foot in diameter covering the back of my skirt!!!!!!!  That's right people, I peed on myself!  After discovering the hand dryers in the bathroom would take way too long and lead to other possible embarrassing speculations, I tried to come up with a credible alibi for my mishap and then prayed that I didn't smell like urine.  Needless to say, there was no second date.

Eventually, as my Singleton and dating days continued, the opportunity of dating one of my very good guy friends presented itself.  Just when you've been friends with someone for a handful of years and think that it has to be good ... guess again.  I shall spare you all the exciting details of what went wrong, but let's just say that the highlight in this story involves the "Break Up Day."  Basically, it goes like this ... he played guitar and starting writing songs during our short relationship.  One of these songs he wrote as a way to process the new person he was becoming and how our mini stint of dating, despite the glitches along the way, all helped to develop the new HIM.  He of course decides that he should sing this lovely song for me, accompanied with folk sounding guitar music.  And then, there it was, in the midst of touching lyrics and me feeling sad for "letting him down," he busts out with yet one more line, a line that really drove his point home.  It went a little something like this (insert pretty melancholy singing/guitar playing here) "blah blah blah blah ... stinking ass whore!"  Ummm ... yeah ... that is what my "good" friend, turned ex-boyfriend, thought was perfectly acceptable and therapeutic to sing to me on the day we broke up.  Did I mention I was the stinking ass whore in this scenario and didn't even come close to doing anything that resembled cheating on him?  As you can imagine our friendship is not quite the same. 

And on that note ... I will stop and jump ahead to the happy ending, the finding of my own "Mark Darcy."  And even him I had to re-meet, since I wasn't interested the first time as I was in the middle of dating another asshole known as "The Cop."  But lucky for me, I had friends with the foresight to set us up and there was a second encounter that hasn't stopped since.  We are actually at the 8 month mark and I have honestly never been so stoked on someone in my 30 something years.  He is so amazing and good to me and everything else wonderful I could possibly say.  Cheesy shit aside, he is the one that Bridget Jones' friends would describe as liking me "just as she is" and more importantly, as my friends would say, " his lucky ass recognizes."