Erin's Guide to Dating, Chapter 1: What Not To Say On The First Date

I'm sarcastic. I grew up in a family where if you said or did something stupid, you would get made fun of for it. It's a riot; you should see us all together, we have so much fun. The ladies at work call me "smart @ss" (in a loving way, of course), but I prefer the term "quick-witted". But luckily I'm pretty good at reading people, so I know when to keep my mouth shut. But even though it's very rare, sometimes my mouth can get me in trouble...
My friend had set me up on a blind date. I went to his house to meet him (okay, normally I would not meet a guy at his house when I don't know him, I'm smarter than that, but it was a three story, old house in the city and I really wanted to see it), and he was giving me the grand tour. His place was very masculine in the decoration, except for this girly pink vase with dragon flies on it. We had been talking on the phone for a little over a week and I feel comfortable with him and he has a great sense of humor, so I took this opportunity to make fun of his choice in vases. His reply: "That was the last gift I gave my mother before she died last summer." Don't worry... I'll show myself the door...

I'm ready for Spring Break...

Alas, I am now in the thick of a new semester, which means I'll probably be blogging less but I'll try to keep up. Though I don't feel like going into what I am studying, here are some random stories that apply to my classes or clinicals:
-In my Maternity Nursing class (a.k.a.- Labor and Delivery), we learned how to figure out the Estimated Date of Birth. From that calculation I figured out that I was probably conceived on July 4th. I guess different people show patriotism in different ways...
-In my Nursing Research class, we were asked what we think would be good research questions. Mine was, "do sexually active homosexual men have more heart problems due to Vagus stimulation?" I know I'm weird, but stick with me here. One thing that I have learned is that you can't argue morals with liberals, so I try to find more logical ways to argue my beliefs. You know how some Old Testament laws protected the Israelites from sickness and stuff even thought they did not know it at the time. Well, what if homosexuality is a health risk? You have to be careful who you give an enema or a rectal temperature to due to stimulation of the vagus nerve, which slows down the heart and has the possibility of even stopping the heart. Please don't make me explain it's connection to homosexual males. The best part, though, is that my teacher loved the question, but she was curious about one thing: how would I do the research. Any volunteers?
-In Labor and Delivery clinical, one of my peers is extremely book-smart but she kinda lacks common sense. A group of us were looking at charts, discussing our patients, and answering questions on this worksheet. I said, "This question says, 'was this a spontaneous or an operational delivery?' My child was a spontaneous operation." She perks up quickly and gasps,"I didn't know you had a baby!" We all died laughing. She joined in a couple of minutes later when she figured it out.
-I'm a tutor at school. But since it's the beginning of the semester, no one needs tutoring yet, so I just sit in the office and do my homework or help others with little tasks around the place. Yesterday, I read a book outloud for a tape recorder for a blind girl at our school. First of all, I suuuuuck at reading out loud. And since the book is about social research (not my area), I messed up a lot of words. It took me a hour to read about 7 pages, cuz I had to keep starting over. And the book kept on bringing up sexual stuff. For example, it talked about social myths that people believe, like masturbation will make you go blind. Kind of a double whammy: being recorded talking about sexual stuff and saying a blind person that masturbation will make you go blind. But that's not the worse part. The chapter tells the reader to "look" at something about 5 times. "Look at the book and describe..." "How would you describe the person's reaction in this picture?" Even though it's not my words, I couldn't help but feel horrible telling a person I knew was blind to look at something...

Unlucky in Love

Pink and red hearts seem to be stalking me. They're everywhere, which means that Valentine's Day is coming. And though I have been single the majority of my life, I really enjoy Valentine's Day. My family is a big gift-giving family, so we take advantage of any time we can splurge on others. Every year I give out Valentine cards, so if you would like to show off that someone thought of you on V.Day, e-mail me your address (redz31@juno.com). You won't be disappointed. A couple of years ago, I sent out Justice League cards with stickers, and last year I sent Knock-knock jokes where you had to scratch the card to get the answer. They were pretty sweet.
But in light of V. Day, I thought it would be fun to talk about what some might consider to be the most effective way to communicate interest to the opposite sex: the pick-up line. Some pick-up lines are very smooth and effective, and others are flat-out ridiculous. And for the longest time, I didn't believe that they actually existed... until I worked at Northwest Plaza (which is the ghetto-est mall in St.L.), and especially when I worked at VS. People there took pick-up lines to a whole new level. But most of those were pretty racy and are only funny when said, not written, so I won't share. But I will share some lines that always make me laugh when I think about them:
-I had this key chain that was the shape of a toilet, and in the toilet bowl was lipgloss. One of my guy friends asked to use some, and he pressed too hard on the lipgloss and it smeared everywhere. With the smile, he said, "aw, man, I ruined it. I guess I'll have to take you out to dinner." It totally caught me off-guard. Two points for creativity.
-And sad to say, this is a line that I have used, cuz sometimes smiling, tossing your hair, and laughing at their jokes aren't enough: "you can ask me out on a date if you want to." Actually, I have used this line twice, and it has a 100% success rate, so I recommend using it very sparingly, ladies.
So if you're unlucky in love and the thought of V. Day coming up has you down, keep your chin up, send flowers to yourself but claim they're from a "secret admirer", and practice your pick-up lines. Who knows, the right line could land you a date for Valentine's Day.

Tonight at work, we were watching "Pretty Woman" after we got everyone to bed. And, well, it made me think about prostitutes. I wonder what their lives are like. No, I'm not looking to change my major again. I'm tempted to "hire" one, take her out to dinner, and interview her. Don't worry, I won't. I have no idea where to find one. But I would ask her about her life. What was your life like growing up? What did you want to be? If you could do/be anything, what would it be? What's your typical day like? How do you feel about life?
When I worked at Victoria's Secret, one of my co-workers was a stripper. She was not the brightest, but she was incredibly sweet. She lived in the projects, had two kids. When applying for the job, she had "not so professional" clothing on, but my boss looked pass that, saw how great she was, and gave her a job. I enjoyed working with her. She had a hard time acting appropriately around guys, not that she didn't want to, she just didn't know how. And she really wanted a real job, and be a good mom, but it's hard to give up that line of work because it pays well and it's hard to find a good job whose pay is comparable. But she was trying, working part-time at VS, for a little over minimum wage. I wonder how she's doing.
While driving home from work, I pass this closed-down hotel, with a closed restaurant attached to it. Wouldn't it be awesome to turn it into some shelter for prostitutes, strippers, women out of prison who need help getting back on their feet, battered women, teen moms, and their kids? And open the restaurant, and the women can work there, to get some work experience and some money, so they can get a real job. And get them enrolled in a nearby community college to also get them some education under their belts. And get them connected at my church, which is freakin' huge, so they won't feel awkward as they might feel if they went to a smaller church and everyone would know that they were new.
I love that God gave us the ability to dream. I have no idea where God is leading my life, whether I'll get to do great things in the lives of thousands, great things in the lives just around me, or great things in His eyes alone. But I love to dream about it. Sometimes I struggle between my dream of being a rockin' wife and an awesome mom, and my more humanitarian dreams, cuz I don't see how they fit together, but I try to let God worry about those things... try being the emphasized word. But it cool to think about how God can use you, with your unique gifts and talents, and other things that are unique to you. The possibilities are endless. Thankfully, I'm young, and, hopefully, I have a lot of life ahead of me, cuz I have a lot of dreams I like to accomplish. But I'll concern myself with the details later. As for tonight, I'll dream.

Your lips say "no", but your eyes say "yes"

This past weekend, I went to visit Heather. I came bearing Christmas gifts, and one of the gifts was a book called "The Art of Kissing" by Hugh Morris. When I saw it in the store, I had to get it for her cuz I knew it would make her laugh. The book was written in the 1930's, and since it was about 40+ small pages with illustrations we decided to read it out loud. Different topics covered: why people kiss, approved methods of kissing, preparing for the kiss, how to approach a girl, techniques, how to kiss girls with different-sized lips, different kinds of kissing, and many more. The book is geared towards men since they are to be the "aggressors" and it gave a lot of step-by-step information. It was freakin' hilarious and lead to many discussions, giggles, and stories of past experiences. Here are some of my favorite parts of the book:
- "Seat the girl against the arm of the sofa so she cannot edge away from him when he becomes serious in his attentions... (as he make a) gallant attempt to adjust the cushions behind her, he manages to insinuate his arm, first around the back of the sofa and then, gradually, around her shoulder. If she flinches, don't worry. If she flinches and makes an outcry, don't worry. If she flinches, makes an outcry, and tries to get up from the sofa, don't worry. Hold her, gently but firmly, and allay her fears with kind, reassuring words... However, if she flinches, makes an outcry, and starts to scratch your face then start to worry or start to get yourself out of a bad situation. Such girls are not to be trifled with, or kissed... in most cases, (they) still believe the story of the stork which brings babies because of the consequences of a kiss." Gotta love the "no means yes" method. Guys, if a girl tries to get up from the couch when you are trying to kiss her, I recommend letting her go. It's not a good sign; don't wait for the face scratching. Do you remember the old Disney cartoons with Goofy following the instructions of the narrator, but he keeps screwing it up? The whole time we were reading the book, I was thinking of that.
- "... next step is to flatter her in some way. All women like to be flattered. They like to be told they are beautiful even when the mirror throws the lie back into their ugly face..." Man, that's kinda harsh (but funny). The book goes on to give actual detailed step-by-step instructions, like starting by smelling her hair and whispering sweet nothings into her ear (example, "your hair smells like heady wine"), kissing/nibbling her ear and neck, working your way across the jaw line, then making your way to her lips. Then it went on to list about six or seven different kisses in great detail. Our conversation went something like, "yeah, done that, done that, what the heck?!", "That's ...weird...", "man, my lip was swollen after that", "if a guy did that, I would be like, 'what the heck are you doing?'", "he really thinks that what a girl would think?", and "awwww, that's so sweet". We were rolling the whole time.
-Since the book was written in the 1930's, we were not sure what some of the words meant and other words are used differently today. My favorite example was when he talked about how kissing under the mistletoe was about the only time it is okay to kiss in public. He added, "For then you can seize hold of the girl with impunity and smack her to your heart's content without being socially ostracized for it." I don't think I need to explain why I almost peed in my pants when I read this.
All in all, I give the book two thumbs-up and recommend getting it (it was really cheap); it's somewhat informative, very entertaining, and extremely hilarious.

Extreme Makeover

My sister has been wanting to give me a "makeover" for quite some time. Not that she thinks that I am ugly or that I am doing something wrong, she just want to experiment on me (she secretly wants to be a make-up artist) and maybe make me look more my age and not like a jr. high student. Here are some before and after pictures. Let me know what you think...
My "before" picture. As you can see, I'm not very happy with my current look...

My "after" picture. Wow, I look like a whole new person. It's amazing what a little make-up will do. It was quite the adventure: I kept on blinking while she was doing my eye make-up and she reassured me that she won't poke me in the eye and that she has done this tons of times, then a few minutes later she stabbed me in the eye with the mascara wand. Now I can't see out of my left eye. Oh, well, sight is highly over-rated anyways. And no pain, no gain, right?
And here's my "a little after the after" picture (and, no, I did not go tanning; my sister didn't use the flash). I might have the "look my age" part down, but I'm still working on the "act my age" thing...