Trekkychick

Dear Single Ladies,

What is up with the sadness lately?! Everywhere I look, there are single women mourning the absence of life with a man, or what they deem the Better Life. You’ll notice, Readers (if you can count), that SINGLE is NOT a four letter word! If it were, it would be “sing.” *

*Which might be considered a four-letter word if you heard my version of “Material Girl” at the last Karaoke night.

Ladies, here are some four-letter words for you:

Boys.
Date.
Ring.
Life.
Trap.

Ladies, do you see the word “single” on that list? I didn’t think so. Because “single” is a six-letter word. Here are some more six-letter words for you:

Superb.
Relief.
Simple.
Joyful.
Gerbil.

As you can see, all of the above words denote just how fulfilling the single life can be. I’m not speaking from a position of ignorance here. I also once felt incomplete without a relationship. I had just undergone a breakup and lost the very person to whom I wanted to give everything. And as you can see from my first four hundred and eighty three blogs dedicated to that relationship and breakup, it may have been marginally difficult for me to let that life and love go. I even boycotted the first Girls Night hosted by my girlfriends just a few short weeks after that breakup (I’m totally lying. It was months. That’s just between us), feeling alienated by the fact that every other girl who would be there was happily married.

Missing Girls Night is generally not considered acceptable in my circle of friends. So a few weeks later when I saw the Girls at the Superbowl party, I was cornered and criticized for my transgression. Under duress and with the only alternative being to actually WATCH the Superbowl, I confessed to the girls that my absence was due to the fact that I was painfully aware that I was the only Single Lady left.

“Are you kidding me?” said one of my best friends. “You’re our portal into the exciting single world! We’ll never have another first date; we’ll never have another first kiss. We live vicariously through you–We love** your stories about dating!!”

**They may have said “love,” they may have said “laugh at.” Hard to remember.

So they loved my stories. I had in effect become my own “Sex & the City” (minus the Sex, and minus the City). And it’s true, I do have an impressive knack for drawing the affections of freaks, geeks, stalkers, gawkers, and general maniacs. And I can apparently now engage audiences with these amusing tales, and they can go home and share with their loved ones my latest amusing dating escapade, neatly encapsulated into its own 30-minute disastrous episode, minus the nudity and New York backdrop. I should get paid for this service.

But telling tales so you can laugh at my expense is not the real reason to embrace the single life. (Although it IS the real reason to embrace my blogs.) The real reason is that we have to rid ourselves of the mindset that we accidentally slipped into the wrong life. Unless you’re Gwyneth Paltrow on Sliding Doors, you didn’t narrowly miss your one opportunity for a happy life by missing the red line and having to wait for the blue. (If you don’t live in Portland, that reference may not make sense. Move to Portland.) You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. (Unless you don’t live in Portland.) And as I found out with my friends that night, just as I was longing for the security and stability of their life, they just might have been reminiscing about the zany unpredictability they saw in mine. So stop longing and start living. Because whether we catch the blue line or the red, we can still enjoy the ride.

–Troi out

Dear Single Female Readers,

You may have noticed lately that there is a shortage of eligible single men out there. You’d like to date, but you find that most single males are 1)unattractive , 2) unintelligent, 3) unstable, or 4) underage. Thankfully, single wonderful females (SWFs), there exists a breed of bachelor in an as yet untapped dimension.

That’s right, according to this website, the geek guy is the chic guy. The authors divulge that the geek guy is available, embraced by family members, smart, handy with a toolbox, and won’t be stolen by other women. Perfect! Is there a catch?

There are, warn the wise writers of this article. For one, your geek guy will have limited interpersonal skills due to inexperience, and will thus expect that a woman met in the real world interacts much like the female lead in Star Trek: TNG, Battlestar Galactica, or worse, Firefly. You will need to remind your geek guy that you are not telepathic, a volatile Colonial Viper fighter pilot, or a professional Companion*. Also make sure he knows you are human.

*Not a companion in the traditional sense of the word. Please watch Firefly for further details.

Having once dated a geek guy for nearly four years, I feel the need to convey that, much like you may have at one time have lost yourself in a good movie, your geek guy will lose himself in his computer. By the time he finds himself, he will be 3-5 hours late for your date. Remember that he has many good qualities before condemning him for his tardiness. Remember that being lost in a computer game is more morally sound than being found in another woman’s bedroom.

Now that you’re eager to catch your own geek guy, you might be wondering, SWF, where to find him. I suggest beginning your search at your local Mac store, which is where I found mine. Approach your geeky prey with a look of distress and some piece of broken computer hardware. Intentionally hold it backwards and upside down. A true geek will be unable to resist the urge to correct your grasp to avoid further damage. You might even try intentionally dropping your hardware. All geeks within a 3.14 mile radius will hear the sound and rush toward the focus of destruction with the indomitable urge to preserve the precious parts. Don’t be discouraged if they notice the fallen hardware before they notice you.

It would be remiss not to leave you with one caution before you begin your search for a geekmate. There is the occasional geek who, having wandered for so long in the geekalaxy, that he may have trouble transitioning to the home planet (Geekster’s Dictionary translation: The Real World). If your geek takes off for a Star Trek Convention dressed like Captain Picard, and then comes home still dressed like Captain Picard, and then goes to bed dressed like Captain Picard, and then leaves for work in the morning (still dressed like Captain Picard) mumbling about how he must “Report to the Bridge for Duty,” your geek guy might just be a geek freak, unfit for real human contact.

And remember, please visit this website for an unabbriged treatise on the Geek Guy.

–Troi out

You know you’re stressed out when you forget that two of the most important people from your past are coming into town and are crashing at your place that night. I unsuccessfully attempted to mask my faux pas when my friend called me a few minutes ago:

Friend: So we should be in town around 8:00pm.
Me: Cool. What town are you going to be in?
Friend: Your town.
Me: Yoretown? Where’s that?
Friend: Um, did you forget that we’re coming up and staying at your place tonight?
Me: (Awkward unintelligible mumbling to fill the silence….)

And the really disturbing part about all of this is that they really are two of the most significant people of my past. After all, when I think of how my life has been shaped by the people I meet, the first boy who asked me out, and my first boyfriend, are two of the most shapely people I’ve ever met.

And I remember that day I was asked out for the first time ever, my first week in junior high at a new school, like it were yesterday….

Random Girl I’ve Never Met: Hey there, my friend over there in the corner of the gym wants to know if you’ll go with him.
Me: The guy chewing, or the guy adjusting himself?
RGINM: No, neither one. The guy with the sleeveless shirt and high tops.
Me: Um, I don’t think I’m allowed to date yet.
RGINM: He wants to know if you’ll just make out with him then.

Ah yes…..truly one of my finest memories. Although it pales in comparison to my memories of his best friend, who also happens to have been my first boyfriend.

First Boyfriend: Will you go with me?
Me: Yeah.

(Two months pass. We never talk, although once we hold hands in the cafeteria over a grilled cheese sandwich. The grease stains my favorite hot pink spandex tight pants.)

FB: I don’t think this is working out. Is it okay if I go with someone else?
Me: Yeah.

Ah yes, those were the days. And those were the boys. And tonight, the boys return. These days, all three of us are better attired, better equipped with more refined conversational starters, and of legal drinking age. Given my eager anticipation to reunite with old friends, I’m irked by my brain’s thoughtless lapse regarding their impending arrival.

I think I need a vacation.

–Troi out

While recently celebrating a friend’s 29th birthday outside at a nearby bar, I went inside to use the women’s restroom and encountered a significant conundrum.

On one restroom door was the word “barley,” on the other, “hops.”

Uncertain from these words which door housed the restroom meant for the female gender, I stood in front of both doors, perplexed. Yet despite my unfortunate situation, I was too proud to approach a restaurant employee to request a hint as to whether, as a woman, I more resemble barley or hops.

And desperate though I was to use the restroom, I simply couldn’t risk the fatal error of entering through the wrong door. I was also too far from my car to potty-dance my way to the emergency bedpan that I reserve for long-distance road trips, like when I drive across the street to pick up my mail. Thus, I had no option but to meditate on my gender as well as everything I’ve ever learned about the beer precursors of hops and barley and identify and explore similarities and differences between each and how they relate to our existence as masculine and feminine beings in the universe.

At least, that’s absolutely what I would have done had I not been too submersed in an urgent need-to-go-NOW haze that I couldn’t actually think clearly.

So instead I called my friend who has never been spotted without his trusty iPhone. He uses it to call people, check the internet, read his email, and shampoo his hair (it’s the new feature: the iFoam), and it’s always nustled in his pocket, ready for action.

Friend: Hello?

Me: Oh thank goodness, you answered! Do you have your iPhone nearby? I need you to look something up for me.

Friend: Um…..it’s my iPHONE. If I answered it, of course I’m using it. Are you joking?

Me: (I wasn’t.) Okay, I’m stuck in front of two restrooms. One is labeled “barley” and one is labeled “hops.” Which restroom do I choose?

Friend: Is this one of your riddles, because I have to tell you, it’s sounding pretty lame.

Me: I’m serious! This is an emergency!!

So, after I convinced him that this was not simply a prank call and that I was, in fact, in dire need of solving my conundrum, my friend investigated my inquiry. It is most unfortunate that we discovered that hops are dioecious, which means that the plans could be either male or female. And barley heads are composed of spikelets that consist of two husks, enclosing both male and female floral parts. In other words, they’re androgynous.

These findings were most distressing.

As you can see, my blog has no happy ending. Yet while it does not contain a happy ending, it does have a moral. The moral of this blog is that you cannot judge a book by its cover, if its cover is obscured by inane references that were thought amusing by an idiot who doesn’t use public restrooms and doesn’t appreciate the predicament he put me in. So, Mr. Public-Restroom-Guy, please cover future restrooms appropriately so that I can judge them and enter accordingly.

–Troi out

*Editors note: While Troi was not intelligent enough to determine the answer to her restroom door dilemma, we at the editor’s desk know inherently that barley indicates the female restroom, and hops indicates the male restroom. We are sure you knew that, too.

So, I come to find out recently that girls are supposed to wax their eyebrows. How it is that I came to be 28 years of age before being informed of this female beauty custom is beyond me. But nonetheless, now that I knew of my duty to keep my eyebrows groomed, I went forth to carry out this duty.

Of course any 28 year old female should know that there are “preferred” places to groom one’s eyebrows. Not I. No, I am deficient in such nuisances as common sense. I brilliantly went to the mall and discovered a salon that offered eyebrow waxing for only $10. In the midst of my extensive student loan repayment, I felt this was the perfect affordable solution to my overendowed eyebrows.Â

What might have been my warning signals at this time? Perhaps that I didn’t even have to make an appointment? Perhaps that when the lady who was to perform the wax (what do you call these people? Eyebrow stylists? Brow professionals? Eyebrow therapists?) walked her previous customer out, I observed that this customer had no eyebrows to speak of??? But indeed I made no such neural connections.

So as my “eyebrow stylist” walked me into the “waxing room” I made a point of telling her I had never been waxed before, that I wanted very natural eyebrows that were just neatened up a bit. My “eyebrow stylist,” a short lady with a thick accent, seemed to understand me, which I gathered from her repeating my comments, “Oh yes natural. Never before? Oh yes, natural good.” Yes, natural is good. So we were on the same page.Â

She had me lie down, and before applying the wax she commented that I had very beautiful eyebrows. In retrospect it’s hard to say why she then chose to remove almost every hair from them!! Nevertheless, after being waxed and tweased (tweasing which caused bleeding I might add!), my eyebrows (or what was left of them) were so eager to run from this place that some of these questions remain unanswered.Â

So, in summary, I find that my experience has taught me some valuable lessons that I would like to share with my friends in hopes that they may learn from my mistakes:

1) Don’t wax your eyebrows. God gave them to you.

2) If you choose to ignore my advice and wax them anyway, don’t do it at the mall. The extra $5 to go to a reputable facility is probably worth it.

3) If you forget suggestions #1 & #2, it may help to recite the 11th commandment:Â “Thou shalt not wax thou’s eyebrows at thy mall.”

–Troi out