stop. go. stop. go.

When we were little, the game was 'Red Light, Green Light,” and it was actually pretty fun. Someone would stand at a declared finish line, at the end of a stretch of asphalt or a patch of back yard and that kid was the one that managed a race to the finish.

Stop. Go. Stop. Go.

When the light was green, we ran as fast as humanely possible to gain on our opponent. When the light was red – we balanced on the tip-toes of our tennis shoes in sheer anticipation of when the light would change once again – our eyes still on the price of the finish line and the bragging rights.

In life, when we grow up, the game is not so fun. The green light is thrilling but the red lights , where find ourselves in a state of complete imbalance is nothing short of frustrating and at times, painful.

The stakes, of course, are higher. We are racing to get to the stable part of a relationship, or the inside track of the fast track or that place as indefinable as any – where one feels fulfilled and challenged and productive all at the same time. All grown up, the red lights are armed. They are ominous. Their arms come in a form of financial distress, divorce, break-ups, cheating, layoffs, lies and sometimes it's just the end of something and the uncertainty of the beginning of something else.

Either way. It's not as fun as when we were kids.

And in the case of being all grown up, we'd like to punch whoever is giving us the red light, square in the nose.

Of course the light changes...not quite as quickly as when it's called out by children. But it changes. We're not always stopped. And once in a while the red light is actually helpful. It changes its ominous nature and it allows us to open up and take in everything that is around us.

But when it isn't helpful. When it is the one thing that is constantly stopping us from gaining any momentum. We have to find a way to work around it. And it can be tough. And it can be tiring. When it throws us a cliff's edge of uncertainty and doubt and another challenge to overcome...we're not thinking of the finish line. We're just clambering at any way to not fall down.

And when we get to that line – we're punching the red light guy square in the nose.

weightless

“Take the pressure off,” she says.

My mother tells me this after we’ve just gotten into an argument too big and too much for before work on a Friday morning. And I am doing my best “not gonna cry,” but it’s not working.

I hate arguing with my mother because it makes me feel sixteen. And I have not wanted to feel sixteen since I was sixteen.

“Just take the pressure off…”

The pressure is the fact that after five days, no news has been given to me on my car which sits battered and bruised in some body shop 25 miles away. I’ve been forced to make five calls each day between the shop and the insurance company to no avail. The shop says talk to the insurance company. The insurance company says talk to the shop. The insurance company then gives me three different adjuster phone numbers all who whom say they are not my adjuster and can’t help me.

And so I wait.

Frustrating is knowing that if the car is totaled I have about $3,000 to find a new one. Because though it would be awesome to have that brand spankin’ new car smell going on – I can’t afford a car payment. I can’t afford a car payment because I left the great paying job to follow the dream. And the dream ain’t going so well. And without a decision, I am wasting time not resolving the issue.

More frustrating is the nagging feeling no woman who is 29 and alone and unhappy wants to say out loud: that if I had a man, he would be dealing with this and the insurance people and the shop people would realistically, most likely, take him more seriously. They would not keep him waiting around for an entire week. And if he raised his voice the word “bitchy” would not enter the realm of thought. He’d simply be justified in his frustration.

And said man would then keep me together by wrapping his arms around me when I’m shaking in tears after yet another pointless phone call followed by a blow up with my best friend.

But said man has yet to make an appearance. And so the frustration abounds.

And the truth is I probably am doing some sort of disservice to women everywhere by acting as though I can’t get through bad days with the male species…but I can. And I have for some time now. I have moved my own furniture, fixed my own broken electronics, grilled my own meat. I’ve aired up my own tires and I didn’t even cry at the deer. I cried at the damage.

I know what McTalk-to-Me would say. He would say to acknowledge the aloneness but move on, keep going. Don’t lose it on your mother at 7:15 in the morning.

And I already know, that when I get home, I’ll crank the music and dance it out. I’ll revel in the silence rather than the drama. I’ll calm and fall asleep after a stressful week and it’ll all seem less threatening.

But it doesn’t make attending events solo any easier. It doesn’t make crawling into an empty bed any more comforting. And it won’t fix my car or heal the bitter words between the BFF or any other FF’s for that matter and me. It won’t fix my car.

And at the end of the day, it doesn’t relieve any of the pressure.

this i believe

I believe in television men. Because they have jobs. They do stuff like solve crimes, save lives and develop surefire advertising campaigns in past eras. Most of them anyway. The good ones. They don’t sit around in fake jobs that apparently don't require them to do too much because they always seem free to sit on the phone with their girlfriends more than they are doing something productive.

Television men come home to Frank Sinatra and a glass of scotch neat. Or a quick witted best friend/room mate or a dog or a coffee house. For non-television men coming home means...more time with said girlfriend and watching said television. Only not really good, quality television. Old testosterone filled movies or porn.

Television men read. Every so often there's a book or a newspaper or a thick magazine in hand. Even if they're fake reading that's more than the men who have spent all day talking about how much of a goal it is for them to be sixteen again and really nothing much more than that.

Find something to do. Build a shelf for chrissakes. I believe in television men.

The well written ones of course, not "The Hills" ones or the "Rock of Love" ones.

On television, to watch our fictional female counterparts try to figure out the inner psyche of the television man is actually refreshing. What's he thinking, they wonder. What does he want? He didn't call me today, he went out, he's on a boat in the Caymans and doesn't care if I'm there.

In small towns like this one – men don’t really play games. We say they do because we attribute game playing to the complexity and realness of a situation but that's pretty much all bullshit. There's no maybe we'll go out or maybe we'll meet for drinks and later they may want you to leave at the end of the night and keep things casual.

Here, by the end of the first date they are handing you a key, telling you there's no need to knock, introducing you to their mother and basically taking in a new roommate.

If the men sound scary...to me, so are the women who jump right in.

So I believe in the television men. And the movie men. With the things to do. And the jobs. And moves for the dance that is a balance between love and a life.

needing jesus

When I get home in the morning...I'm going to take a hot shower.

I usually just go straight to bed at 5 a.m. But this morning, I'll be taking a hot shower. I'll curl up under my fur comforter and go to sleep with the television on so the witty banter of the Gilmore Girls can wake me up in the morning.

This is necessary.

I'm not going to get up in a frenzy. I'm not even going to care. I'm going to hope my new camera shows up for on time delivery so I can have fun playing with it, I'm going to try and clean up my apartment and light candles that smell like apples and cinnamon and pumpkin. I'm going to let my twinkle lights do their magic. I'm going to skim my New York Magazine. I'm going to go to the lodge where Rachel tends bar and have a beer and try to take some pictures.

It is necessary that I do this. Because this week has been incredibly rediculous and I am beyond annoyed, irritated and fed up. I'm at 'just-about-had-it'.

But there was one funny to the night. "She needs help," said a partner company employee on the phone - about my crazy coworker. "She needs to go see jesus."

"That's awesome," I said. "That's my new phrase. I'm totally going to use that. It's gonna rock Hannukah this year."