Simply Solo Spotlight: In Defense of the Beta Man

Reblogged from Simply Solo: Single girl starting over - follow the journey:

Today’s Simply Solo Spotlight is written by Bennie of My Ideal Woman, Bennie’s blog dedicated to expressing his appreciation of the fairer sex: a celebration of all the things he loves about women; expressions of his enthusiasm and delight of the female mind and body. You may remember that Bennie guest blogged on Simply Solo before, with his post…

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I'm guest-blogging on Simply Solo today, come over and check it out! :)

Reclaiming the Anniversary

Today is one of those awkward dates in a recently separated/divorced person’s life.  You know…

The Wedding Anniversary.

14 years ago today, my ex and I said our vows in front of God, family and friends.  It was a lovely ceremony; we’d rolled the dice and crossed our fingers, picking an outdoor wedding at Maymont Park, and the weather was gorgeous.  The humidity was low, a nice breeze in the air, warm but not too warm.  Birds were chirping.  The very next day, the weather turned cold and rainy, but by then we were in the air flying to Cancun.

It’s certainly a bit sad now for me to think back to the man I was then, filled with all the hopes and dreams for our future together, and then ponder where we end up.  For many people, there’s probably a lot more emotion tied up in the Wedding Anniversary than a little bit of sadness, but that’s all there really is for me.

I recently had a nice conversation with Cdn Stormweather — who writes the awesome Life in the Dash Lane blog — regarding my previous post on a Reverse Bucket List, and she asked me if I died tomorrow, would I go feeling fulfilled and happy?  Certainly an interesting notion to ponder.  Yes, it would be easy to get caught up in regrets and other negative emotions regarding how the marriage turned out, but I have to say that I think I’d be fine on that front.

Reverse Bucket List

While I think the idea of a Bucket List is pretty awesome and motivating, for those of us who’ve found themselves at a point in their lives with little free time or money to do the things we always hoped and wished to do, a Bucket List can prove to be somewhat frustrating and depressing.  Sure, I’d love to go to Hawaii or Europe or Australia and see so many awesome sights, but when I look at my financial situation and personal responsibilities it’s just not feasible.

So it occurred to me that a “Reverse Bucket List” might prove to be a good exercise to show that, even if there are a lot of things you wish you had the time and resources to do, you actually have already done of lot of really fun and cool things already in your life.  I decided to think back and list out things I’ve done that most people you pass in the street may have never, ever done.  Here are a few:

Climbed to the top of a pyramid.
When my ex and I got married and had decided to go to Mexico, I wanted to make sure that we had the opportunity to see and do something we not be able to see or do anywhere else.  Turns out that the awesome Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza are not far from Cancun, and our day trip there is forever burned into my memory, and the best part of that trip was being able to climb those steep steps all the way to the top of the pyramid there.  Looking around at the ruins from the top of it was a memory for the ages.

Sang lead in front of a rock and roll band.
I’ve talked about this before in my post Jaegerbombs and Satellites… As someone who isn’t the most self-assured person, especially early in life, the fact that I spent about a year fronting a rock and roll band right out of high school still rather astonishes me.  All three of my fellow bandmates are talented musicians who still now, 20-some years later, play music in bands… and apparently I wasn’t so awful that they still want me to come up on stage and sing with them on occasion.  I still find it surreal.

Learned how to milk a cow.
Even growing up in the country, this was something that many if not most of my peers never learned to do.  I was lucky enough to have a close friend who briefly lived next door to a small farm that had chickens, horses and a few cows.  Sometimes we’d walk over and pester the neighbors, who were always patient and kind to us inquisitive little boys.  One day the farmer taught us how to milk a cow.  It was surprisingly difficult to figure out how to do it until we realized the physics involved.  You don’t just yank on it and milk squirts out; you’ve got to grip the top of it closed to trap the milk, then let your other fingers close to push it out the end into the bucket.  When the zombie apocalypse comes, I know I’ve got a vital skill so long as we rustle up some dairy cows.

Milestone: 100 Posts!

Some of you may have wondered why I haven’t posted for a little bit.  I’ve tried to keep up a fairly regular clip of posts because, when it comes to blogging, there’s definitely a “publish or perish” vibe.  When I write a bunch I notice that I get more traffic to a lot of different pages, not just the new posts I put up, and when my writing dries up a bit I notice the overall hits diminish.

But I’m not really in a dry spot writing now.  I’m working on my guest-blog for Simply Solo, and I’ve been reading and leaving comments to many of your blogs.

No, what’s got me tripped up is revealed here:

When I published the last post, WordPress reminded me that it was my 99^th post.  99 already?  It was a little bit shocking, and actually quite exciting, because the very next post was going to be 100.  A hundred posts!  That seems like a pretty awesome milestone, doesn’t it?  If you do something 100 times you’re pretty committed to it, and it gives me a real feeling of accomplishment.  That’s about 9-10 posts every month, not too shabby.

So, to mark my 100^th post I needed to do something special.  Hmmm… what should that be?  A retrospective?  Well, I did a 2011 year review of my blog just a few months back in January, so doing another one seemed a bit redundant.  Not to mention, I’m actually coming up on my year anniversary blogging May 26^th, which seems like a better time for a retrospective or review of one year of blogging.

Then I thought—well, maybe I could take this time to thank everyone for reading me!  But then I realized… there’s 45 of you now (wow!!), and I could go on and on about how much I appreciate the kind words and comments each of you put in my posts, and some of you have fantastic blogs of your own that I love reading.  There’s the drop-dead sexiness in the writing of creativenoodling, lifeinthedashlane, and threemonthstoforty; or the powerful introspection of clduncan75, subtlekate and beautifulmess7.  I could go on and on…

But ultimately I suppose it’s most important to just get number 100 out of the way and get to writing and sharing the next thing that’s on my mind.  Life feels like such an adventure right now, I’ve finally found my roommate, I can see a little daylight now in terms of financial stability and “me-time,” diet and exercise has started to pay off, I’m feeling great physically, mentally, spiritually.  I can’t wait to chronicle this journey here, and to take you with me on this adventure, to hear your thoughts and read what you have to say, as well as read about your own journey.  Thank you so much for being here, for being a part of this adventure, and I hope you’ll stick around for the next 100 posts!

Chuck moved in!

So Chuck moved in yesterday!  I’m so excited about this development and I really can’t wait to start the next phase of my life, with more time for living (as I talked about in Climbing Out of the Social Void and Following the Pixies).  Unfortunately, I’ve already scheduled my part-time hours through May and I’ve still got a pretty full plate.  Chuck was looking at my calendar and was shocked how much I work.

While I’m so tired of this rat race I’ve been on, and so ready to dial work back, I am actually grateful for the overlap between rent money coming in and working all these hours.  I’ve got some plumbing issues and my heat pump is on the fritz.  Both are going to require repairs outside of what I can figure out on my own.  Both could be relatively expensive, and thank god I’m no longer treading water in this house alone.

One potential downside to this living arrangement was revealed last night… after I got home from work at 11:30pm, Chuck and I talked for a long, long time about the awesome Game of Thrones.  I mean a really long time.  Really, really late when we went to bed.  He’s read the book but not seen the TV show.  I’ve not read the books but love the TV show.  Well, I’ll take great conversations over awkward tension in a roommate any day, even if I lose sleep here and there.

To kick off my new era of living, I’ve decided to throw an epic party.  I’ve not been in a position to throw a really good housewarming party since I moved in last June, and have not had much time to have friends over– many haven’t ever been here.  My birthday is June 25, and the weekend before that the kids are with their mom.  So… I’ve set up invites.  I’m scheduling it for Saturday since last time I had a party (when I first split with my wife and moved into an apartment) I threw it on a Friday night, and a bunch of friends bailed on me, claiming they were too tired to party on a Friday night.  These were the same guys who would party with me three days straight all the time 20 years ago, but somewhere along the way they got too old to rock and roll… without rest.  As someone who works 65 hours a week and still finds the energy to party (Jägerbombs and Satellites, Quite the Momentous Week) I guess it’s hard for me to realize that not everyone has the party stamina of Rasputin, but in consideration of them I’m doing a Saturday party this time so they can rest up.  I’m also going to start it early — 4pm — so the early birds can come party before heading home.  We’ll kick things off by hanging out on the deck and patio, grilling meat and drinking refreshing adult beverages.  As the night progresses I’m sure we’ll move inside, hook my iPod up the stereo for some great jams… and just have a grand ol’ time.  I’ve got lots of bed and sofa space, so anyone without designated drivers is welcome to stay over, and I’m planning on stocking up and cooking a helluva breakfast to help us recover.  Mmmm, bacon…

Hopefully I’ll have some great stories to tell here a day or two afterwards

Feeling Blue (not what you think)

[This is a funny and slightly embarassing story that popped into my mind recently and I thought I would share.  Feel free to laugh and/or commiserate -- Ben]

“We can’t,” Elle whispered, coming up for air, putting on the breaks.  “They’re just in the other room!”

Like a magnet, my lips were drawn back to her and silenced her with a kiss.  Our bodies pressed tightly together, hot under the covers.  We were close, it was going to happen…

“I’m serious…” she pulled away, put her hand across my mouth.  I opened my eyes and looked into hers.  The room was shadowy but I could see her from the street lights outside.

She glanced at the closed door just feet away from the sleeper sofa we were on.  The door to our friends’ bedroom, who had been kind enough to let us stay here since we’d been too drunk to drive home.  I very briefly debated pushing the point a little further since her body so clearly contradicted her words… but maybe she was right.  They were just on the other side of that door.

Tweeps!

Hi everyone, if you’re on Twitter hit me up at @ben_writing, I want to add you to my “blog” list on Twitter so I can filter out the extraneous stuff other people I’m following are tweeting