Oh, Man

I woke up yesterday morning with a song running through my mind. But not an entire song. Oh, no. Just a few simple melodies and a random word here and there. Sort of like “Something something ENOUGH, never something SOMETHING, Uh-HUH.”

I drove my co-workers crazy with it, partly because I am tone deaf and should never ever sing, but mainly because my co-workers are all much too young to remember the classics from the 80’s. But at last, I finally remembered enough of the song to Google the lyrics, and voila! I had the title, artist, and video.

“Room at the Top” by Adam Ant.

Oh, Adam Ant. Sigh. I had such a crush on him. My first concert was him and the Romantics, although that was early enough in his career that he was still Adam and the Ants at that point. Long before his big hits like “Strip” or “Goody Two Shoes” or, of course, “Room at The Top.”

When I went to his concert, his hits were all songs like “AntMusic” and “Dog Eat Dog.” I mean, who else wrote lyrics like “Leapfrog the dog and brush me, daddy oh”?  But it was more than his music. He oozed sexuality. My little teenage hormones went into hyperdrive when I saw him dance and wriggle all over the place.

So I was all set for a steamy trip down Memory Lane yesterday when I clicked on one of his videos to remind myself of just how sexy he really was.

Um . . . well, that was . . . not quite what I remembered.  Perhaps I had him confused with some other sexy artist of the 80’s. Maybe Billy Idol?

Maybe Brian Setzer?

Not a whole lot of testosterone going on there, guys.

I started frantically searching through 80’s videos to see if any of the men I thought of as sexy were as breathtaking as I remembered. So far, this is the most masculine and powerful image I found:

 

Gotta be honest here, folks. If I were a lesbian, Annie Lennox would SO be on my radar.

But since I am straight and single, I am now totally confused about just exactly what I ever saw in those pretty boys of the 1980’s?  More to the point, I really need to look at pictures of men that I find attractive now.

Mmm-hmmm.

Yes, please.

Goodness.

I’m having trouble breathing, Mr. Gage.

Fireman. Need I say more?

(Okay, so that last one’s not a celebrity. We may be divorced, but I still think he’s kinda cute.)

Okay, all better now. I’m coming to terms with the realization that my tastes in men have definitely evolved a bit over the years, thank goodness.  And while I know I’m never going to go out with Sam Elliot, Taye Diggs, Eric Allan Kramer, or Randolph Mantooth (or my ex!), I can always dream, can’t I?

At least now, I’m not dreaming of men who wear more eyeliner than I do!

What about you? Have your tastes changed over the years? Who do you find most attractive now?

 

 

 

Grasping at Straws

No one was around when it happened, but I got a hug yesterday that turned my world around. I was feeling pretty alone in a crowd of people, and I don’t think anyone else realized what that hug did for me.

It’s been another rocky week around here. I’m doing my best to stay positive and keep a good attitude, but as one of my favorite bloggers said in her post for today, “Life is full of overwhelm.” I’m dealing with money problems, small-town-gossip issues, a broken lawnmower, a job opportunity that fell through, and now there’s a dead mouse in my basement. Life is sucking big-time right now, and not even bothering to use a pretty curly straw.

To be honest, life isn’t really all that bad.  We’re all healthy, and there’s been a lot of good stuff going on, too.  I’ve got my book signing tomorrow, and a possible girls’ night out with a couple of old friends; there’s a visit from my sister and a new used laptop from a friend, and the little store in town just started carrying Toblerone. If I could get Netflix to work on my TV so I could watch something with Randolph Mantooth or Eric Allan Kramer, I’d be content.

It’s just that I argued with some friends this week, and that hurts. They weren’t my best friends, not by a long shot. But they were friends, and life is too short to let any friends go easily. We might not have shared our deepest secrets with each other, but we enjoyed each other’s company. To put it differently, they were the kind of friends who might not have gone into the basement for the mouse for me, but they would have stood at the top of the stairs and squealed in sympathy while I did it myself.

When this passes over – and it will – it’s going to be hard for me to smile and go on with these people as though nothing has happened. I’ll do it because that’s what grown-ups do; I’ll encourage our kids to play together and we’ll all sit together in the bleachers during the different sports seasons. We’ll fall back into the same routines, the same patterns, and I’ll have to remind myself not to hold a grudge. It’ll be a struggle, but everything will be just fine.

For right now, my feelings are hurt. I feel like my soul has been bruised.

There are so many people out there with real problems. It’s foolish to waste even one minute stressing myself out over some petty he-said-she-said rumors and silliness. I just needed something or someone to give me a little kick in the butt or slap upside the head to remind me to prioritize this mess in the appropriate manner.

And that’s where the hug came in.

When I go to the elementary school to pick up my son at the end of the day, there’s a little girl who refuses to smile at me. Absolutely refuses. She’s an utterly adorable and very opinionated little girl with a strong and unique personality. I always ask her if today is the day I’m going to get a “Molly-smile,” and she takes a long, serious moment to study me and consider my question before shaking her head and walking away. Our little routine has become a high point of some of my days.

Yesterday was my rough day.  I was wallowing in self-pity and seriously considering plans for the evening that involved devouring the equivalent of my body weight in food that’s really, really bad for me; I had a hard time holding my head up and ignoring the whispers when I walked by the cluster of friends who are so upset with me. For a few minutes, I felt like a self-conscious sixth-grader trying to find a safe place to sit in the cafeteria on the first day of middle school. I wished my little boy was big enough to walk himself home from school so I didn’t have to face any of those people.

And then, out of the blue, I didn’t get a Molly-smile.

I got a Molly-hug.

God alone knows why that child chose yesterday, of all days, to run up and hug me. She never said a word. Just trotted up, threw her tiny arms around me for a split second, and ran back to her mother.

That was all it took to put things back into perspective for me.

Life is short. Sometimes, it’s “full of overwhelm.” But the world is always going to keep turning; tomorrow’s going to come, the sun is going to rise, and life is going to go on with or without our permission.  We can hang onto hurt and anger and self-pity, or we can allow ourselves to thaw in the warmth that comes from a child’s hug.

We can focus on the bad or we can embrace the good.

We can complain about the mouse in the basement or we can put on our big girl panties and march down there, get the damn thing, and move on with life.

And I guess, if life is going to suck sometimes, we might as well give it some pretty curly straws and enjoy the show.

This is a Finish the Sentence Friday post, inspired by the prompt, “No one was around when it happened…” This week’s FTSF is hosted by Kristi from Finding Ninee, Lisa at Flingo and Jessica from Ramblings of an add mommy.