Pulling myself out of bed this morning proved to be a tad bit harder than usual. I have a degenerative lumbar (lower), and occasionally my Monday morning Zumba class from the day before can irritate it. Depends on how “hard” I went of course. Some days I’m a turtle with an attitude, and others I’m a stripper on stage trying to catch that paper.

The point it, I never know what the day’s going to bring in terms of bodily situations. No matter what though, my bed will be made. The day could have gone to hell in a hand basket, but I take solace in the fact that I’m returning home to a nicely made, cushiony soft, cool to the touch king sized bed. If it’s the only thing I do all day, I’ll wake up, and make my bed. Messy bed, messy head.

Not that the day never gets messy if I make it. On contrary, I’m preparing myself for what will be. This week I have a heavy event type schedule. Volunteer appreciation party, happy hour with friends, lunch with a pal, and a party on Friday evening with ladies I have never met. Pahtay, pahtay, pahtay! No, not really. I mean, I’m looking forward to the happy hour with friends, and the lunch, but events such as the other two give me anxiety. Not in a bad way, just in a normal neutral way. I know that makes no sense whatsoever, but trust me -if it were the bad kind I just wouldn’t do it.

Large groups of women make me nervous. I literally start to sweat and get unbelievably hot. I’m sure a few of them have seen me in all my glistening glory. I have yet to fully understand why. I know I know, SO many women like to humble brag that they don’t have many female friends and only get along with men yada yada. Humbly shrugging their shoulders they say, “Other women just don’t like me…I don’t know why?” …look, I know what you’re thinking when you hear that, it’s what we’re all thinking, “Bitch, get over yourself. You’re not that fly. You’re just a c*nt that nobody likes!”

That’s not me. I love my straight and gay male friends dearly. When I hang out with them I can really let go, not wear makeup, or even sport my gym clothes from that same morning. No, I’m not one of those women who think other women don’t like them. I WANT them to like me. I get nervous because I feel awkward around them. My husband always knows when I’m going out with my women friends, (Of which I really only have 4, on any given day). I’m usually dolled up, full contour, sparkly eye-shadow, heels, a dress, and maybe some shimmer lotion -because what is life without shimmer lotion?

I’ll say it again, I’m awkward. I just hung up with an ex-fiancée, which is a story for another post, who told me I had more testosterone than most men. I think he’s told me this before, but I can’t be sure. I do have high testosterone levels. Really and truly, I’ve been tested. He’s correct. I act like a guy when I’m around my male friends. “Guy” in the traditional sense, I’m not stereotyping. But if I was, I’d be like a stereotypical guy. But I digress.

So here I’ll be, all dressed up and sweating, pre-gaming with a spiked spritzer -that’s my usual M.O. when I have events such as the two aforementioned, chalk full of women. That’s what I have to look forward to both tomorrow and Friday.

Women; they’re like a fascinating drug I get to take while in their presence. I study their faces, the way their lip gloss never seems to budge, how white their teeth are, and how perfectly they stand for each and every picture taken. I don’t fit in. Maybe on the inside I look like I do, but inside I know there’s a difference. I want to seem vapidly unaware of the social injustices that crash around me. I want to enjoy that champagne because I feel as if I have no care in the world, not because I know I need to care more. I too, want to worry about whether or not the villa I’ve reserved for my family in the Maldives is big enough, not think about how there’s current civil unrest in that region of the world. How perfectly they interject their voices into conversations with other women. I just stand there, smiling and laughing, unintentionally warming up my glass of bubbly while gripping it tightly.

With my male friends, I can cackle laugh, make a dirty joke, cuss like a sailor, down one too many shots, or take the piss out of one of them. It’s easy, no pressure. Men fascinate me for entirely different reasons. Their ability to act like asses and woo women (some) at the same time deserves a medal. The way they can compartmentalize. To be fair, I can do that too. It’s a talent I’ve developed over the years. Knowing that the opposite sex has the ability to do this, and that I may have simply picked it up given the time I spend with men, makes me feel like less of a sociopath.

Even before I was married, I took comfort in happy hours with my boy buddies. I felt safe, unjudged, but still longed for a close female relationship. I had/have one. She lives in San Antonio. I say had/have because I feel like we’ve grown apart recently. Come to think of it I’m pretty sure I forgot her birthday this year. I’m a shitty girlfriend. Perhaps thats why I can’t make any new ones. Still, I call her my best friend. When I met her she was instantly someone I wanted to spend as much time with as possible. I hadn’t felt that way about anyone since high school, where I had a huge group of gal pals.

She was like me, but white and much more edgier. We understood each other. We had the same inside jokes, looked at the world the same, and could read each others minds. Now, with the current political climate, I fear our friendship is slowly fading away. It’s partially my fault. I get into things too deeply. I’m too opinionated and sometimes have little tolerance for other people’s opinions, ESPECIALLY if they are so blatantly misinformed.

See what I did there? I didn’t say wrong. I said misinformed. I can tolerate a lot, but blatant stupidity is not one of them. I admire when a person has the ability to critically think, but when someone close to me sounds like they’re simply repeating something they heard on the “news”, I instantly lose respect. I know, it’s harsh. I can’t help the way I am. Again, this is probably why I don’t have many female friends. I can give shit to my male friends, but if I were to act the same way with one of my girlfriends, she’d want to fight, and then want to talk about why she felt insulted, and then bring it up again should we find ourselves in another altercation.  I can’t deal with that. I lack patience. I need to get some.

Good times. So you see, this is why I wake up and make my bed. No matter what goes on that day, I can come home to a made bed, perfectly done up, waiting for my messy head.

It’s a Sunday night and there’s a cold front trying to push through our humid and sizzling city. Every week I promise myself that it’ll be cool enough for me to go run at Memorial Park and every week for the past month I’ve talked myself out of it. I drag myself to the gym in our high rise and run alongside the slow-ish geriatrics that make up most of the population of our building. Most are already acquainted and give each other warm embraces or little nods when entering the gym space. I keep my head down when walking in, afraid to make eye-contact. Unlike most of the people that live here, my husband and I do not engage with the local glitterati.

While the high-rise is nice enough, and it seems as if though there’s a “prerequisite” to own a luxury vehicle, these people don’t seem like they’re ones we’d normal want to engage with. My husband and I are some of the youngest people who live here. In fact, I believe we are one of 4 “young” couples living in the building. I like our anonymity. Only the concierge staff and valets really know of our existence. We don’t complain, we don’t make too much of a racket, and we always pay our rent on time. I’d like to think we are the ideal renting couple. Oh, and we don’t have any pets nor kiddos running around shitting everywhere. Not that having those things are bad, we just aren’t THOSE people. At least for now.

Both of our mothers have pestered us to have a child but as it stands now, we are just enjoying our lives. If it happens, it happens. No pressure. Most people when first getting to know me ask what it is I do not whether or not I have children. I love how now a days it’s socially acceptable to ask people what their line of work is. I mean, not that the inquiry is a controversial one, but it wasn’t until that I stopped working that the question caused me to raise an eyebrow. I used to work as a director of an international program at a large University and would gladly tell whomever asked, now I just sputter out, “Oh…I don’t do anything”.

Of course this isn’t entirely valid. If I have one of my trusty gal pals next to me, they’ll usually jump in and say, “Now, that’s not true! She volunteers and takes care of her husband!” Which actually makes me sound a bit like a cad now that I actually type it out. Visions of me in a petticoat dress greeting my husband with a martini and slippers are currently swirling around my head.

The funny thing is, only women seem to ask me that question, and almost always smile from ear to ear when hearing my response saying, “Well GOOD FOR YOU! God, I wish I could do that…” or some variation there of. Now that I think about it, no male has ever asked me that question. They’re usually too busy staring at my tits. Just kidding… well, kinda. The truth is, I do DO things, and honestly, my weeks are usually very busy. I’ll be honest -they’re busy with things like volunteering, and taking care of my husband, which can include a massive amount of subcategories, but my days may also be filled with shopping, lunch with friends, or me walking around a museum or seeing a movie alone. No shame in my game.

Listen, taking care of one’s partner is a full-time job. That is, if you do it right. I got over the guilt a long time ago. My husband wants for nothing. His clothes are always dry cleaned and hanging, his dinners usually consist of 3 courses every evening after work, he never runs out of anything whether it be sport socks, face wash, toothpaste, or his favorite milk. I’m his doctor and haircut appointment maker, his stylist, his chef, his social calendar manager, his travel itinerary creator, and his counselor. I make sure our various memberships never expire. I buy his favorite soaps from Kuhl Linscomb and his must have Jack Black face wash from Nordstrom. I’ve personally decorated our place and ensure that it maintains it’s immaculateness by paying our housekeeper to clean (who I found after going through countless others) every 2 weeks. On weekends he gets cupcakes or donuts for breakfast, and sips wine that I research prior to buying based on his preference of dryness and acidity.

His only responsibility is to work. He’s a regular at the gym as well. He tells me that someone who is fit shows those around them that they have self-control and respect for their overall health, a crucial attribute of many CEO’s and CFO’s of major fortune 500 and 1000 companies. Duly noted.

So here I am, finding the time to blog, but still very busy. I too, hit the gym (A 24 hour fitness gym to be exact), and huff and puff through Zumba and Body pump classes. I may not be as muscular as my husband or thin as I’d like to be, but that’s a story for another blog. For now, I’m just a housewife in Houston, trying to live my best life possible, with many MANY bumps in the road.