spinster

"You're too old to have kids now, Laura. You're 23 and you're not even married!" 

"I'm only three years older than you!"

"Yeah, but I'm cute."

I know she's being funny, but I also know her well enough to know when she truly believes what she's saying. 

"Zip that cute face before I leave it on the side of the road." 

She laughs and makes the motion of a zipper across her lips. 

I love my job. I do. Even when they tease me. Even when a police officer ruins my favorite shoes trying to get me out of harms way. Although, I actually would have traded my ruined shoes for getting ran into (her hands were cuffed behind her back, there's not a lot she could have done!) that day.  Even when they embarrass me in front of the cute nurse, on purpose, and laugh about it as soon as we leave.  They're the reason I get up in the morning.

"Oh I really like that house!" I pointed to one with a wrap around, enclosed, porch.  "But maybe I should just stop looking since I'm never going to need any more space than a studio apartment because I'm going to be alone and childless my whole life."
"Yep."
An exaggerated frown crossed my face and she immediately took to groveling.  
"Okay, no, being serious now.  You will be a great mom.  You'll be old, but you'll be great.  You have to bring them to our house so I can play with them.  They'll call me 'Auntie.'  They'll all have beautiful hair, like you, too."
"I feel better now.  Thanks, girl."  I wasn't really feeling bad in the first place.  You can't do this job if you take everything they say to heart.  If I got upset every time I get called a 'fucking bitch,' I'd go crazy, myself.  Not to mention, 9 times out of 10, half an hour after 'fucking bitch,' comes 'I love you, honey.'  1 out of 10 times it's still 'fucking bitch.'
"You're welcome.  Now, just because you're going to have all these beautiful babies and live in a big house, that does not mean you can leave us.  I'll let you have the babies, but you have to stay our supervisor."
"I can't make any promises...what if the man I marry has to move for his job?  What if he makes sooo much money that I don't need a job?"
"Leave him.  We'll need you more."
I love my job.

where's the romance, dammit?

Whatever happened to good, old fashioned dating?  Seriously.  
I want to see some cute couple on an awkward first date; fingertips barely touching across the table.  I don't want to see a guy with his pants at his knees holding a girl's ass as they walk into the gas station for cheap vodka.  I don't want to see a girl dreaming of a picket fence and hopelessly pinning over a guy with no interest in her except the attention she's giving him and the countless favors it comes with.  I don't want to see a man spending all his money on taking care of a girl who spends her time with someone else.  I don't want to see a girl going back to the first girl she met right out of the closet because she's afraid of the game on the other team.  I want to see shy glances and flowers and a man walking a girl to her door, giving her a goodnight kiss, and turning around to go home. 

Is that too much to ask?
Does that mean my views on love have been biased by Disney and various romantic comedies and my parent's and grandparent's own love stories?
Is this just the time we live in?
In a world of 'baby mama's' and rap, Twilight and Taylor Swift, does the good stuff still exist? 

I've seen proof that it does.  It's rare, but it's out there.  It's a shame that there are so many people out there afraid to be alone, afraid to wait and work to find the good stuff, that they take whatever they can get.  Love as we known it, knew it, may be becoming extinct.  
Or I'm just incredibly pessimistic.  Either one.  

“I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody...They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind...They don't teach you anything worth knowing.” -Neil Gaiman

And some people never learn on their own...
I want to see real, 1960's type romance. 

 Or maybe something along these lines. :]