Punch me in the face. . .

Punch me in the face

if i ever become one of those people who posts on line about how difficult/demanding my graduate school coursework has become.
or just generally if i ever complain about something that i brought on myself.

Punch me in the face

if i ever post online about weight loss or exercise.

Punch me in the face

if i ever become pregnant and proceed to post a photo of my baby bump on line.
each.
week.

and please God, Punch me in the face if i ever, ever,
use the word,
"hubby".

more Pmitf installments to come.
i'm sure.

Thanks for reading, 
Myra Lewis

Look for me on CNN.

#occupy_dc

Although I won't be getting arrested.

Ma already said I couldn't
:)

7

i'm not here to lie to you. that's not what this blog is about.

So i'm gonna be honest.

i

was stood up two weeks ago.

you heard me.

Stood.

Up.

There I was. 

Standing there.

                                                                             * * *
i met him  online.

and while I'll be honest, I wasn't like over the moon to meet him person, I was willing. I mean, what the hell else was I doing.

And I'll also admit that I was personally very flattered by how eager this person seemed to meet me. And while we weren't a particularly high match percentage wise, i thought i'd be open and give it a shot..

He asked where I wanted to meet.
      I chose a place in my neighborhood.

I suggested we meet there at 7.
      He said, "Sure!"

Keep in mind that after the aforementioned "Sure!" he and I had no further communication. Because I did not feel that anything further was needed. 

So I get to the predetermined neighborhood place at approximately 6:55pm. And while I am of the school of thought that a woman should make a man wait a bit, and sweat a little, I thought that I'd be a nice person and be a bit early.

This is because i know, for a fact, that when you are meeting someone for the first time, if they are even so much as one minute late, you begin to fear that you are being stood up.

7:00pm

he's not here. i'm looking around, i don't see him. i check his profile online just to be certain that i know what he looks like. ok. i'm certain.
someone comes in the door. is that him??
no.

7:06

maybe he doesn't know where this place is. i mean he lives in South city, I live in the Delmar Loop, I don't know where a ton of places are in South city.
bullshit Myra. everyone knows where the Delmar Loop is.
and yeah you do know where a ton of places are in South City.

7:12

i send him the following message online : Hey there it's a little after 7, are you still coming?

keep in mind that i don't have this persons phone number. BUT that he always, ALWAYS responds back to me online within minutes.

no response.

7:22

still not here.

you should also keep in mind that my self-esteem is decreasing by the second. it feels like there is a giant spotlight shining on me, and everyone at this bar can see that i am waiting for someone who isn't coming. and while i know that isn't true.
that's how it feels.

and so i sit there. looking fantastic might i add. in a fuscia sweater (because men like bright colors), and a fabulous scarf. in cute earrings and perfect make-up. because let's face it folks, i know what i'm doing.
and i decide that since i've already waited this long, i'll give him another eight minutes.

7:27

i ask for advice.
the bartender is a young blonde woman. pretty. wearing one of those i'm-a-bartender-tank tops and push up bra. she has a long ponytail.
i look at her and think to myself that she's probably been on a date or two in her life.
and so i wave her over.
"Excuse me, I just wanted to ask your opinion,  if you were supposed to meet someone here at 7:00 and it was 7:30 and they hadn't showed up, you would leave? 
Right?"

She says, "you mean, like a date?"
I nod.

"Yeah, I would leave" she says, "because. . .  7 is 7."

7:30


I send him the following message: I know we didn't exactly confirm, and for that apologize, but it's 7:30 now so I'm going to head out and maybe we could try this another time.

still no response.

i suppose i could have stayed and had a drink by myself, like the confident and independent person that i am.
but, i had wine at home,
and i was kinda hoping this would be a freebie.
know what i mean?

 and while i hate to waste a full face of perfect make up, i went home.
                                                                       * * *

In my line of work i deal endlessly with people. some of them amazing, some of them ridiculous. and with people comes the endless possibility that they will dissapoint you.
My friend Ashli says, "Get up for the let down."

but also in my line of work we take our learnings very seriously. so that when all else fails, in a meeting, in a campaign, in an election,
you take the learning from it.

so while i was home with the make-up remover i had an interesting thought.

even with all of the let downs that may come along with dating, i still don't wish i was in a relationship. i still don't wish i was living with someone. and i still don't wish that i was married.
and so with that

i suppose i live to date another day.

and i also thought of a very important learning. something the bartender said to me that i will remember for the rest of my romantic life:

7
is indeed,

7.

(of course i'll always secretly hold out hope,
that he's dead)

thanks for reading, 
Myra Lewis

3 months

3 months from today 3 significant things will be taking place.

1. it will be time to pay for the car insurance again for the first car i have ever owned. 
2. it will be the end of my 6 month contracted position at work.
3. i will be 25 years old. 

let's go back for a second. . .

three months earlier,

 August 21, 2011:

It was a Sunday. and I had just purchased a red convertible. for a good price might i add. from a lovely lady, who's family was growing, and therefore had outgrown the family's Chrysler Convertible. Luckily my own family, consisting one "young single gal" and the occasional niece and nephews was a perfect fit. A perfect fit for the wine red American made Chrysler  Sebring convertible LXI, now more affectionately know as,

Queen Elizabeth Taylor II.

Before I go any further I must tell you that I have been dreaming of owning a real convertible since Christmas 1991. I emphasize real because that's when I got the Barbie Corvette. I suppose that was really the first car I ever owned. It too was a convertible. and in it I cruised the sidewalk. 

I won't go in to how long it took me to actually obtain a legal driver's license. or all the lessons i took. with all of the crazy instructors. or the toupees that they wore. or all of those years i spent on the bus, on the train, on the subway, on the Amtrack, arranging rides, in cabs, or just pounding the pavement. Riding with other people, inhaling their second hand smoke. fearing for my life. listening to their music.Borrowing other peoples cars, being scared to death to wreck them, and driving illegally.

and i won't even go into the long mental and emotional journey i went on in order to come to terms with needing, and then buying a car. 

it was pretty deep though i can tell you that. 

the gist is that for the longest time the reason that i didn't have a car was because i couldn't afford one. and neither could my family. i didn't realize how strange this was until the 6th grade when i mentioned it to Shannon Vrouvas. and what followed was a moment that i would never forget. Shannon stopped, looked at me, cocked her head to side and with wide eyes said, 

"How does your family get around?!"

I remember feeling so stunned by her disbelief. i mean no offense to Shannon but she looked at me like i had just told her that my family ate other families at Thanksgiving. 

more adolescent horror ensued when i was in high school. forget the fact that i was already 16 years old and a senior. add to it however that i didn't get a license. not that year. or even the year after that. which as you well know is a teenage crime. 

the flip side of all of this was as i got older and starting working and socializing in increasingly more progressive and liberal circles, not having a car and taking public transit made me. . .cool?

it was strange. people admired my not having a car. and my ability to get everywhere and do everything. they were in awe of my not being intimidated by mass transit. i had a certain "street credibility" that i liked. a brand of resourcefulness and courage that people honored. 

so because of all of that i  had made up in my mind that buying a car was going to mean two things. 

A.) i wasn't poor.

B.) i wasn't cool. 

and i'll admit it was a mini identity crisis. Luckily, after some procrastination and being asked out by one homeless person too many on the #97 Delmar Bus, I decided that I had to get over it! Bite the bullet and get the car of my dreams. 

I remember thinking to myself, "If I have to have a car, I'm going to have the one I want." 

So by that Sunday evening I was a car owner. Outright. And I called Progressive Auto Insurance. And me and Queen Elizabeth Taylor II were covered for the next six months.

                                                                           ***

Now you may be asking yourself, Why did I have to buy a car?

Well, that Sunday was also the day before I started my new job: 

Myra Lewis,  labor union organizer.

A regular revolutionary. and while my old job might have found it convenient that i knew so much about the bus system of greater St.Louis, this new gig, not so much. 

A car was required. 

I had just quit my first real job out of college a couple weeks earlier. And that was an experience. Let's just say that growing isn't easy. and in the job I left I did a lot of growing. again i won't go in to how much growing. i won't go in to how i learned that the world of work is. . . a different world. 

I won't go in to how difficult it was to form healthy working relationships. Or how i learned that everyone isn't a team player, a hard worker, or even a worker at all. How it's one thing to be ambitions, and another thing to be selfish. one thing to be invested in your work, and another to sacrifice your sense of self because of it. how some of your best attributes as an employee can be all to easily taken advantage of and even abused. 

that in the very wise words of someone i once worked with, you really do have to "watch your back. because no one else is watching it."

But I will tell you that in all of the positions i will ever hold, i have a sneaking suspicion that none of them will have mattered more to my life and who i will have become, than that position. my first big kid job. and for that i am grateful to have had it.

and grateful to have left it.

Even if it was for this current position which i know hold that is only contracted and temporary.  and while i've been a temp before and it isn't the most secure feeling, i know that i'm doing good work.i  knew that taking the position would mean stepping out on faith in a big way. and being present to the moment and the lessons that this job would bring. So on that evening while preparing for my first day in what we in the biz call "The Labor Movement" I was happy to be able to say that I had made it through my first career transition. Complex, yet relatively seamless.

So needless to say that Sunday night I was reflecting on my life in a big, big way. And the truth is that even without those things, Queen Elizabeth II and the new job, I would have had something on my mind. 

Because Sunday August 21, 2011 was also my half birthday.

                                                                   ***

Now maybe you think it's silly that someone over the age of five even considers their half birthday. 

let alone someone in their twenties. 

but that's what i am. 

a 24 and 1/2 year old who considers everything. 

And i've been looking forward to 25. Every since I heard Patti Stanger of The Millionaire Matchmaker on BRAVOtv say that "25 is the perfect age." and i certainly don't think there is such a thing as the perfect age, there is something prime about it. 

turning 25 makes me think of that saying,  old enough to know better but young enough to do it anyway.

So i found myself that evening thinking about the next six months and what they were going to bring. And how I was going to manage everything in the mean time. If things with the car would work out. How the new job would go. And most importantly, 

just what would be my answer to the birthday question???

So here we are at the halfway point. 3 months of car ownership under my belt. Half way through this work assignment. and 3 months away from the quarter century mark in life.

and here's what I know:

1.) A car is a lot of trouble. I can now replace a fuse, add oil, and change a headlight bulb. I can tell you how much it cost me to fill up the last time I got gas, approximately how many miles I get to the gallon, and how much two new tires are going to run you. I know that I have to listen closely to my car and feel for any changes. and now perhaps more than i hate talking about the weather, i hate talking about traffic. It's a new responsibility. One that I can handle, but an extra one nonetheless. It's been a headache at times and certainly cost more than the bus ever will, 

but damn, it sure does look cool.

2.) I have found that adjusting to a new working environment is kind of like adjusting to a new relationship. you're gun shy to say the least. apprehensive and insecure. because you've been hurt before and you don't know if this will be different. I am finding that all you can do is your personal best. bring everything you have to the table. and learn everything. don't do the position, or yourself a disservice. and be you. all the time.

3.) I am going to have a fabulous 25th birthday.  

Thanks for reading,

Myra Lewis & Queen Elizabeth II

hmmm. . .