Having lady problems

Note to men reading this: The title is 'lady problems', but don't worry. I'm not going to be terribly graphic or gross. I know that issues of the feminine sort can make men uncomfortable, so I'll be as gentle as possible. On with the story. 


When ladies get to know each other, they tend to swap stories. It's a bonding moment and can sound like a gaggle of geese to the outside observer. So when I went to college, I spent many moments having these giggly conversations with girls. Ladies, you know what I'm talking about. We talk about men, we talk about school, we talk about our clothes, we talk about food, we talk about anything. One topic that usually comes up is our lady problems.


I was hanging out at good ole Murray State University [go racers] at the Baptist Campus Ministries building. I was getting to know some young ladies and we were having the above said conversations. We went on to discuss our lady problems and were swapping horror stories. 


If you haven't noticed, I like to tell stories. I like to make people laugh and have no problem talking about my embarrassing, awkward, sometimes inappropriate moments in my life. So, that's what I was doing. I was telling these ladies all sorts of embarrassing moments, including the time a accidently threw a tampon down a hallway at school and the time I had a gyno visit and 'strawberry wine' was playing in the background of the dimly lit office. Awkward. I was bearing my soul to a group of young ladies and was making people laugh [which is my favorite thing to do]. I'd been talking for quiet some time [I have a lot of stories] when I hear something to my right. 


And in walks a young man from behind a corner. Around this corner was a sitting area in the same room, where he had been for who knows how long. He gives a wave, says 'hello ladies', and went to bathroom. 


I have never heard a group of college aged women so quiet. A silence fell over the group that was haunting and reverent and creepy. All the girls looked at me and I stared at the bathroom door wondering, 'how long has that guy been over there? How much did he hear? How graphic was I? Should I just bolt from the building, stick my head in a hole like an ostrich and wait this thing out?'


The young man came out and I had to ask... 'so how long you been over there?'


'Oh, about 20 minutes... I heard you all talking, but didn't want to freak you out, so I thought I'd wait till you left, but I had to pee.... so....'


Great. I decided the only thing to do was to introduce myself. 


"Well, I'm Katie, nice to meet you... now that you know lots of things about me... Ok, see you later"


That's the price I pay for thinking I'm soooo funny and feeling the need to divulge all my awkward stories. 


Something to note: me and that guy became friends. I feel like there are easier ways to make friends, but I haven't figured that out :)

Telling someone how you feel

L-O-V-E. Love. We all want it. We all work for it. We've all done stupid things in the name of it. 

Putting yourself on the line and telling someone how you feel is awkward. You are completely exposed, waiting for them to respond, hoping they say more than 'thanks... I like you as a friend?' Oh man, I can hear the dreams crushing. 

And if this circumstance isn't awkward enough, add the grueling and traumatic years of middle school. As if acne and hormones are challenging enough, throw in some interactions with the opposite sex and you have a recipe for disaster. 

Let me take you back to 1999. Come with me now, gentle viewers, to a time when boys bands were all the rage, Fight Club was introduced to our lives, and I was in seventh grade. It was also the year I got my first boyfriend. And let me tell you, I was not a good girlfriend. I didn't really do anything 'bad', it's just that I was... awkward. I know, shock face, me, awkward. But it's true. The relationship didn't last. We broke up because he said I didn't act like I was interested in him. Which was true, but really, I was just shy and unsure how to act in a relationship... if you can even call it that. So, my first relationship went down in flames. Boo-hoo. 

Then, I went on a church trip and my ex was there. It was cool, we were still friends [somehow, we healed from the wounds of the past] and he asked me why I couldn't just be myself while we were 'dating'. Why I went from cool, confident, friend to awkward, unsure girlfriend. Honestly, I didn't know how to express myself. I didn't know how to tell him I was just shy. 

But I knew someone who could express my feelings better than me. Her name was Britney Spears and she had just released her 'Baby One More Time' album. On this jewel of a record was a song titled "Sometimes". This was the song I used to express me feelings. 

The day after my conversation with ex-lover boy, I gave him a CD and said 'Listen to song 3... it explains how I feel better than I can'

Wow, I want to punch myself in the face just for ever saying that. For those of you struggling to remember the powerful lyrics of "Sometimes", here is a little refresher:

You tell me you're in love with me
Like you can't take your pretty eyes away from me
It's not that I don't want to stay
But every time you come too close I move away

I wanna believe in everything you say
'Cause it sounds so good
But if you really want me, move slow
There's things about me you just have to know

[CHORUS:]
Sometimes I run
Sometimes I hide
Sometimes I'm scared of you
But all I really want is to hold you tight
Treat you right, be with you day and night
Baby all I need is time

Yup. I gave him a CD and said that these lyrics... THESE lyrics were an accurate representation of emotions. Wow. Just wow. What happened, you ask, after this revealing moment of my middle school days?

We got back together, got married, and lived happily ever after... Just kidding! He gave me the CD back the next day and said... nothing. He just handed the CD back and walked away. And in that moment, I learned that if you can't say it yourself, do not let Britney Spears say it for you. Because it will backfire and it will backfire hard. 

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson. He was loved, despised, judged, idolized... he was awesome. Judge all you want, but most of us get our groove on during billy jean, have attempted the thriller dance, and can moon walk IF we are wearing socks in a slippery kitchen. Thanks to a cool lady named Julie, I can do the dance to Beat It... and yeah, I'm kind of awesome at it. 

This blog is not a way for me to give my opinions on the death of Michael Jackson or pass judgement on the way he lived his life. In fact, he's not really the center of this blog. True to my fashion, this blog is about me... and another awkward, silly, stupid thing I did. 

In high school, I went through a Michael Jackson phase. I loved Dirty Diana and was obsessed with learning the dance to Beat It [thanks again Julie!] I know this obsession came really late, considering I was in high school in the early 2000s,  but come on. A good obsession of the King of Pop is always welcome. 

I was in my bathroom one day, bee-boppin to some MJ. Then Thriller came on. and OMG you KNOW that every time you hear that song you at least attempt the dance. You may do the 13 going on 30 version [which is so not the right version, but at least you kids are trying] or some of you might just do the classic right to left zombie move. But you at least try. So what did I do, as I was making my self pretty in the bathroom? I started doing the Thriller dance. I'm grooving along in my bathroom and really getting into the dance. 

Then it happened. There's a move in the Thriller dance in which MJ goes up on his toes and then bends over quickly. He then moves into a shimmy, but I never got to that part. 

Like I said, I was really into the dance, so I went up on my toes, bent over quickly and WAP!!!

I banged my head on the bathroom sink. I hit it so hard that I fell backward and knocked myself out. 

I woke up a little later [billy jean, playing in the background...] and realized what happened. With a splitting headache and little more caution, I went about the rest of my day.

What can I say, obsessions can be dangerous. 

Having man hands

Lady fingers. A delicate cookie for delicate ladies. Unfortunately, I have large hands for a lady. Heck, I have large hands for a man. Most people's rings can fit on my pinkie finger. My hands get cold in the winter because gloves are too tight. I've never been able to play a stringed instrument because my fingers hit all 17 strings at the same time 
[I know there are marching band nerds everywhere, pushing up their glasses, saying something like, only the harp has 17 strings!! duh!!. To that I say, go back to your D&D game and cut me some slack. 
Remember that scene in the nutty professor where he inflates to giant size and his hands expand? My hands are like that ALL the time. I just have fat hands!! I feel like men look at my hands and think DANG GIRL, how much testosterone do you have coursing through those veins?!


Great question... I don't know! I am a tall girl and if I had little hands they would look weird... I mean, my hands are proportionate to my body. Yeah, I have pride in my man hands!! 
That'a a lie. I hate them. In fact, they get me into sticky situations. Like tonight...


I had to stay late at the office to finish some paperwork. There was literally no one else in he building as I began to wrap things. I went to send one last fax. I walked past our shredder box [we have a large locked box with a slit for papers that need to be shredded. At a later dates, this box is emptied into an actual shredder] and noticed that some papers were sticking out of the box. My oh so professional mind went: Potential HIPAA VIOLATION!! so I decided to fix it. Look at me, being helpful and not neglecting problems in the work place. That's right, I deserve a medal! Our employee of the month! forget that, I'll take a raise! 


But I digress... 


So, I went into fix the problem. I stuck my hand into the slot and shoved the papers out of sight. Tada! Problem solved. Until. 


I went to pull my hand out and realized I was stuck. Like, super stuck. I pulled my hand as much as I could. I relaxed my hand, like 'they' say to do when your hand is stuck in a pickle jar... no luck. 


I felt my pulse quicken. I looked around to remind myself, yes, there is no one in the building. Whew, that would have been embarrassing!! Thanks goodness I'm alone. I am alone.... wait, I'm alone!! And stuck in the shred box! Yelling for help would be pointless. I looked for a phone. My cell phone was 30 feet away at my desk. I tried to lift the shred box, the being to maybe carry the box attached to my arm out into the street and... I don't know what the plan was from there... It didn't matter, the box weighed like 78,000 pounds [approximately]. I thought about tumping [technical term] the box over and rolling it down the hall, onto the elevator and again, out to the street. Again, no plan once I got to the street with the box attached to my arm. But as I considered the quantum physics, geometry, kinetic forces and other sceiency things I realized that the box could potentially snap my wrist in half. If I tumped it too quickly. And remember this box weighs a billion pounds, no way I could control that thing to the ground. 


I considered the alternative of staying attached to this box for the next twelve hours. I imagined my co-workers walking in on me in the morning, huddled on top of the shred box, probably having peed my pants, tear stained face, delirious from hunger [again, I'm a big girl, we gotta eat like every two hours]. This was not an option. I would not be remembered like this! I had to get out. 


What happened next was straight from a comic book. Or an episode of Touched by an Angel. I steadied my mind. I channeled positive thoughts to my hand and the shred box. And pulled. And pulled. And pulled.  


My hand emerged from the shred box, beat red, and [if you can imagine] more swollen than before. I went home to immediately begin my regimen of hand exercises to have more tone, fit hands, so that I can avoid this debacle in the future.