For the cynical reader

I realize that some of my more cynical readers may wonder (and believe me, even I've sometimes wondered) why so many beautiful smart young women like myself are so concerned with hooking up, or finding a boyfriend, or however you term it. My best explanation or theory -- and this is based purely on personal experience -- is that, especially for us really intelligent, hardworking ladies, it's (mostly) fun and frivolous-feeling to go after guys or think about them coming after us, etc.

Also, I believe it's because we're full of just as many raging hormones as boys are, and yes, we like to kiss and cuddle and "get it on" and we also want someone, other than our girlfriends to care for us and hold our hand through the tough stuff and the really yummy icing in the middle of that bad stuff. In fact, sometimes, the special guy in your life is the cream filling between one and another horrible thing.

I must concede, though, that it's not always fun and that sometimes thinking about the fact that our best friend or roommate or sister has a boyfriend and we don't makes us wonder what's wrong with us and hate the other girl and wonder why she's special enough to have scooped that total cutie.

But most of the time, it's fun-er than the other serious shit going on in our lives.

Just some early morning thoughts.

(The above image is of Cher and Nicholas Cage from Moonstruck.)

Plea bargaining

I am sick and tired of this snow. And even sicker and more tired of no one putting an arm around me on the way to class. Here is my one-sided correspondence with the big man.


Dear God,

I'll let you keep sending down snow if you give me a tall, cute, dark haired boy to keep me warm.

Love,
Rosella


Dear God,

If you don't stop the snow from coming down, I'm going to... I don't know.

Love,
Rosella


Dear God,

I'll settle for a tall, cute boy. He doesn't even have to have dark hair.

Love,
Rosella


Dear God,

Please, just do me a solid on this one. Thanks.

Love,
Rosella


Dear God,

Seriously? It's snowing, and not sticking enough to get me out of class, and still no handsome young coed to cuddle with?

You're killing me.

Love,
Rosella


Dear Reader,

As you can see by looking out your window, God's not stopping the snow or speeding it up enough to get us off the hook. I say we play hookie and find ourselves some cute boys since God's not dropping 'em in our laps (or dropping us in theirs).

Love,
Rosella

xoxoxo

Memoirist

I've been turned onto SMITH's six-word memoir challenge and can't stop working on them. Here are some of the ones I've written:

Hoping for snow, not exam ready.

Wishing for tall boy to love.

Dying to write a consequential novel.

Like, lust, love. Born, bust, burn.

Can't go anywhere but down, down.

My happiness is hinged upon email.

I can't breathe without you, lover.

But maybe I can breathe. Yes.

Stress leads to ulcers -- how painful.

My eyes cry out for you.

I have the right to lie.

I've also the right to lie.

Wash the world off my face.

I rewind and pause to cry.

Staring into your eyes hurts much.

Feeling alone is what I know.

What about soul, soldier? Doesn't exist.

Blind to the hurt you cause.

Blind to the fear you cause.

Blind to anyone but you = sad.

I love steak; can't be vegetarian.

I eat to swallow my pain.

I feel. I feel too much.

I steal, steal not enough hearts.

If only you would embrace me.

Put your arms around me, boy.

Hug away the world. Squeeze tighter.

Call me tonight, call me tonight.

Don't know you but love you.

I watch the Bachelor, like Grammy.

Notebook: the window to my soul.

Cinderella: my soul sister. Prince Charming?

Stop not emailing me; need you.

To fall hard means losing yourself.

Miss you more than you know.

I'll pass on the guilt trip.

I'm the worst big sister ever.

What more is there to say?

Perfectly (in)compatible?

We've got a lot in common. A shared love of literature, knowledge of proper grammar, dark humor and wit, list of preferred European countries despite the fact that neither of us has been there, and a shared interest in crazy "performers" who post laughable videos on YouTube. You name it, we've got it in common. We even seem to possess the traits the other is searching for in a mate -- like that he reads the things I write.

But we'll never date.

He's my best guy friend -- I don't have a good reason for making this distinction between male and female friends except that most people do -- and his name is Mike. Like my dad. This is just another reason why we'll never date.

The other, because both of us have height hangups, is that we're not physically compatible. As previously mentioned, I'm a tall girl with a high heel fetish. I prefer my men taller than me (although this has never actually been the case in past relationships). And Mike prefers his women smaller than he.

Understandable.

The reason I bring all this up -- and please pardon my long journey to this, the point of the post -- is that I find it incredible (as in "hard to believe") that two people could be so compatible and never work out or even have a glimmer of a chance together.

How can that be?

I can hardly think of a suitable movie or literature example actually -- which is weird to me. So if it's obviously not a topic of discussion in the public consciousness, then it must not happen often, right? I don't know. Are Mike and I a freak case?

Oh, by the way, ladies, Mike's a total babe and very available! If you like poetry (which he writes), hate double negatives (like "I ain't not..."), want to visit France and England particularly, love Chinese food and appreciate a proper cheesesteak, like a well-dressed man, and are saving yourself for marriage, you're perfect for Mike. Email me and maybe one of us can have a happenin' love life!

(The above image is of Andrew McCarthy and Demi Moore in St. Elmo's Fire.)

A chicken and a mouse

I apologize for my week long absence. It was an unplanned sabbatical -- I've been sicker this year than ever before -- except possibly kindergarten year (that was before I had my tonsils removed). Anywho.

Life is grand today, it truly is.

Up until an hour ago, it was a bad day. But it's amazing how, when one tiny little dream comes true, it can brighten your day.

I regret that I must be so vague today, but what happened for me is just a tiny step closer to one dream that I'd rather not disclose until it comes true all the way.

As for how bad my day was going before this mysterious turn of fortune, there is this which hung like a cloud over my morning: I totally fucking chickened out.

I was going to give my phone number to this total babe who has a class in the same room as my Creative Acts class (only just before it) but when he exited the classroom today, I lost my nerve. He was talking with a friend and surrounded by classmates and that's a hard thing for me to handle.

Coward, that's what I am. A mousy coward.

I grew increasingly nervous on my way to class this morning and then when I saw him, I choked. How could I? Normally I'm super brave and can put myself out there, no problem.

With this one kid, it's been like a mental block is stopping me. Something is seriously wrong here.

I can't even say with certainty that I plan to attempt this again on Wednesday. Knowing me I'll likely lose nerve again.

But then again, with the good thing that happened today, maybe I don't even want to pursue that guy anymore.

What to do?

(The above image is of 30 Rock star Tina Fey which appeared in an issue of Harper's Bazaar.)

When literature speaks for my life

"All my life I'd told myself studying and reading and writing and working like mad was what I wanted to do, and it actually seemed to be true, I did everything well enough and got all A's, and by the time I made it to college nobody could stop me." - The Bell Jar

Well, a terrible cough and sore throat could. Be back later.

Surrounded by twits

I'm experiencing two very distinct feelings at the moment. First, I feel that most people are twits. Secondly, I'm feeling lonely without a twit to love me.

Occasionally in my life, I feel like I'm the only smart, sane person left in a world full of ninnies. Yes, ninnies.

A clear indication to me of the flailing intelligence of human life is most people's utter failure to grasp -- and utilize -- proper grammar. When someone sends me an email using the wrong "Your" or "There," I correct it in their text. I doubt anyone notices, but it makes me feel better that I'm not sending out any emails that contain improper grammar.

Facebook is rife with improper grammar and it pisses me off -- not just the new Facebook homepage -- but the fact that I can't log on without seeing at least one illiterate status.

Please, if you've ever committed one of these grammar sins, look up which word you're supposed to use when. Please. Please. Please.

I'm begging you.

Is it any wonder that the minute I meet a fairly attractive guy who has proper grammar, I immediately feel an attraction? I mean, someday when I have kids, I want them to be good communicators who properly use the English language. I refuse to procreate with someone who cannot grasp the English language.

This brings me round to that second emotion: Loneliness.

I love myself, OK? I really do. But I miss not having someone special in my life. Someone to see all the things I love about me and to love them too.

God, and every time I log onto Facebook -- which I should just stop doing because it seems to do nothing but depress me lately -- I see friends of mine who seem to be making leaps and bounds in their lives. They're introducing boyfriends to their families for the first time, hanging out with new groups of people and doing all other manner of new, exciting stuff.

And I feel static, unchanging. My life doesn't feel like it's advancing.

Sure, I may have most of my dreams except one. Actually that's a lie. There are many more things I want in life that I just don't seem to be achieving.

I'm so sad right now. I just want to bawl my eyes out.

Sleepless nights

Lying in bed alone late at night is usually when I feel the worst about myself. It's then that, in the absence of the light, my emptiness is the most glaring.

I'm free-floating through life. I feel untethered. It's an uneasy feeling -- feeling untethered.

Maybe it's your relationships to others that are supposed to ground you. But none of my relationships seem substantial enough to keep me on the ground.

And no matter what, I feel like something is missing from my life.

I go after my dreams, no matter how crazy, full-force but when my dreams remain unattainable -- despite all of my efforts -- I feel a haunting moldiness inside.

Life, I believe, is the pursuit of perfection -- or your idea of it. And this is probably why one rarely ever feels satisfied with themselves. Because the minute one feels fully satisfied -- like nothing is missing -- would be the moment that life ended if my theory is correct.

So why is it so hard to accept a missing piece of the puzzle? I guess, again if my theory is correct, that if you could be OK with a missing piece, that's the same as being fully realized and happy and then your life would end.

This rationalization, even if completely false, should give me peace. But no matter what, I lie alone in bed at night, listening to Gavin DeGraw or Hanson and feeling sorry that for one thing, there's no boy to sing sweet things to me.

But then I wake up in the morning, and when I consider telling a cute boy I see that I in fact think he's adorable and would he like to get to know me, I sigh and give up. The effort just seems so great sometimes.

I mean, who's to say some random boy would even like me? I'm tired of risking it. I'm always taking the risk. And hardly ever getting a reward.

Beyond that, I like being single so why do I feel like a big piece of me is missing without a boyfriend?

I guess because nobody would really stay single if they didn't have to.

But that could be a lie because I know someone who would go out with me in a minute if I asked but I don't want him -- at least not anymore.

What also keeps me up at night is my future.

It's like the passage in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar where she writes that her life is a fig tree, with each of her possible futures hanging on the end of each branch, ripe and ready for her, but she can't choose.

"I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet," Plath wrote.

I feel like I can't even see my figs. I can't see them so how do I know which one to choose?

I find it all overwhelming. I really just want some sleep.

(The above image is of Michele Pfeiffer in Witches of Eastwick.)

A new letter for potential suitors

Dear Suitor,

Good news! I no longer consider myself a giant mess.

I'm more like a small fire.

But one that is properly contained and useful for providing heat.

Anyway.

You will likely find, per my first letter to prospective suitors, I am still most of these things: intense, emotional, feisty, occasionally vindictive, introspective, inquisitive, occasionally stubborn but generally not, intelligent, dark, quick with a "burn," and I see too many flaws in people to be completely trusting or sociable. Except possibly the last one.

I don't want to be distrusting or unsociable and I find am less of both than I used to be because in the past year, since I started this blog and posted the first letter to potential suitors, I've learned that the flaws in people are what make them lovable. And whoever is going to love me is going to have to be accepting of flaws.

Other things have changed since that first letter. I've finally figured out who I am -- and the answer had been there under my nose the whole time.

I am Rosella Eleanor LaFevre. I am a daughter, a sister, an amazing friend, a loving and supportive girlfriend (when I have a boyfriend). I am a writer, a writer, a writer. I am passionate and deeply caring and loving. I am dedicated to my dreams and an impossibly hard worker.

Also, I've figured out what I want in a guy. First, and going with the only superficial requirement: height. He must be tall. I am 5 foot 7 inches and counting and I have a high heel fetish. This requires a man of a certain stature if he wants to keep up.

More than that though, I want someone who will hold my hand as we walk together, someone who will text me sweet things in the morning, someone to kiss my forehead and rub my belly when I have a tummy ache. I want someone who will kiss me passionately and give me backrubs.

He should love his family and friends and he should be driven to achieve something in life. (Even if he flips burgers at McDonald's, he should be the best damn burger-flipper they've ever seen.)

But probably even more than all of that, I want someone who will read everything I write because he wants to. Even if he hates reading every other written word on earth, he should love to read mine.

That is the single most important thing to me.

Granted some things haven't changed since that first letter. For instance, I haven't figured out at what pace a person is supposed to reveal themselves to another. In this you will need to guide me. If I'm telling you too much too soon, tell me. Or if I haven't told you anything about me and you want in, tell me that.

I hope when I find you, Mr. Almost Perfect, the world is right for us to fall in love. It would suck to wait for you and when I finally find you, for you to be in love with someone else or something.

Love,
Rosella

Fieldnotes

I have an impossibly strong curiosity about football players.

I attribute this to my having attended an all-girls high school where field hockey and softball were the big sports and the players wore skirts or basketball shorts instead of those sexy tight white tights.

Because of this curiosity, I spend many a cafeteria-hour observing these big beefy guys interact with one another. I consider myself an undercover anthropologist studying a culture foreign to me. I'm not sure that what I've unearthed so far would rock anyone's world but I find it curious.

Today, for instance, I found myself sitting with a bunch of them. One of them pointed at a woman who works in the cafeteria and said to his teammates how one of their buddies said to her "Bet you never had a man shove you up against a wall and fuck you" or something equally vulgar. They all kind of laughed.

I turned from my copy of The Bell Jar and asked if all football players talk like that, and shared with them an incident when, again I had been sitting near a group of them, and two white boys asked a black boy when he would take them to a party so they could get some black chicks. The one kept saying he wanted to fuck a black girl.

They laughed at this. I told them I understand boys will be boys but jeez! And one of them said, "We don't all talk like that." And another said something about the effects of testosterone.

Then most of these boys rose from the table and their seats were taken by other football players. One of these, a gorgeous white boy whose identity I can't figure out, asked his teammate who sat next to me -- who is pretty gorgeous himself -- if he was going to the women's basketball game on Saturday. Apparently it's mandatory but the white boy's birthday is this weekend and he had plans with his family (I know, I too was swooning just a little).

Once they'd discussed this, the white boy talked about how at a charity date auction, he was almost bought by a man. This apparently scarred him. Just a tiny bit. Another teammate was in fact bought by a man and this, the white boy said, had Coach "G" cracking up.

Oh, and he pointed out to his teammates that the team's kicker, a sexy freshman, was bought for only $15.

I'm only upset I hadn't known about this auction.

During most of this conversation, I listened and occasionally watched and the white boy looked at me a few times but never said anything... Same for most of the guys he sat with. They glanced at me but no one said anything.

I wonder if football players wait for girls to approach them...

Another thing I've learned about these attractive young men: The few that have girlfriends don't really advertise it on their Facebooks; most of their profiles say they're single.

I know because I've met some of their girlfriends. At the bowl game (the EagleBank Bowl), I sat in front of a group of football players' girlfriends.

The most interesting thing they unveiled while enjoying the evening? Most of them have a hard time getting their boys to go down on them and threaten no sex until they do so...

I want to know more. (Oh, and my favorite football player was nowhere to be seen.)

What women really ought to know about the other sex

Boys really are clueless about girls.

Tonight at a "What Women Really Want" panel in my dorm, ladies took the hot seat, volunteering to answer our male peers' questions about the inner workings of the female mind and the show was fantastic.

They asked all kinds of questions out loud and on paper if they were too nervous. Among the things they wanted to know: how do you know when a girl likes you, how do you know when a girl just wants sex, how do you tell a girl you don't want anything but sex, how do you tell a girl that to you last night was more than a one-night stand, do girls like a muscular butt or a big one, what constitutes small in the below-the-belt area, how do you get a girl to dance with you at a party.

Of course, boys proved to be more than clueless.

They're also sweeter than we think. Most guys, we girls were assured when the boys took the hot seat, want a relationship. One of the panelists earned a chorus of aww's from the female portion of the audience when he said he only dates girls he could see himself marrying. Then he dropped another swoon-worthy bombshell: he's saving himself for marriage.

Then again, they're just as dirty and shallow as we've always figured them to be. Some of the questions thrown at the ladies when they were answering questions were: how do you ask a girl to join you in a threesome, what is your favorite position (to which I gave the only answer), do girls really like to swallow. And, when the boys sat in the line of chairs, they told us that a girl who'll sleep with you on the first date looses points. Their explanation: if it was that easy for you, imagine how easy it is for every other guy.

And, one of the ladies' favorite male panelists -- the one who is saving himself for marriage and who dates only marriage material -- made it clear that he judges. Boy was he open about his view of the highly sexual members of the opposite sex. "There's a fine line between confident and whore," he said.

Other gems he had to share with us: "It's not the size of fishing pole, it's what you do with the worm" and "The master key can open any lock but a lock that opens for any key is bad."

Then again, the boys had one good piece of advice: Being ballsy enough to tell a stranger you think he's cute will surely earn you points.

This, I intend to see for myself.

(The above is a photo of Jack Nicolson, Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michele Pfeiffer in The Witches of Eastwick.)

Dreams

The dreams of Mr. Athlete have been replaced by dreams of pregnancy. Meaning? I don't know.

All I know is, lately, the happiest I've been have been is during dreams. Whether they're about Mr. Athlete or a big stomach.

It's kind of terribly depressing waking up alone after one of these dreams.

(The above image is of Bono, of U2 and sunglasses fame, kissing Gwen Stefani's pregnant belly at the Grammy's.)

Friends and the perpetual question

Julia attended Girls' High with me. Now she's here at Temple. We bumped into each other on the corner of 13th and Miss You and went for lunch.

As we waited in horrendous lines in the cafeteria, we talked about everything that's happened since graduation. A big topic? Guys. Naturally.

Since graduation, I've had a big relationship and a lot of firsts. Julia's dropped out of one college and spent a semester living at home and working, sinking into depression. (Understandable.)

Now that she's started at Temple, where there are actual living, breathing members of the opposite sex -- remember, we went to an all-girls school -- she's tasting the bouquet. (And feeling much happier.)

There's one boy, from her English class, who has shown interest in her and they've been spending a lot of time together. At lunch, she wasn't sure if she liked him back.

Julia's got a situation: she's saving herself for marriage. It's just something she believes in.

She wonders if this means that she'll have a harder time finding boys in college who would date her. (I don't know what to tell her.)

More than this, Julia hasn't always had an easy time when it comes to guys. Like me, she's had moments of deep depression. She's wondered if she'll ever find anyone to like her and possibly love her.

The more I talk to my friends, the more I realize what a common theme this is among young women. Sure, we're beautiful and intelligent, but that doesn't guarantee us an easy time in finding a connection.

And the world drives us crazy with the idea that if we don't find it, we'll be lost souls.

I wonder if young men feel the same way. Do boys ever feel desperately depressed at the prospect of being alone? And furthermore, do they ever look at a girl longingly, actually feeling like they need that girl in their life?

I know girls do this about guys. But is it a two-way street?

Since our lunch, Julia has talked to this boy from her English class and they have arranged a date for tomorrow. I hope it goes well for her.

And I hope my dreams of a certain athlete stop soon. I can't deal with the terrible feeling of loneliness upon waking after one of those beautiful dreams.

(The above image is of Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen.)

Draw the line

Stacy's got Jewish guilt. She's got boundaries. And a new beau who doesn't seem to grasp her boundaries.

He's good, this Ryan. Charming. Too charming. Knows what she likes without her having to say it. This means trouble.

Stacy came to me for advice. What should she do, she wondered. She didn't want to let him cross her boundary but she doesn't want to give him up.

I told her she had three choices as I saw it: (1) She could loosen up; (2) She could explain to him her boundaries in detail and maybe he'd understand; and, (3) If he didn't understand her boundaries after she explained them, she should dump him.

To this last one, she exclaimed that they weren't even dating.

But while she seemed to understand that there was no serious thing between the two of them, she didn't want to give up whatever they have.

She wondered aloud if she should just let go and have fun, be a kid.

Frankly, I have very few boundaries. As long as I feel I can respect myself afterward, I'll do it, whatever it is. Of course, I'm not Jewish. Or conservative.

Stacy is.

It all made me wonder: When it comes to boundaries, should we draw the line in dry-erase or permanent marker?

(The above image is of Leonardo DiCaprio and Amy Adams in 2004's Catch Me If You Can.)

Phasin'

An article I read today about the five signs you're headed for a breakup suggests that "we all know [the honeymoon phase of a relationship] is the first 90 days of pure bliss." As my eyes passed over the words, I thought how absurd it is.

As of this exact moment, there are 6,801,094,099 people in the world. And just like the millions of snowflakes falling outside my window, no two persons are the same. Thus no two relationships are the same. So why would the first 90 days of all relationships be the honeymoon phase?

Surely, some honeymoon phases are shorter, others longer and some -- unless this is a total fairytale -- never end. Maybe there's even an occasional relationship without a honeymoon phase all together.

Just something to mull over...

(The above image is from The Honeymooners.)

Forget dividing and conquering

In life, we are surrounded by people. Many we don't, some we think we do, and a rare handful we know we know for sure. It seems the handful I know I know for sure shrinks and shrinks. It's nearly impossible to come across a truly great friendship. You know the kind I mean, the person you can share things with, who will tell you what you need to hear and who can walk the fine line between caring and being cared for.

In high school, I was surrounded by people and most of them were completely alien to me. Maybe this is just a result of my having been alien to them. I am quite different from most girls, it appears. And gosh, can girls be catty!

I witnessed more Brutus' stab more Caesars than can really sit well with me. Hell, I've been Brutus.

But while I know I've grown up, some girls from high school haven't left their juvenile behaviors behind. Girls are still as manipulative and cruel and ugly as they were in high school and in middle school before that.

It's saddening, it's maddening.

How hard is it to really be a good friend? To be able to balance your giving with your taking? To balance your talking and your listening?

When I was about seven, I wore a shirt that exlaimed "Girl Power!" in bold blue camouflage bubble letters. I used to think that girls had the power to do something positive in life. Lately it seems to me that girls -- and the girls masquerading as women -- have failed to remember that the best way to achieve power is united, not divided. "Divide and conquer" should hold no meaning here.

(The above image is of Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried and Lacey Chabert in Mean Girls.)