It's official.

I am giving up on men. No, I'm not becoming a lesbian. Although sometimes I think that would make life easier. But you can't make a quiche out of a bowl of cereal, and my middle name is Froot Loop. (Well, it was, before I went Gluten Free. Now it's Chex. But Froot Loop sounds better, so we'll go with that.)

What caused the Great Giveup of 2009? We'll call him Spike. See, Spike and I dated about a year and a half ago for a few months. Things were going great! And then I got the best dump line I've ever gotten: "Now that my confidence is up, I'd like to see what else is out there."

Fast forward a year. He and I are getting along again. He calls me a couple of times, and asks if I want to go see a movie. Great! I repeat the mantra to myself - "this is only friends hanging out...this is only friends hanging out..."

Midway through the movie, I notice movement out of the corner of my eye. It's his hand, creeping closer to mine, the way we did in seventh grade. You know, the ol' brush up against the other person's pinky and "Oh well, we're here, might as well hold hands."

It was weird. It was holding-hands-with-my-brother weird.

Maybe there's still something there, I told myself. I did pine after this guy for awhile. So when he invited me over for dinner one evening, I accepted.

Again, the hand thing. I asked him to pause the movie and said, "Hey, what's going on here? Are we...?" He said, "You know, sometimes in life it's good to have a mulligan."

Well that's true. I can understand wanting a second chance with me. I am that awesome.

But as we're sitting there, holding hands, something wasn't right.

A few days later, he called me. I opened my cell, before realizing who called. "Oh crap," I muttered, reflexively flipping the phone shut. I spent the evening torn between hoping he hadn't heard my "oh crap", and deciding whether or not to return his call.

I finally did what any confrontation-adverse person would do - I sent him an email.

"I don't get the feeling that you actually want to be with me," I wrote. "It seems like you're bored, and I happen to be around. It's like you'd just be biding your time until something better came along."

I got back a response, which I wasn't really expecting. I wasn't expecting the exact wording, either:

"Wow, you're pretty good!"

But, this experience has been good for me. I learned my instincts on men can be trusted. I was spot on with my feelings. And, now I don't have to hang out with him or return his calls if I don't want to. Can you imagine the guilt I'd feel if he called in the middle of "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown"? I mean, call him back, snoopy, call him, watch snoopy.

Eh, that's a no-brainer. Everyone knows that THIS year the Great Pumpkin will rise out of the pumpkin patch.

Evolution of Entitlement

I got a major rejection this week. (No, not by a guy. Rejection from the male species has long since been relegated to the "I got a hangnail" category of disappointment.) My manuscript for my spy-thriller novel got rejected by what is arguably the biggest literary agency in America.

Damn! Double-damn. I'm bummed. I worked crazy hard on that book, and both of my parents loved it! Yeah, whatever, you say. Your parents? Not exactly unbiased sources. You would be correct in regards to my mom. She actually wore the macaroni necklaces I made her in grade school.

My father, on the other hand, calls a spade a spade. When I played the trumpet in high school, he was not my biggest fan. He knew I didn't have the chops for playing the trumpet long before I had come to terms with that, and the fact that I took my playing so ridiculously seriously added to his skeptical listening of my performances. With my writing, on the other hand, he's right there with Mom, believing in me, and supporting me by being proof-reader and holey-ideas man.

My point is this: my dad is a smart guy. If he thinks something is worthwhile, he's usually right. Besides salmon. There's really no good reason to eat fish. Two days after eating fish, you can still smell it in the shower, emanating from your pores. I think sucking on cloves of garlic produces less stink.

So I'm bummed. I'm working crazy hard on the plotting for the next book and finishing up the rewrite of my memoir. Through this, I wanted to watch TV.

Wednesday nights give me grief. Do I watch "Glee" and DVR "Criminal Minds"? Do I DVR "Glee" and watch "Criminal Minds" later with my parents? If I had a DVR that worked like the rest of the world's DVRs, I could watch one and record the other. Unfortunately, after miniature verbal warfare with DirecTV over the breakage of my last DVR (which I LEASE from them...), I consider myself lucky to have a DVR at all.

I settled on DVR-ing "Criminal Minds" and watching "Glee" in my craft room. No big deal, except my craft room is a bastion of activity. Just "sitting" in that room is akin to being adrift in the middle of the Atlantic and not paddling, despite your environment telling you that you should probably get to work. Impossible.

As I cut the materials for a series of pre-made scrapbooks I'm going to sell at mom's craft shows this year, I pouted.

Then I realized how stupid my pouting is. Ten years ago, we didn't have this problem. If we were lucky, we had a VCR which recorded programs while we were out of the house. Being out of the house, we were not taping one and watching the other. We were out of the house. Now, we want to record three shows simultaneously, watch them without commercials, all while never leaving our sofas.

Is this okay? Who are we turning into if we think we can walk into Baskin Robbins and have a sample of all 31 ice creams? We have to decide. Decisions are good. They build character. Believing I'm entitled to everything just because I'm aware of the existance of everything is pretty Kanye-West-ish of me. I need to decide what I want, and then I need to work for it.

What I want is to be a success at what I love. I'm making a choice - I choose to be a success.

I will turn off the TV and work at my writing.

After "Glee" is over.