Onely.Org

The Dangers of Living Alone: Doorknob Edition September 27, 2018

Welcome to the latest installment in our series “The Dangers of Living Alone”.  Although living alone is a privilege, it also brings serious risks–as described in this earlier post, where Christina encountered terror in the toilet. That same bathroom terrorized Christina again just recently, as described below. We hope you can learn from her mistakes.

I never imagined I would hear myself thinking those words, but there they were, loud in my head:

I may have to kick down this door. I may have to kick down this door. I may have to kick down this door.

Copious Readers, if you live by yourself in a house with embedded door latches, here is a list of things you shouldn’t do, in the order in which you shouldn’t do them:

1. Do not say, “My guest bathroom doorknob is ugly. It needs replacing.” No it doesn’t. It is fine. Just leave it.

2. Do not unscrew said doorknob, then remove the handles and bolting mechanism, and then leave the bolt aka spring latch inside the door because you can’t figure out how to remove that part.

3. Do not go to Lowe’s for advice, then return home with your mission unaccomplished because there were working no automated carts available and your legs are too weak to walk all the way to the Doorknob Department. (The weak legs will become important later.)

4. Do not decide that even though the latch doesn’t retract anymore and could theoretically get stuck in the strike plate, rendering the door inoperable, it’s ok, because you will just remember not to close the door the whole way.

5. Do not drink a liter of coconut water, because in your manic sprint to the bathroom you will forget Operation Embedded Latch and slam the door behind you on the way to the toilet.

If you follow these instructions, you won’t find yourself zipping up your jeans and then slowly starting to claw at the empty ring in the locked door where the doorknob used to be. I had several thoughts when I realized I was trapped in the bathroom, all of which essentially amounted to,

I’m gonna die!

“Where’s my phone?” Not in the bathroom.  (more…)

Coming Home to An Empty (Of Humans) House June 27, 2018

Copious Readers, do you have the privilege of living alone? If so, what’s the very first thing you do when you Come Home To Your Empty House?

Some years ago, my long-distance boyfriend broke up with me because he was “tired of coming home to an empty house.”  Technically, coming from him that phrase meant, “I have a local woman scoped out to ease my loneliness, but if she doesn’t work out, I’ll come crawling back to you.” But whether you’re looking for an excuse to dump someone or not, “coming home to an empty house” is almost always portrayed as a negative experience. Why is that, when so many people across the world live in too-cramped quarters? The rich/western world’s disdain for “coming home to an empty house” is rooted in privilege. It’s also rooted in our obsession with couples and the nuclear family.

So. Let’s expand how we think about “empty.” Maybe I don’t feel an emptiness when I walk in the foyer because I have plants that need watering. Maybe I have messages waiting for me on my answering machine (for the purposes of this metaphor, travel with me for a moment back to the days of landlines). Maybe I have a friendly ghost. Maybe I’m sick of real people and look forward to sitting down with my Amazon Prime friends of One Mississippi. But mostly, maybe I love coming home to an “empty” house because. . . and here we get to the real reason I’m writing this post:

CATS!

As soon as my door swings inward I start to yodel in that way that all cat people do when they are out of human hearing (and sometimes, when they aren’t). I always start out with, “Hi guize!” This is a gender-neutral form of “guys”, which is necessary because I have two man cats and one woman cat. Then my vocabulary and sentence structure just go downhill from there:

How’s my special treasure trovey muppets? Are you purrs? Hewwo Theo, hewwo Murpity. Yes, kisses! Kiiiiiissssses!! I love you so so much. You are my most special moggie buppets yes indeed. You are like angels in my life forever! Where’s your brother? Where’s Big Al? Is he sleeps? I missed you alls so much. You are so very very specialest to me!

The other day  in the midst of these linguistic acrobatics I realized that I have never, ever greeted any one of my significant other with this much effusiveness. According to Disney (more…)

Want A Green Card? Get Drunk And Throw Glitter! June 5, 2016

In a previous post, I declared our county animal shelter’s seating policy the most bizarre example of singlism I’ve seen.

Now I must amend that statement. The strangest example of singlism I currently know of goes thusly:

Background: My friend Aliza plans to marry to a Sudanese man. They met overseas but are moving to the U.S., which means he needs a green card. U.S. law says he is eligible for a green card if he marries a U.S. citizen.

(First, before I get to the weird part, I’m compelled by the focus of this blog Onely.org to mention that the green card policy is an example of one of over a thousand federal laws that privilege married people–for example, why can’t I choose a good friend to move to the U.S. with me in lieu of a spouse? And no, according to my sources there are no sponsorship programs as in Canada.)

Aliza wants a simple courthouse ceremony. Fair enough, right?

WRONG! The U.S. federal government requires that she submit, as part of the green card application process, evidence of their wedding, including photographs of their wedding ceremony. The blatant implication is that they expect pictures of relatives and friends dressed up, making speeches and getting drunk (though not necessarily in that order), champagne-dusted flowers flying through the air, a white dress, a black tux, and who knows what else the matrimaniacal legislators have in mind when they imagine a “legitimate” union between two people. The implication is that if their photographs are not convincing enough in the “traditional” way, Aliza’s husband is at risk of not receiving a green card.

We’re not sure that shots of me and Aliza wearing sundresses (or maybe sweats–in any case, the bride will wear polka dots) signing papers at a court desk while our respective date and husband stand sober in suits in front of some random photobombers (other couples? speeding tickets?) will make the cut.

–Christina

Photo Credit: The Wedding Band Shop

Tell Bill Maher “Singlism” Is a Thing He Should Broadcast April 17, 2016

Hi Copious Readers,

A few people on the Facebook group Community of Single People (not/not a dating site) noticed that recently Bill Maher used the term “singlism” on his show, but he seemed to think he had just come up with it on the spot. The term “singlism” has actually been around for years (coined by Bella DePaulo to mean discrimination against singles), and we think he should know that–and should be interested in discussing the phenomenon on his show.

Tweet it: @billmaher @realtimers #singlism

Thanks!

–Christina

Tackle a Bad Day with This Tip March 24, 2016

Onely.org is opening a dialogue on the effects of chronic illness on single people. Singles are discriminated against by the government even when they’re healthy. I’ll get into the nasty, nitty-gritty politics later.

Today we offer a Tick Disease Survival Tip:

Like many chronic illnesses, tickborne diseases go up-and-down. For patients who can leave their houses, it’s often nerve-racking and overwhelming if you have one, or more than one, errand or social event to attend in one day. You ask yourself, “Will I crash in public? Lose my temper with friends? Keel over in pain in a random parking lot?”

No matter how many loved ones you have in your support circle, you can not just grab one and stuff her in your purse or pocket to comfort you on your spontaneous errand.

What you *can* do is put your best old plush friend from childhood in a Ziploc bag and take him along. Freaking out at the volume level of Hendrix playing in Trader Joe’s? Stabbing pains in your buttcheeks?Just stick your hand in your purse and there’s your little friend. Aw.

If you’re a man, and your plush friend is bigger then a wallet, this may require you use a murse (man purse). But why not? We’re bending the “rules” here in many ways. Wouldn’t it be a better world if adults carried around their teddy bears? 

I had an awesome coworker who brought a bear to work every day. But his bear was dressed in chain mail so he’s bad ass, not babyish. Unlike my little dog Cow Pup pictured above, who wears all the latest trends in Mange.

-Christina 

Why Are Single People So Financially Stressed? October 24, 2012

As you know from our most recent post, money’s been on our mind here at Onely recently. And it’s getting us some press! Check out our very own Christina featured in this story at US News and World Report. She talks about some of the financial challenges she’s encountered as a single woman living in the U.S.

Very soon, we’ll be featuring a guest post by one of our Copious Readers, Scott, whose estimation about how much more singles pay over a lifetime than married people – more than $1 million – was the closest to our estimates!

Cheers,

Lisa