if you like me, check this box.

so back in december when i became all single and jazz, i had a little bit of a dating related meltdown. perhaps you remember it? no?

reader’s digest version: 10 years off the market and i found myself completely  clueless about virtually everything dating related or if i would even be attractive to anyone at 34, when the last time i was open for business i was a nubile 24 year old with a temp job and questionable decision making skills.

but at the time, my breakup wounds were fresh, and the actual dating conundrum could wait. i avoided thinking about it. i shopped my way through the move into the bachelor hole. i focused my attentions on the happiness and well being of my true life partner, kazuki.

but here we are 5 months later, and things are all kinds of unexpectedly different (except for kazuki being my soul mate. that’s forever).

i’ll start by telling you a little story about something that happened a few weeks ago:

NSFL: uterine artery embolization is horrible and disgusting PART II

when last we saw our heroine (that’s me), she was smacked out in a hydromorphone haze, leaving her bed only to go to the bathroom (and frequently), get water or juice, or take more pills. i couldn’t walk my dog (trusty nurse zak to the rescue!), put on pants, or eat food of any kind.

at this point, the only major pain was in the gaps between pills if i overslept or forgot. i can’t tell you how many times during those first few days i couldn’t remember whether or not i actually took my pill or not. sort of like those groggy mornings where you can’t remember if you shampooed your hair or not. unfortunately, i would have to err on the side of not taking the pill at all- rather than take a double dose. poisoning myself is a slightly greater concern than too squeaky hair.

but then on tuesday, i sort of woke up. mostly lucid for the first time in days, my first thought was- WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH MY MOUTH?

again, if you’re about to bite into a big sandwich or you want to ask me out on a date- now is the time to debark the story.

shit, i forgot the coupons.

for xmas, i gifted myself with a subscription to the sunday paper. it’s minimally cheaper than buying it at the store, and conveniently delivered to my front door before 7 am. thus, i can stay in my sweatpants and be lazy and not brave the cold cold walk down to the sketchy sketchy 7-11. or so i had hoped! first sunday, NO PAPER. i figured maybe it just took them a minute to get the party started. last sunday, NO PAPER AGAIN (later resolved with an agitated call to the circulation department- i hope)!  thanks to a 7 hour a chorus line rehearsal on sunday, i didn’t have the time or energy to go get one on my own. i hit the grocery store on tuesday, but sadly, there were none left. a couponless week! what’s a girl to do!?

when i first started my coupon clipping adventures over a year ago, a moment like this would have sent me into a panic spiral. to think of all the deals that i would miss, the freebies loaded into the carts of strangers that wouldn’t be available to me without those magic slips of paper… i don’t remember if i ever cried over such a situation, but i also don’t remember not crying. when i first started out, i would get a crazy high off my deal mongering and would hit multiple drugstores multiple times per week- often spending hours in the aisles trying to cobble the perfect deal (poor boyfriend left to languish in the car).

but then, i kind of got over it.

i don’t have any idea how extreme couponers keep the ball rolling… it’s so much pre-planning and work! after a while, my coupon energy ramped down and my desire to have every single deal faded away (my stockpiles grew too large… i ended up with items i couldn’t use or donate…i was fucking tired…). if i missed a newspaper, so what? if i forgot to bring my coupons to the grocery store, meh!

i still go through peaks and valleys of coupon focus/mania, but in terms of the emotional highs and lows that i used to hit, i have figured out a few things along the way that are guaranteed to always talk me off the ledge:

worth the trip- the black album (with a plaid b-side).

i feel like it was just halloween. how exactly is it thanksgiving already? now, thanksgiving means a lot of things to me- pie, defending my vegetarianism against people who think it is a personal attack, pie, rolling my eyes at football, pie, and most of all… BLACK FRIDAY.

to many, getting up at the pre-crack of dawn in order to shiver outside in the icy icy weather in a line of other assholes who also think that this is a good idea does not seem like a privilege. i know it seems wrong on a number of levels, but i can’t stop myself. i’m not even buying any xmas presents. i’m not even trying to score big ticket items at crazy low prices. i just really love a hot bargain, and have designs on expanding my chick flick collection for less than $2 a dvd.

now traditionally, one gets the thanksgiving paper and weeds through the ads while digesting their  gravy coated food baby after dinner (sort of like half time before the pie round). but since this is the internet age, and we’re all a big fucking pack of cheaters, there are multiple websites offering up all the black friday deal fliers days before anyone has to stick their hands into a frozen turkey and pull out the “giblet sack” (and people question my vegetarianism?).

i love black-friday. net, but it really doesn’t make a fucking difference if you go there or to blackfriday.info or even blackfriday.com. the point is that i’ve been planning my black friday shopping strategy for DAYS. here is my present  ACTION PLAN: