There's lots to do for a lonely LaRue

Posted: Thursday, December 02, 2004


You are about to enter another dimension, a dimension not only of high-fat snacks and torch songs but of the frazzled mind. A journey into a wondrous land of poor hygiene and non-ringing phones.

Next stop, the Celibate Zone! Neener, neeener neener neener.

We open on a scene of a hip chick, years from her parents' home, used to doing things her own way. She's got a job, a way of life and a rockin' social calendar. She knows where to buy her coffee. She knows where her shoes go in her house (middle of the floor). She knows just the butt-huggin' skirt to wear to get what she wants.

Out of nowhere, she gets a call. It's her mother. A charming Midwestern woman. The girl feels no panic yet. They chat. Mom's doin' good. Makin' a killin' selling thrift-store beaded brassieres to transvestites on the eBay - lovin' the Dateline. Oh, and by the way, she has to go the hospital for a procedure.


The girl suddenly falls through the wormhole of time to the home of her youth where she finds herself in the CELIBATE ZONE.

So, yeah OK, the girl's me and I recently discovered on my several-week mission of mercy home that I got more than I bargained for.

Let me tell you girls, though the odds are good and the goods are odd in Alaska, TAKE THE ODDS!! Who cares. Grab 'em up. Kiss a random, and get your fill baby, because one day you could find yourself in a smoochin' Sahara, wishin' for the guy with the hump and a limp you casually tossed away like so much garbage. By the by, I like humps and limps, but some people are narrow-minded.

Yes kids, it's true, even LaRue gets lonely. Even LaRue in her infinite flippin' wisdom didn't count on a self-imposed sexual exile when she decided it would be a good idea to go home for a little while.

She had no idea home would be a sexual limbo (and not the fun kind with a stick and beach music!)

Cast adrift in the celibate zone before, I started to notice its distinct characteristics. Hygiene was the first to go. Small woodland creatures took up residence on my legs, and showering became something fun to fill the time. I replaced Dr. Atkins with Dr. Krispy Kreme. I met a guy at a bar. Despite his Manson-like demeanor, his name was Cro Magnun and his uni-brow resembled a pet I had once, I thought, "He's got lips, he's breathing, he's semi-upright - back off girls he's mine!!"

The coup de grace came when I took up knitting. OH DEAR GOD, I TOOK UP KNITTING! I started to feel like I was one slipped stitch away from becoming the crazy cat lady on the hill, knitting an afghan of epic proportions, muttering to my 19 cats, "Yes, I remembered sex fondly and believe I might have liked it once."

Let's none of us pretend we don't need some sort of companionship. Let's none of us pretend we have never had the crazy-cat lady vision. While pathetic, we've all thrown that pity-party, so don't deny it 'cause there ain't nothing wrong with it.

Yes kids, I know the perils of the celibate zone! I have been to the top of that desolate mountain and survived people! After I made a tub of Chunky Monkey, of course.

There are going to be times more plentiful than others. There are times when you walk out in public and your sign says "Open for business" and times when the sign says "Out to lunch, closed for repairs, don't know when I'll be back again."

Which leads me to what I think these times in our lives mean in the whole scheme of things. If you're in a dry spell, it's a dry spell and it lasts as long as it lasts. The good news is, there's always an end to it.

"But LaRue," you say, "I've been in a dry spell for 10 years." So!? They last as long as they last. Besides, I'm sure if you think about it, in that time you probably have been on a date or two or had someone interested in you and chosen not to take them up on it.

The trick is to do something new. This is life's way of telling you to take some time for your upkeep. Take this time to figure out what you want. Figure out what you're looking for in a companion. Learn a skill, take a class, and for the love of God, bathe and shave your legs! And hell, knitting is making a comeback.

Whatever you decide to do, get consumed with you again. We can't spend our lives in suspended animation, waiting. We can't spend our days counting the minutes until it's love knocking on our door and not the pizza guy. And we certainly cannot, we must not, give in to the LONELY! It's a beast that will suck the hope of life out of you!!

The world, by and large, is a lonely place and we know on some level love makes it go round. It's all we need, and it's a many splendored thing. We can give into the heart-wrenching loneliness of it all, or we can thumb our collective noses at it, and keep going.

DEFY LONELINESS! Tell loneliness to kiss your hot, recently bathed ass, because you're not giving in, you're not giving up and you're not going home with the Cro-Magnon serial killer, because you don't have to!

Tell loneliness you have the seeds to keep going. YOU are stronger than IT. Then when Mr. or Ms. Right comes knocking, holding a container of Chunky Monkey and a bag of Krunchers, you will be ready - clad in a newly knit sweater, smelling pretty. It will be an unexpected, but much anticipated, surprise.

There's no doubting the lonely will be there in the dry times. But you always have you, and while sometimes it's small comfort, it's something.

You can make you as interesting or as boring as you want. You can make you laugh. You can make you feel good whenever you want. You will never hog the covers. You will try to be good to you, and you will never leave you. Take the time to meet you at the top of that mountain. You will help you keep the lonely away.

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