New West Network

My Page: Big Sis

Column: Making it in Missoula

On Saturday I attended that time-honored American spring ritual: the prom.

Granted, I'm ten years too old for the real thing. But the beauty of this particular prom is that the older you are, the cooler you are—because this was the Montana Democrats’ version of prom, the annual Mansfield-Metcalf dinner in Butte.

This prom featured coiffed mullets, shiny curls, and stiff Stetsons. Diamonds set off battered-looking bolo ties. Ballgowns swished next to Wranglers, and minks sat next to Carhartt coats—usually on different people, too. My take on the night's theme: “sequins and denim.”

As Hillary Clinton said in her speech at the dinner on Saturday night, the only party to rival Butte’s infamous Saint Paddy’s Day is the Democratic Party. And, boy, was she ever right. [more]

Column: Making it in Missoula

It's been a while, Missoula. I haven't been writing columns because...well, because all the best topics are off-limits unless I want to alienate my friends, lose my job, and move far outside the city limits. The thing about Missoula is that even with a pseudonym as clever as mine, I'm about as anonymous as a pink elephant sitting at the Old Post bar. So I have to be careful, thoughtful, strategic about the column's content. Also, I've just been lazy with my daily 12 minutes of free time.

But here's the short update: dating is just as exhausting and entertaining as ever. They don't tell you in all those romance novels and Hollywood flicks that integrating new, unknown single males into your life takes a helluva lot of time and energy. Luckily, I've started taking Vitamin B to up my energy supply during these dark, dark days before winter solstice. (I'm considering switching to high-grade cocaine to power through the holiday party season, though.)

The longer dating update involves a recent discovery that most of us single Missoulians seem to have several “hooks in the water.” Monogamy is apparently out of fashion this season. [more]

Column: Making It In Missoula

When I moved here I was young. Carefree. And completely uninterested in conversations where my older friends talked about things like recurring joint injuries, ticking biologic clocks, and “Saturn Returns.”

When these topics came up, I just drank another beer, hiked faster, and celebrated being 22 and fully in control of my planets.

But now I’m 27, the tendons in my knees require lots of ice, and I’m not sure what the hell Saturn is doing. In fact, it’s quite possible that my Pluto's in full retrograde and Venus has fled to check out a new galaxy. All I know for sure is (cosmologically speaking): I’ve got ants in my pants. [more]

Column: Making it in Missoula

I just got back from Grandpa’s wedding. Not a sentence you read every day, huh? Grandpa’s hot stuff, especially in the over-70 crowd. Doesn’t look a day over 62, and active to boot. He and his lovely new wife are off to Timbuktu for their honeymoon—they’ll be riding camels across the desert in Mali to an African music festival. I’ll be in Missoula, pretending my office chair is a camel and my keyboard is a tribal drum.

Grandpa’s wedding has given me new-found hope that I, too, can find a love-of-my-life and ride to Timbuktu. Plus, I returned from San Diego to full-throttle fall, the season that makes a woman yearn for extra body heat—preferably from a man who’s bringing her lots of freshly-killed game.

So watch out, Missoula: I’m on a mission. Again. Because next time one of my grandparents gets married I’m bound and determined to have my own special someone to foxtrot with. [more]

Column: Making it in Missoula

Do you often feel incapacitated by a mid-day energy lull? Maybe, like me, you hit a wall between 1 and 3 p.m.

This is the time of day when the blood pools somewhere around my ankles, my butt is numb from a poorly-designed office chair, and my eyes are tripped-out with computer-screen-induced cobwebs. Other (arguably more advanced) cultures have evolved to take the time-honored 'siesta' at this point in the day.

But in America we work through it. So, when I find myself gazing longingly out the window at the real world, I have to remind myself that I am not, actually, a caged zoo animal and I should therefore get the hell out of my office. [more]

COLUMN: Making It In Missoula

Let's face it: teenagers no longer flock to weekly Cotillion classes. The old-fashioned “dinner and dancing” date is now only a romantic myth heard around campfires. In fact, many folks run rapidly for the bathroom when they hear mention of taking a spin on the dance floor. In this day and age, dating involves juggling text-messages, emails, and special ring-tones instead of meeting for a night filled with the subtle flirtations of partners dancing cheek to cheek.

But I’d like to argue that we should bring back the romance. Dancing is one of my top three favorite activities (right up there with eating and beer-drinking). I’ve found over the years that partner dancing--swing, salsa, two-step, and (everyone’s favorite) polka--is even more exhilarating than just gettin’ down w’ my bad self by my own self. Plus, it’s a good way to meet guys and do a quick check on whether there’s any of that lovely chemistry.

My most recent dancing partner, who I’ll creatively call Dancing Guy, lives in Bozeman. Turns out that he’s not only insightful about swing flips and tango ochos, he’s also got some interesting perspectives on how dancing relates to male-female interactions off the dance floor. Check out this email exchange a few weeks ago between myself (BS, of course) and DG. [more]

COLUMN: Making It In Missoula

It all started in late April, when I was passed Savagemama's one-year-old daughter at a barbeque. The munchkin was covered in a sweaty slime of carrots, avocado, and mango pulp.

"Oh, good…Auntie Big Sis is here to take you now." Eliza—the munchkin in question—promptly smeared her colorful dinner all over my outfit. And I realized then that the baby epidemic was in full swing.

There's something in the water here in Missoula, and it's not just Giardia from dog poop near Rattlesnake Creek. It's the womb-itch virus. This virus has infiltrated slowly, steadily, and sometimes quite stealthily into the system of almost every person I've known here.

And womb-itch doesn’t just infect the women, either. Plenty of men I know also formulate plans for conceiving their own little bundle of joy (this perhaps also involves some fantasizing). Those plans, in my little world, seem to have all coalesced into embryos around September of 2006. Yup…right at the beginning of hunting season.

I think I’ve found a connection here. Increased breeding desires seem to arise in direct proportion to the elk's bugle. Missoulians or their respective partners go out and kill large game, and the nesting instincts kick in. Then, they drink the water to wash down the deer meat, and womb-itch virus explodes full-force. Nine months later and here we are: babies squirting out everywhere. [more]

COLUMN: Making It in Missoula

I recently pinpointed a potential cause of my perpetual-singledom that I can be proactive about (other than switching teams, of course): I’ve had trouble finding a man of my own because I’m always out with someone else’s man. Yup--I seem to have a large supply of happily married boyfriends.

Now, that might sound suspiciously like I should be wearing a scarlet “A” on my chest. But all the dates with my married boyfriends are completely platonic. They usually involve beer and sometimes sports, chatting about mutual friends (including their wives), a bit of bitching about work, and a lot of bullshitting about life. And absolutely no sparks.

And so perhaps my reputation as a single lady isn’t as ubiquitous as I’d thought. Perhaps I rarely appear single, much less approachable, as I’m often out and about with my married boyfriends.

This led me to ponder why, exactly, I hang out with married men. Several answers to this question popped up. Let’s start with the obvious ones and work toward the more Freudian answers... [more]

Column: Making it in Missoula

This Sunday, I was biking home from a leisurely brunch downtown when I was stopped abruptly by livestock in the road. A lot of livestock. Yup, right in the middle of Van Buren Street -- 30 yards north of the busy Broadway intersection and directly blocking several cars backed up on both the on- and off-ramps from I-90 -- several hundred sheep were crossing the road. I hopped off my bike and gazed at the scene.

Now, this might sound bizarre in and of itself, as you don’t see a whole lot of sheep-herding through city streets in our grand year of 2007. But add in the following factors to the sheep-crossing scene and the bizarre-o-meter creeps higher -- or perhaps just serves to illustrate Missoula in a perfect time-space nutshell. [more]

Making It in Missoula

Lately, I've been kicking around this realization that porn might bring with it more than just good times. Maybe it’s that I want to protect my new relationship from this latent realization that porn can create a false standard. Maybe I’m just in a new place as a person. I don’t know. But for whatever reason, the idea that porn is more detrimental than helpful for relationships just won’t leave me alone.

Why I am dragging all this out, here of all places? I’m curious to hear what others have to say, because porn is one of those things we like to shout about—for good or bad—but rarely does porn foster calm and civil conversations.

So, how about this for a civil conversation-starter: Is porn just one more way to keep things interesting in a relationship? Or does it actually create less intimacy between couples? And—here’s the kicker—why? Read on to hear how this conversation started: outside of the Union Club with my friend "Ron Jeremy."
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