Lauren Lamonica

When I was a little girl, I had a lot of dolls. One was named “Charity Elizabeth” and another was named “Dawn Alexandra” and another was named just “Elisabeth.” I had a thing for Victorian-sounding doll names as did many little girls. I took really good care of each of them. Each night, before I went to bed, I spent almost 10 minutes making sure that each doll had both a pillow and blanket with which to sleep. Sometimes the task became so overwhelming that I found little room for myself on my own pillow. My mother would have to coax me into allowing “Emily” to sleep without a pillow so that my body wouldn’t wind up contorted to accommodate a plastic figure concocted by the toy industry.

One time, and this is a sad, sad story—I found a deflating helium balloon in my suburban front yard containing a smiley face and a name. I “took it in” until it deflated, which was a 3-day journey into the death of a new friend. It was a boy balloon.

I didn’t like getting new dolls, because it was a burden. Like, “please stop giving me your bastard dolls. I have too many already.” Because, at some point, I had to put my dolls to rest in a wooden hope chest.

I don’t know if they died then.

I just updated my Facebook relationship status this past week. I went from “not having a status” to “single”. While I’ve always thought not having a status was safer and more appropriate, I think I made the right decision. So far the negatives (ads saying “29 and alone again?”) have been out-weighed by the congratulatory and “I hear you’re single” messages, which are a reminder that I don’t have to date this guy.

Facebook is a valid virtual community and an honest reflection of my life and friends. I use it to plan parties and camping trips, network for business reasons, see photos of friends who no longer live near me, and keep in touch in general. Therefore, letting people know I’m single on Facebook is just honest. If I get into another relationship, updating that status won’t be a question, a debate, or an offense.

Have you realized that there are hardly any posts by w4wm on Craigslist’s "casual encounters" but an abundance of posts by mw4w, and they are super picky (require big breasts, specific racial preferences, and so on). I wonder if they have any luck. My guess is that they must resort to mw4mw. But what does "full swap" mean?