Catching Up

I haven't been posting weekly lately, but I have been trying to stay Red. I've spoken up for myself when in the past I might have been afraid to, I've approached a guy (via email) and cyber-flirted and (most importantly) I told the roommate who has been driving me crazy for over a year that she had to move out. I was afraid to do this before because the last time I looked for a roommate it took a month and a half to find one. I didn't want to get caught in a situation in which I had to pay the full rent for my apartment again, so I put up with all my crazy roommate's crap. No more! I took a leap and told her she had a month to move out. And it actually all worked out! She wasn't mad, she said she'd been thinking about moving out herself, and she found a place and I found a new roommate very quickly! I guess this was the right time to do it, but I'm glad I finally worked up the nerve to go ahead.

Turned Down a Date (and a Guy)

Accomplished the week of Jan. 24

Maybe you remember my first Red exploit, I gave a guy my number? Well, that went ok at first, I dated the guy a few times, but I suspected something was up when he only asked me out on weeknights or Saturday afternoons. Then he waited 6 days to contact me after our latest date. When I did hear from him, he asked me to go out this Wednesday night. But here it is Tuesday and I still haven't heard from him about what we're going to be doing.

Did I mention he has not called me once and only contacts me via Facebook message?

It was pretty clear to me this guy was not all that into me, and I was faced with a pretty hard decision: keep dating him and hope things get better, or tell him I'm tired of this and show him the door.

It took a little encouragement from my friend Bridget, but I opted for the latter. I want a guy who can't wait to see me again, who asks me out for another date before we've left the date we're on, who picks up the phone, who actually likes me. I haven't had much luck with that in the past, but it's worth hoping for right? A Red person would believe she deserves that. I don't totally believe it now, but I'm working on it.

Watched REDS

Accomplished the week of Jan. 17

Okay, this one is kind of a stretch. I didn't really have an idea this week and then I noticed the Netflix DVDs collecting dust on my TV. Reds! Of course!

I watched this behemoth of a movie—all 194 minutes—in one sitting. (Did we really need all those shots of Diane Keaton and Warren Beatty dancing?) I'm not very politically savvy, so I'll admit a lot of the rhetoric went over my head. Maybe you weren't supposed to follow all of it? I hope that's the case.

I kept hoping they'd leave whatever rally they were focusing on and go back to the Bryant/Reed love story. And when Warren Beatty said to Diane Keaton, "please don't leave me" when they were reunited, there were tears. Maybe I'll rent that action movie Red to counteract my girlieness?

Got Naked in Public

Accomplished the week of Jan. 10

Okay, not public public - in the gym locker room. My whole life, I've never been comfortable stripping down in front of people. (I was that girl who changed in a bathroom stall in gym class.) I've often marveled at the women in my locker room who feel totally comfortable not just being naked in front of complete strangers, but blow drying their hair, checking themselves out in the mirror, or talking on their cell phones "au natural." They have to know the whole room is looking at them, right? We are not extras in their Truman Show lives! Or maybe we are. After all, you have to be kind of self-centered to think everyone wants to see your hot bod.

So I decided to throw any Catholic guilt away and take off my clothes. All of them. Even my underwear.

I was very nervous about this task. I'm not morbidly obese, but I could stand to lose a few (dozen) pounds, and I didn't like the idea of anyone seeing...that. I decided not to think about it and just do it—dive into the nudity pool with abandon!

Of course, just as I was getting ready to bear all, a woman sat 2 feet behind me and proceeded to make a phone call. I took a deep breath and kept disrobing. I almost expected to hear the woman on the phone gasp and come up with a reason to leave the room, but she continued on as if nothing remotely nude was happening near her. In fact, I managed to take off all my clothes and wrap a towel around myself totally without incident.

The next day I took my naturalist adventure a step even further when I dropped my towel to the floor while I was still several feet away from my locker! Sassy! I mean, I doubt anyone saw it, but the act itself felt very radical to me.

At the end of the day, I don't think I'll ever be the kind of person for whom getting naked is no big thing. Maybe when I myself am less of a thing? Anyway, I did it and hopefully from now on I won't feel as compelled to walk to the shower still wearing a bra and panties.

Gave a Boy My Number

Accomplished the week of Jan. 3

While this might seem like a very small feat to you, to me it was incredibly nerve-wracking. "Painfully shy" doesn't really capture the way I am around men—excruciatingly, agonizingly shy is more like it. The source of my timidity is the complete lack of luck I've had with the opposite sex. It's almost as if I'm invisible to them. Like, the entire male gender had a meeting and declared, "So, Lauren, we avoid her, right?"

But, much to my surprise, shortly after midnight on New Year's Eve, a cute guy approached me and started talking to me. When my friends that I came to the party with indicated to me from across the room that they were ready to go, I asked the guy to Facebook me. (What I actually said was slicker than "Facebook me," but it would require too much explanation.) He friended me the very next day. I commented on his wall. He commented on mine. And then I realized I had made a big mistake. All of our communication was now limited to silly (and very public) FB comments. "OMG, nice pic. I'm totes LOL." Cyrano's letters they ain't.

And so, with a bit of prodding from Lisa, I sent the guy a message with my phone number. Now at least I'll know sooner rather than later if there's any kind of attraction here.

Lisa has approved this as my first Red act, but she says she thinks I need to do a second one this week because it's the first week of the new year. I'm not sure I totally follow her logic, but she's the judge, not me.

Red Dawn

This past Christmas morning, I looked at the red gloves and red scarf my mother had given me and the red lipstick I had bought a few days before, and the red cell phone case my Droid is wrapped in, and I thought how funny it was that I was surrounding myself with scarlet. I don't strike myself as a red person—if anything, I'm blue. But lately, the color has been popping up more and more in my life. Thinking about this made me wish, as strange as it sounds, that I deserved to wear the color. In my mind red people are dramatic, bold, fearless and passionate. I didn't really see myself that way, but I wanted to.

I decided at that moment that 2011 would be my "Red Year." I would make it my mission to let the fiery red in me come out. I mentioned this to my friend Lisa, and she suggested that I do one "Red" thing a week and report back to her. I decided to do one better and blog about my Red exploits.

Each week I'll do something Red and (depending on whether Lisa's approves it) post it here. I think this will mainly involve doing things that scare me...or at least make me nervous. I may fail a bunch, I may only manage to be Pink, but at least I will have tried to be bolder and that's very Red.