This is a blog I did last year around this time.
I did not play basketball once this year.
Every year I make the same resolutions.
Learn Spanish
Pay off debt
Save money
Get in a relationship with a man who wants to be in a relationship
I never do any of them. Driving up to Boston with my sister and her boyfriend, I told them that I was not allowed to use any of those four resolutions this year. My sister’s boyfriend said “why don’t you find a nurturing, wealthy, Spanish guy to teach you Spanish, pay off your debt, help you save money, etc. “
Why don’t I find him? That’s a good question. The better question is “why do I have to find him? Why can’t he find me?”. I don’t want to find him because it sets the precedent that I will do the majority of the frustrating work in the relationship. A precedent I am not willing to live up to. Finding my guy is like a 57 month long game of hide and seek. I’m gonna start walking the streets screaming “ Olly olly in come free” and see what happens. I never liked Hide and Seek as a kid.It’s an anxiety inducing game whether you are the hider or the seeker. I shouldn’t say I didn’t like it. I was conflicted. On the one hand I am super competitive and I always want to play games so I can win but on the other hand, I had come out to play with other kids not spend hours in a self induced panic attack under a pile of moth ball laden sweaters in a trunk trying not to blow my cover.
I feel like my guy is the moron kid who stays in hiding for an additional hour after the game is over and finally emerges with victorious confidence only to find everybody is two innings into a wiffle ball game and Sheazo just hit a homer which completely trumps the best hiding place from the last game. And I’m supposed to find this guy?
I doubt I’ll ever have a conventional relationship. I know this because I was recently asked out to dinner by a man who I know through a friend. Being a single woman who spends the majority of her nights doing stand up comedy, bartending, or a combination of both, I don’t date much. Or should I say at all. A normal female who would like to be in a relationship with a man would simply accept the invitation and follow through with optimism and enthusiasm. Not me. I immediately went into a whole explanation about how I have very little free time and quite frankly, I eat in bed quite a bit. My duvet has food stains. Mostly nacho’s and spaghetti sauce but one or two coffee spots. I basically sleep under a 42 square foot down stuffed 400 count cloth napkin. He laughed and asked if that meant I did not want to go to dinner with him. I said I did and gave him my number. I then spent the next two hours dreading the whole process.
I’ve been single too long. There are many days I can be spotted walking around my neighborhood looking like mental patient, hair a mess, visible fingerprints on my glasses, way too many colors on. I saw someone I knew the other day who literally looked concerned for my well being. “are you alright?” they asked. “ I woke up with the tail end of a goldfish cracker stuck to my bare buttock, I’m .....fine”
My resolutions for next year are very basic.
Do not leave the house in clothes I would work out in unless I am actually going to work out.
Yell “ olly olly in come free” out the window once a week and then let the whole” finding a man “ thing go
Play basketball
Happy New Year!
Thanks for listening!
Kisses-
Kendra
Kendra is a stand up comic living in Brooklyn where she owns a super comfortable bed. She spends most of her time wondering where the hell her sugar daddy is and hoping he didn’t settle.
www.kendracunningham.com
Random info:
Where does the phrase “Olly olly in come free” come from?
Lots and lots of theories from lots and lots of sites. Most from Jesse at Random House:
1. The phrase is used in a variety of children's chasing games, especially hide-and-(go-)seek. The rough form of this game is that a player (called "it") gives other players a chance to hide, and then tries to find them. When "it" finds the first hider, he calls out some phrase indicating that the other players are "safe" to return "home," at which point the person "it" found will succeed him as "it."
The original form of the phrase was something like all in free or all's out come in free, both standing for something like all who are out can come in free. These phrases got modified to all-ee all-ee (all) in free or all-ee all-ee out(s) in free; the -ee is added, and the all is repeated, for audibility and rhythm.
From here the number of variants takes off, and we start seeing folk etymologies in various forms. The most common of these has oxen replacing out(s) in, giving all-ee all-ee oxen free; with the all-ee reinterpreted as the name Ollie, we arrive at the phrase, which, according to the Dictionary of American Regional English, is especially common in California. Norwegian settlement areas have Ole Ole Olsen's free. For the out(s) in phrase, we also see ocean, oxford, ax in, awk in, and even oops all in.
2. One guess is that the original was something like "all in free" for "all who are out can come in free", to indicate that the person who is "it" in the game of hide-and-seek has caught somebody to become the new "it", and so everybody else can come out of hiding without the risk of being caught.
Oral transmission has garbled this in fascinating ways, with all in, for example, being translated by a series of mishearings to the name Ollie (short for Oliver, once more common than it is now). And oxen may have come from an intermediate form out's in free - other recorded versions are awk in, Oxford, and ocean.
Various subscribers remember versions that suggest the first part of the catch was once something like "all of you". Charles Wilson wrote: "When I was growing up in the American South we actually said, 'All ye all ye outs in free' when playing hide-and-seek (although we called it 'hide-and-go-seek)".
3. Its root seems to be an English-Norman French-Dutch/German concoction: "Alles, Alles, in kommen frei"or "Oyez, oyez, in kommen frei!"
"Allez, allez" was a Norman addition to the English language, pronounced "ollie, ollie" and sometimes written "oyez, oyez" and meaning "everyone." "In kommen frei" was a phrase popular in Dutch/German New York and Pennsylvania, where many Zonians came from, meaning "come in free."