Charming, but single

I am loaded. Soooo terribly loaded. (It took me, like, four tries to log into Blogger because I kept getting my password wrong.) I went to the newest downtown hotspot tonight. It was cool -- I took my bronze leather sandals out on the town and they LOVED it. My friend had met this guy online and she invited him to meet us. I think she figured that it would be better to meet him with her wingwomen there. It was terrible. Five minutes into the thing I sent her a text message that said, "Abort!" He started the evening by asked her to dance on a table, because she made a joke about getting wild at night. Guys who do not get jokes are TERRIBLY unattractive. He was a dud and she spent most of the night on the phone with an ex. I talked to Dud Date more than she did. He finally was so drunk that he sort of dozed off IN THE BAR. He was asked to leave. Just wow. Wow. So, the only people who hit on me were my friend's Dud Date and a random guy who (after hitting on me) dropped his drink off of the smokers' balcony. (He was a real winner!) I'm going to be single forever. FOREVER. I made serious eye contact with a cutie in dark-rimmed plastic glasses, but Dud Date wouldn't leave me alone, so I couldn't go flirt with the cutie. Sigh. He looked nice. Blaaaah. I'm going to sleep. Alone. Blech.

I feel as if I'm in a bad relationship with this blog. I want to be loving and attentive, but I can't figure out how to juggle everything. I'm always caught in the middle, with lame excuses and promises to show more affection. But I can never get a hold of it and always let other things distract me. I'm not giving up. No no no. Relationships are hard work. Why should this be any different? Gentle readers, my life has been a blur lately. My boss is going on vacay for a bit, so I made him (a very conservative) list of my pending projects. Holy crap. I almost cried. I do nothing but deal with ASAP requests and listen to conference calls lately. My brain is thoroughly fried. I don't even think I'm fun to go out with anymore, because I am a fountain of knowledge about my subject area. The group/service I do PR for? I swear, I used to never think I'd be rattling off stats and such, but I am a walking encyclopedia of random information. And I can slip it in to any conversation. Without even meaning to. Sigh. And there are so many things I could write about. My new, terribly on sale, itsy-bitsy Kenneth Cole bag! How I have totally been "girl dating" (as This Fish puts it) for weeks! My mom's oh-so-helpful advice on how to pick a man! How I decided not to move into a particular apartment because it was not compatible with my shoes! A tirade on how past flings should be cordial to each other, instead of acting as if the other person has an extra nose growing out the side of his/her face or something! Sigh. Any of that appeal to you? I'm off to apartment hunt and eyebrow wax. I'll try to, like, do something blogworthy while I'm out.

My dating life is, like, nonexistent for any number of reasons. My shoe collection? Expanding at a dangerously fast pace. Meet the newest members of the family, both from Nine West, a store from which I am banned until at least September. They are stunning -- a pair of bronze sandals with a heel so high that I'll only be sitting in them and a pair of chocolate brown espradrilles for all of those summer barbecues and casual Fridays. I was sucked in by the salesgirl, who tried to hook me with the "I am your friend!" technique that has been employed on women who are "just window shopping" for centuries. She first tried the, "I own these shoes and they are soooo comfortable" line, but I knew that was a lie because there is no way in hell that those bronze heels are comfy. The heel is twisted for crying out loud. I won't even lie. Every night I wear those I'll probably want to saw my own foot off with a hacksaw. But I love them and I feel amazingly hot in them. And love and ego can make you do funny things. So, when I didn't fall for the "I have these!" line, she tried the, "You deserve these, you look like a hard worker." Really? My jeans-and-tank-top-wearing self looked like a hard worker? I had no idea that a white tank top was so telling. Then she tried the friend technique, including crawling on the bench where I was sitting and trying the shoes on and plopping down next to me like we were at a slumber party. As a former retail lady, I know what lengths you'll go to double your sale. And I don't blame her for selling to me, because that's her job. She sells and I pretend like I'm not going to buy the shoes and wrinkle my nose at the prices and she tries her lines and I deflect them. I was about to set the espradrilles down and only get the sandals when she threw all she had at me. I was wistfully looking at the shoes, about to put them away, when she said, "I'm so glad you're getting the sandals, because I can tell that you love them. So many people say they love shoes, but they don't ever buy the shoes they love. I just don't understand that." It was a line, a blatant line, a line akin to every line a man's ever thrown at me at a bar or party. And instead being drunk on alcohol, I was drunk with sights of rope heels and cork soles and bronzed leather and shell accents. And I took the bait hook, line and sinker. I took the shoes off and slid the espradrilles across the bench to her, mentally calculating the price of both pairs. "I love these too," I said as I fished my wallet from my purse.

Dear Hangover Gods, If you could spare me the hangover that I so rightly deserve after drinking for hours and staying out until well past 2 a.m. on the night before I have an 8 a.m. meeting with my boss and other people, I would appreciate it. Could we schedule this hangover for another day? Perhaps Saturday morning? I will never be this irresponsible again. I swear on a case of Woodchuck. I owe you one. Thanks, S

So, the world almost lost a very Charming Single Girl tonight. I spent the evening having drinks with pals. I was very careful to drink very little, as I am housesitting quite a ways out of the city and knew I'd have a bit of a drive ahead of me. I leave the bar, grab a meatless chalupa from Taco Bell ('cause, you know nothing tastes like Taco Bell at 2:30 a.m.) and hop on the Interstate and head to the house. I'm trucking along, singing backing vocals for Ms. Joss Stone when I see headlights coming toward me. I am understandably confused. I'm not driving on some piddly two-lane highway in the backwoods. I'm on the freaking four-lane Interstate, which not surprisingly has a WALL that keeps the four lanes of eastbound traffic away from the four lanes of westbound traffic. Or so I thought. It takes about 30 seconds for me to realize that someone is coming straight at me, driving the wrong way down the Interstate. After the initial shock wore off, I dug in my brain to remember back to driver's ed. This subject was DEFINITELY not covered. So, it's 2:30 in the morning, and all of the cars around me are going at least 75 miles per hour and I don't have time to think now, because I wasted all of it trying to comprehend that a car was, in fact, flying toward me intending to collide with me in a situation that was sure to end in someone's death. I wasn't in any mood to find out whose. I jerked my wheel and my car glided to the right, missing the car by maybe a few feet and thankfully not swiping a neighboring car. My first reaction was to stop my car, rest my head on the steering wheel and cry from the sheer horror of it all, but I quickly remembered that I was driving 75 miles per hour on the Interstate and was probably all of out of driving miracles for the day. I arrived to the house without further incident, choked down part of a calupa (cause I'm a bit shaken up now) and I'm heading to bed. I'm thinking I probably should have called the police, but it was all I could do to keep driving. I'd had enough near-death experiences for one night. Sigh. It was a fun night otherwise. (Also, I smoked a cigarette. Rather, I smoked three cigarettes, all before the near-fatal almost car crash. But you can't be mad at me, because I almost DIED tonight. And I threw away the pack and my matches and I'm sure I'm going to feel like hell in the morning. Isn't that punishment enough?)

I had dinner with my recently engaged friend and her fiance, who are in town for a quick visit. It was nice. I hadn't seen her in months and I've only met him twice, so it was cool to have a nice long dinner with them. He was oddly complimentary of me, which would normally be a red flag, but he is very genuine and I like him. (I do not always get "red flags" from compliments, but I am very wary when my girlfriends' significant others pile compliments at my feet. Sometimes it feels as if they're trying to butter you up because you're the good friend and they want you to put a good word in with the girlfriend. I can see right through this.) (To be clear, this was NOT the case tonight.) His compliments were odd. He talked about how great I looked and joked, "Is there some man you've got your eye on?" He commented that I looked more finished and polished and even said, "You just look more feminine." There was a part of me that wanted to take offense at this, but he said it in a way as if the word "feminine" popped out as the first word chosen to describe something that wasn't tangible. (It helps that he's from England and he has an accent that can only be described as lovely, especially when compared to the backwoods Southern mumble that passes for a "drawl" here.) He had studied my face and seemed at a loss as to what made me seem to look different. And the word "feminine" came out. But his context hinted that I looked less severe. (I think.) It was so odd how he said it that I've been mulling it over all night. I studied my face in the mirror as I was taking off my make-up tonight, and I think he's right. (Now, some of you are going to protest, because I'm not going to post a side-by-side comparison. To you, I say, go read someone else's journal.) (Joking!) (Sort of.) I look softer than I used to look. While some of it can be attributed to a more flattering haircut, less harsh bangs, soft highlights, better eye make-up and an obsessive amount of moisturizing, I think my healthier lifestyle is coming through. Eight glasses of water a day, a full night's sleep each night, more normal hours and more day-to-day activity can do more than an lotion or cream can. I just feel happier and less severe. I am more balanced -- I'm still traveling at warp speed, but I take the time to relax and rest when I need a break. I go to the doctor when I'm sick. I've quit smoking and replaced afternoon snack machine goodies with fruit or crackers. It's odd how someone who rarely ever sees you can notice a change in your look and demeanor that you don't notice each morning in the mirror. Either that or my expertly curled lashes just got to him.