Charming, but single

Cha-cha-changes

2007-01-21T15:35:00.000-08:00

I am excited to announce some changes at this here blog. This girl, she’s moving on up. To a deluxe blog with its own domain. That’s right. I am now the proud owner of www.charmingbutsingle.com. Effective today, all future Charming, but Single knowledge will be dropped over there. Why am I moving? For a lot of reasons, really. I’ve wanted to take the blog to its own domain for a while now. I’ve outgrown Blogger – as evidenced by the fact that I actually can’t transfer my blog to New Blogger. I’m told my blog is too big – too many posts or comments. I wanted to move to WordPress, which is generally regarded as a superior blogging tool. And it seemed silly to move the blog to WordPress and NOT get a domain. So here I am. For you, the reader, things should pretty much be the same. The template of the new blog is almost identical to the old blog, only without some of the annoying quirks when you read it in Firefox (and you should be using Firefox, because, hello. Way better than IE). You won’t need a Blogger or Google account to post comments. You can post using a WordPress account, but you certainly don’t have to. There are still some quirks to work out. I've got to add Technorati links and some other things to the sidebar. But you can still e-mail me at charmingbutsingle at gmail dot com. And everything will be back to normal -- only BETTER normal -- soon. For starters, I’ve written a slightly longer bio that you can read on the “About” page. Please update your blogrolls to reflect the new address, www.charmingbutsingle.com. The old Blogger site will stay up for awhile, but I’m going to slowly fix the links on the new site so that it doesn’t link back to the old one. I’m sure this will take awhile (unless anyone knows how to make universal site changes in WordPress!). I have turned off comments on this blog so that you will HAVE to use the new blog. (Don’t worry! All of your old comments? Totally on the new site!) To recap: A better blogging experience at www.charmingbutsingle.com.

Year Two

2007-01-18T22:24:00.000-08:00

Today is the second anniversay (blogiversary?) of Charming, but single. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – this started out as a way to kill some time. I never intended for it to last this long, but here I am penning this second-year post. After two cosmos, obviously. I enjoy it. I have no idea what the future holds for this blog and how long I’ll keep it up. But having my own little corner of the ‘sphere to wax poetic about myself and men and anything else that tickles my fancy is something I love. Cherish is a silly word. But sometimes I think that it fits. What have a learned in two years of blogging? More than you’ll ever know. It is alternately thrilling and gut wrenching to chronicle these moments from my life. Sometimes writing makes me erupt in deep belly laughs. Other times I feel tears running down my flushed cheeks. I’ve had more than 146,000 visitors in the two years I’ve blogged, which amazes me. It really does. I am nervous that more than 800 people now read Charming, but single each day. But it warms my heart to see so many people come back to read my tales. Even when I am sappy. Even when I am sad. Even when I am cranky. I don’t know where you people keep coming from. Only 21,000 people read in the first year of the blog, so you have to be coming from somewhere. This is my 322nd post. I don’t write every day, but I write enough. I’ve had 3755 comments. Jesus. Do you people do anything at work? (Totally joking. Y’all rock.) That’s about 2800 comments in a year. Am I really that interesting? (Don’t answer that.) I am far from perfect and anything but wise. I make the same mistakes over and over again and yes, I wear my heart on my sleeve. I don’t do my dishes each night and I never really make my bed. I screen my calls and forget to iron and I’m constantly stumbling in my three-inch heels. But I’m happy. Happier than I’ve ever been, if you can believe that. I’d love to be in love. One day, my friends. He won’t know what hit him. Here’s to hope and eternal optimism. To writing. To dating. To those who got away and the ones I’d wish would never come back. Cheers – Charming P.S. I’ll post a wrap-up post of my favorites, the most popular and the most significant this weekend. Just like last year.

To do: Be a girl

2007-01-17T22:23:00.000-08:00

Because I anticipate that Man Detox 2007 (three days strong!) will certainly be a smashing success this upcoming weekend, my head has been swimming with fantastically relaxing ways in which I plan to rid myself of the crankiness that’s resulted from months of settling for so-so interactions with the male of the species. My ever-growing list of activities involves a typical regimen of hair, skin and nail care. I have this fantastic new exfoliating scrub that I want to use on my feet. I might touch up the color of my hair. I need a manicure. I also plan to aimlessly wander the aisles of a bookstore selecting some things to read – perhaps Straight Up and Dirty by Stephanie Klein next? (So far this year I’ve read BreakUp Babe, which is a great book by a blogger I love that you should really go read, especially if you enjoy reading this “genre” of blogs, as she tells her story with a combination of blog posts and narrative, and The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing, which was okay, but not quite what I expected it to be.) Also, trips to gym (2 planned) with newly created “Girl Power” workout playlist. Healthy food, tea instead of coffee at my Sunday power writing session, salad bar from Fantastic Fancy Grocery Store and one glass of wine on Friday night. Possibly shopping because I need more BADgal Lash. (I’d strayed from this mascara with a Clinique product, but my lashes are begging for me to go back to Benefit.) Also, I might break down and buy the Lauren by Hobo International because I’ve been obsessed with it for too long now. Also, football. Because, HELLO. One game until the Super Bowl. Go Saints! Cheesy and predictable? Of course. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

There are songs about all of them, Part 3

2007-01-16T21:34:00.000-08:00

Note: This post was not supposed to be about this song. But now it is. Read part the first and part the second. Dating does things to us. It makes us doubt ourselves, but it can also give us an inordinate amount of self confidence, almost to the point where our egos swell and we think we are perhaps the hottest piece this side of the Mississippi (regardless of which side of the River we actually live on). Such is the case with “Break Your Heart,” by the Barenaked Ladies – as an aside, you should go see them live in concert, because they are fantastic and I enjoyed their set both times I saw them, and really I think seeing them live adds something to the experience. During my senior year of high school, “Break Your Heart” was one of my favorite songs on one of my favorite albums, “Rock Spectacle.” (I’d argue that the “Rock Spectacle” version is the best. And really, you should buy the whole CD – the whole thing isn’t on iTunes and if memory serves me right, you can’t copy this CD to your computer in hopes of using it in iTunes, because of the security they placed on the CD. Bastards.) Anyway, Best Friend Ever and I both loved the song “Break Your Heart.” And I don’t know how many times we listened to it – a lot, I think I wore my copy out – but we had this little ritual that I never did with anyone else. We’d be sitting in her parents’ powder blue Ford Taurus station wagon and we’d blast the CD, turning it up as loud as possible at about two and a half minutes in. See, at three minutes into the song, there is this fantastic surge of emotion and sound – I don’t know technical signing terms because I couldn’t carry a tune in a paper sack. It starts low. “You arrogant man …” we’d sing softly. “What do you think that I am?” We’d look at each other and take a deep breath. Because it builds. And then at the top of our lungs, as loud as we could, we’d sing “My heart will be FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE … JUST STOP WASTING MY TIME! OH NO! I know that you will be okay and that I’ve got what I want, and that’s rid of you …” And we’d pause. “Goodbye!” And some nights we’d collapse into laughter and others we’d immediately go back to the middle of the song and do it all over again. It was just what we needed sometimes. Our fun little game. Our secret way to let out whatever stress it is that teenagers feel about Homecoming dances and whatnot. (Only not so secret now, since, you know, I just told all of y’all.) Of course, at age 16 we only thought we knew heartbreak and sadness. We had no idea of the true pain, and conversely, true joy, that life had in store for us. I wish I could shake 16-year-old me and say, “Look at you! You are beautiful! You have clear skin and sure you don’t have washboard abs, but Jesus Christ, stop tying flannels and sweatshirts around your waist, throw away those smelly Converse One Stars, brush your hair out of your face and pluck those eyebrows. Because YOU are missing it all, young lady.” “Break Your Heart” is basically a sad song about how sometimes we stay in relationships too long because we don’t want to hurt the other person. We are conceited and think that the other person will be crushed without us. I don’t consider myself a heartbreaker by any means. But dating does weird things to us and it causes us to believe that we’re going to hurt someone more than we will, so we string them along for no reason. (Like the guy I dated freshman year in high school, who when I finally told him, “I don’t want to hang out with you anymore” turned around and asked me to Homecoming sophomore year. And I was mean and wouldn’t go with him and told everyone I’d rather not go if I had to go with him and then NO ONE else asked me and so I sat at home and moped about it and my parents wanted us all to go to dinner and I made them take us to restaurant about a half hour out of town so that we wouldn’t run into people eating before the dance. And they did, because they rock. And also, the restaurant has some of the best fried catfish ever. Ever.) Good times. Anyway, if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of this treatment you know it hurts. Not only because you’re hurt for being dumped. But because the person dumping you was so bold to think that you would just die without them. And the truth is that if they’d just TOLD you, you wouldn’t have been so invested in the relationship and you wouldn’t end up feeling like a pile of dung. Really, the song just reminds me of being young and melodramatic. And it makes me miss simpler times and that damn blue station wagon that we once crammed like 12 girls in to go to a football game or something. Ah, yes. Memories.

Sadness turns to rage (sort of)

2007-01-16T06:20:00.000-08:00

Sunday night was a bit of a wake-up call. First, I curled up under the blankets and wondered if I should cry or punch a hole in the wall. I’m unsure was to why hearing that an ex had impregnated the next woman he’d dated after me made me so mad – I think it was all of the groveling and the “you have beautiful eyes” and the “you truly do not know how much I’ve missed you.” By Monday morning my sadness and confusion has pretty much become anger. I convened my girlfriends for coffee and gossip. They had predictable reactions – what a jerk for telling you, what a moron for not being more careful, what a loser for acting like he missed you. Also, a lot of, “Whatever you do, don’t ever ever ever see him again ever.” I’m not angry because he got someone else pregnant. I’m angry because he’d acted as if I’d be around to hang out in a few months, once he was passed all of this baby unpleasantness, or whatever. (Unpleasantness was my word, not his.) As if I’d forget how he treated me, forget how I felt unwanted. At first I thought The Nurse was 100 percent right when he said I didn’t act like I wanted a relationship. But the more I really think about it, the more I think that is partially just him making excuses for his actions. We talked about if he was dating other people and I told him I wasn’t. I had to all but beg him to take me out. He claims I only wanted to see him after I’d been out at bars, but I inquired a lot about what he was doing at other times – he was working or studying or had other plans. He pushed me away. And I stood for it. And I shouldn’t have. All of those times when the voice in the back of my head said, “Tell him. Teeeeell hiiiiiim,” I should have listened. I feel like I’ve lost my way with men. That said, I think I’m going on a man detox for now. I’ve lost my way. I’m settling for less than I deserve and want. I’ve got to get back on track so I don’t keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

He Dropped A Bomb On Me – A Baby

2007-01-14T23:40:00.000-08:00

Note: This is long. But after you read it, you'll understand why. I promise. So, I happened to be online last night. Unable to sleep and bored by my Grey’s Anatomy DVDs, I logged online to kill some time until my eyelids became heavy. The Nurse sent me an IM – which was kind of nuts since he pretty much dropped off of the face of the earth. And he starts in with how he’s starting his official nursing job tomorrow and why am I up so late on a Sunday, etc. I talked to him, but to say that I wasn’t at least a touch confused would be an understatement. Why now? After ignoring numerous drunken text messages from me and seeing me in public and not speaking to me? Crazy. We exchanged pleasantries and he said that he figured I’d never want to speak to him again and that he was a jerk and that he was sorry. And we had one of those talks that you can have after you’ve really gotten all of the hurt out, when you can be honest and while it still stings, it doesn’t crush you. Then he dropped the bomb. “I made a mistake. And now I’m going to be a dad.” I blinked when I saw those words. “It wasn’t the way I wanted it to happen, but oh well.” I blinked again. “You were wonderful. You are wonderful.” “What?” “The woman you saw me with is pregnant.” And I remembered. The grocery store. About six weeks after he’d dropped me. He was with a woman. I’d assumed she was his mother because she looked older. She was his girlfriend. His now-pregnant 29-year-old girlfriend. He went on to tell me that’d he’d really missed me. But he’d made a mistake. “I do miss those eyes, though.” “Eyes?” I said. “You have pretty eyes. I miss those eyes.” “That’s cute,” I said. “But forgive me if I don’t believe it.” “Oh if only you knew.” “I made an ass out of myself,” I said. “I don’t normally chase.” “You didn’t make an ass out of yourself. I was a prick. But you do have a nice booty.” We kept talking. I don’t know why. “I wanted to call,” he said. “Maybe if I had …” “What would you have said?” “That’s the tough part.” “I really liked you. You didn’t seem into having a relationship.” “I wasn’t, it just happened.” “With who? With me? You call that a relationship?” I asked. “No, with Her. It just happened.” He went on to tell me that he wasn’t planning on staying with Her. He was going to have the child and be in its life, but he wouldn’t be with Her if he hadn’t gotten her pregnant. “I wanted to be with someone. Like an adult. Not just drinking in bars,” I said. “I guess I didn’t articulate that well.” “You only seemed to text message after drinking at bars.” “I thought that was what you wanted. You were busy with school and I was trying to not be a big demand on your time.” He is right. I didn’t ask for what I wanted – I was too scared of being hurt to put myself out there and say, “[Nurse] I want a relationship. I expect a relationship.” I was so worried that he’d deny me this and that he’d think I was nuts. Hearing that he didn’t understand what I’d wanted from him didn’t make me feel much better. I wanted to be able to blame him for everything that went wrong. But I was part of the problem. And I knew that. We talked about me having my tonsils out. About how he felt bad because he knew I was sick and having surgery and he didn't call. Still. About how She hates vegetables and thinks instant potatoes are better than homemade garlic mashed potatoes and how he’s watching her diet to watch out for the baby because she’d turn it into a fast food junkie. “I don’t eat mashed potatoes anymore. Or popsicles,” I said, noting that I’d eaten a lot of both after my surgery. “I might have to make you real mashed potatoes with the skins on. Maybe in a year if you’re not in love with someone else.” he said. “Hah.” “What was that ‘Hah’ for? Like you wouldn’t ever be in the same room with me?” “Just Hah.” “Won’t commit one way or the other, huh?” “I’ve got to look out for myself. Can’t go around getting hurt again.” All of this was a bit much for me. Part of me wanted to cry because I finally knew the truth. And because I wondered what would have happened if I’d forced the issue of us dating. Or if he had called. If either one of us had done what we’d really wanted to do in our hearts. He said it was time for him to go to sleep – something I knew I wouldn’t do for hours after this conversation. “Good night. Remember that you are beautiful and you deserve a decent guy.” “I never doubted that,” I said. This was a lie, but in this situation, I think you just have to fake it until you make it.

Not with a bang, but with a whimper

2007-01-14T13:58:00.000-08:00

My subscription to Match.com expired this weekend. I didn’t renew. (I cancelled it so that it wouldn’t auto-renew, which, as y’all probably know is the way that online dating services squeeze money from you. For the uninitiated, the vast majority of online dating services have it in their terms of service that your subscription auto-renews if you don’t cancel it before it ends. Meaning, if you have a three-month subscription like I did? You end up being auto renewed for three more months, having your credit card charged for $50 more and then feeling like you should be trying if you’re paying for it, right? So, you end up subscribed for months longer than you’d intended and your heart isn’t in it so you’re not getting much benefit from it. And I’m not saying $50 is a ton of money, but personally I’d rather go shopping or get a manicure than be forced to online date for even a minute longer than I desire. But that could just be me.) And, no, I don’t want to talk about how I went on zero Match.com dates this cycle. Yeah, I got e-mails and winks and profile views. But none of the men were quite what I wanted. I spoke with several of them and I generally wasn’t thrilled with my selection. And I sort of feel like I keep getting the same 10 people in my “Your Matches” e-mails. And most of them, hello, live in The Sticks around my smallish city. And not to beat a dead horse, but I do NOT like to commute to date. Hell no. Well, right before my subscription ended, I happened upon a profile for a guy who really seemed great. Early 30s, never married, tall, interesting answers to the standard dating profile questions. And I added him to my favorites but decided against e-mailing him. What was the point? I was going to be done with Match in two weeks anyway. Truth be told, I kept wondering about him. As I continued to get e-mailed and winked at through the site, I’d see his little picture in my list of favorites and ultimately decided to e-mail him. This time I didn’t send my standard, “Hi, I’m [Charming], here is a bit about me, I liked your profile, please drop me a line if you would like to chat” e-mail. This time, I put a little more thought into it. I noted that “I liked your profile” was the cheesiest line ever used on Match.com, but that it was true. I had like his profile and at first glance he seemed nice and normal and I’d certainly like to get to know him better if he was interested. I got an almost immediate response. He said he understood how difficult it was to craft an e-mail to a perfect stranger and he appreciated that I’d put some time into my note. His response to my response was a nice length – much better than the incomplete sentences most guys seem to throw together as a way of flirtation. And thus began several days of e-mailing. I learned a lot about him – he’d moved back to the South recently, he’d been a lawyer, he was into real estate now, we liked a lot of the same music. I’d react with excitement when I’d get an e-mail from him. He always responded within a day of my last message. And though he hadn’t asked me out yet, I was confident that he would, as I don’t exchange six or seven paragraph e-mails with people in whom I don’t have at least a passing interest. On Thursday morning, realizing that my time on Match was winding down, I closed my e-mail to him with a note that my Match subscription was ending this weekend. I said I wasn’t subscribing again, but noted that I was still going to be dating and that I’d like to keep corresponding with him. I gave him my e-mail address and asked that he e-mail me there. And … nothing. No e-mail response on either Match or in my e-mail account. I checked and he’s definitely signed on each day since I sent him the e-mail. He’s even viewed my profile between then and now. But no response or note to my e-mail account – I’ve even checked my Spam folder. I swear, the amount of knowledge I have about men could fit in a thimble. Because I seriously have no idea why it would matter that I wasn’t subscribed to Match anymore. Does he think that means I want to date him exclusively and that I’ve stopped looking? Does he like the semi anonymous nature of Match.com and is he just not willing to get rid of that quite yet? Am I simply reading too much into this? Will he e-mail me this week?

So. Damn. Clueless.

2007-01-11T21:57:00.000-08:00

Wednesday night, the inevitable happened. I saw the Blackberry. (And this time I had to talk to him.) I was running late to meet Prom Date at the cigar bar for a drink. It is one of my favorite bars and I figured I couldn’t stay away forever and for all I knew, The Blackberry wouldn’t be there. Prom Date called because I was running late and I could hear The Blackberry yelling into the phone for me. I didn’t want to see him and would have preferred if he would have fallen off of the face of the earth after our New Year’s make out session, but what was I to do? I could go home and bail on Prom Date or I could be an adult and deal with The Blackberry. I chose the later. I strode in wearing my work clothes, as I’d had an after work dinner. I was in a knee-length black pencil skirt, a black top and black high heels (didn’t feel like ironing!) and the look was topped off with a trench coat. My hair was in a low bun on the base of my neck. He immediately moved seats so I could sit between him and Prom Date, who could tell something was up between the two of us, but didn’t ask until later. Our cocktail waitress came over and The Blackberry made a show of putting my wine on his tab – noting that Prom Date could pay his own way. It was possibly mean of me to accept the glass of wine, but I worried refusing it would cause a minor scene. “You can put her drink on my tab,” he said. “That’s not necessary, but thank you for the drink.” The cocktail waitress brought the wine over and I had a sip. “You’re not going to thank me?” “Um,” I said. “I thanked you before. But thanks again.” Later, he said, “Wasn’t it nice of me to buy you a drink?” “Yes, thank you. It is literally the NICEST thing that anyone has EVER done for me before.” “Well that warms my heart – I do have one, you know.” He later asked if I was mad at him for not calling. “I thought about it, but since I never called, I didn’t know if I should call.” “Why would you start calling me now?” A few minutes went by and he said, “So, did you enjoy your New Year?” “Yes, I slept in, recovered from my hangover and saw my parents,” I said curtly. “Technically, you also, you know … we were … on New Years … it was after midnight.” I ignored him. He was annoying me later and said, “Can you not see the disdain I have for you?” “You didn’t have disdain for me a few nights ago.” Then he left for a few minutes. “Dear God,” I told Prom Date. “This is what I’m going to have to deal with for the rest of my life! When I am in the nursing home, he is going to roll his wheelchair over and try to flirt with me.” Then The Blackberry was back and begging me to dance. I refused, yawned and downed my wine so I could leave. “Where are you going?” he asked as I slipped on my coat. “Home, because I need to sleep.” He leaned in to me and in a whisper said, “Do you want me to come with you?” “Um, NO.”

Saturday Night (A Few Hours Later)

2007-01-10T06:17:00.000-08:00

See also: Earlier that night. “I am starving.” I turned to look at him and reached out to rub his shaved head – he bristled earlier when I called him bald, noting that he shaved, not lost, his hair. It was almost 2 a.m. and the last thing I wanted was food or to move out of bed. “But you already ate,” he said. I nodded and pulled closer to him. I never understood how men could think of eating when cuddling and sleeping seemed so much more logical. I couldn’t imagine walking downstairs and cooking. I didn’t want to speak or do anything but just breathe, quietly ini the dark, as we nodded off to sleep. “I have an idea. Why don’t we toss on some clothes …” “Yes …” “And we’ll go downstairs and I’ll walk you to your car, kiss you goodnight, and go find some food.” I half sat, propping myself up on my forearm. I scrunched my eyebrows, though I doubt he could see this in the dark. He was kicking me out. I wanted to protest, to slap him for being nuts. It was raining. And he never kicks me out. But I bit my tongue, reminded myself that we’re not in a relationship. And I’m not going to stay if he doesn’t want me to. The sky was on the edge of a major storm when I felt my heels click on the concrete. I opened the car door and turned around so that the door was between us. He slipped around the door and gave me a kiss. “I brought my A game tonight, right?” he asked. “Yeah, you brought your A game tonight, babe.”

Saturday Night

2007-01-08T23:10:00.000-08:00

“Will she eat my shoes?” I asked, motioning to his new dog, which is four years old but still acts like a puppy. “No, she will not eat your shoes,” On Paper assured me as he walked into the living room. Earlier, when I was leaning up against the kitchen counter sipping a glass of sweet tea, he’d brushed some hair behind my ear and taken my inexpensive dangling earrings in between his thumb and forefinger. “I like that you always wear these long earrings. They’re special.” “They’re leaves. Little metal leaves,” I said quietly, as if identifying them was somehow profound. “Falling leaves.” “I know.” He was standing across from me in his little kitchen. We had the whole house to fill, but he stood close to me as we drank our sweet tea. I was in a black dress, a sweater shrug and three-inch stain peep toe heels with a sling back. I’d dined and seen a show with my girlfriends. And, as was coming slightly customary, I’d ended up at On Paper’s house on the intersection of Chemistry and Uncertainty. He stood before me in jeans and an untucked tee. Barefoot, he towered over me in my heels. He used to play football and I feel overwhelmed by his physical presence sometimes, like when I see how little my hands are when our fingers are intertwined. I’d announced that I needed to sit. No more sweet tea; my feet were killing me. I slipped one shoe off and then the other and placed them gently on the floor near the couch, eyeing the puppy as I let them drop. She took one look hungry at them and I knew not to trust her. I scooped them up by their black backstraps and deposited them on a table. “Well, come here.” He reached out to me. He’s settled in on the couch and his hand pulled me to sit by his side. “Give me those feet.” And he leaned over and grabbed one knee to twist my legs across his lap. I squealed and screeched like a five-year-old schoolchild being chased on a playground. “You cannot touch my feet. They are gross,” I insisted, trying to tuck them underneath my skirt. “They’re fine,” he said, tugging at an ankle. “No! No! No! No feet!” “Why?” “They’re gross and my toes aren’t polished and I need a pedicure like crazy,” I said. “Seriously? Just let me rub your feet. You said they hurt from those shoes.” I shook my head, crossed my arms across my chest and narrowed my eyes stubbornly. He grabbed a throw from the back of the couch and spread it across his lap. I squealed again as he pulled my feet to the throw and then covered them. And then he rubbed my feet through the blanket. “No touching of the feet. No seeing of the toes,” he said, clearly proud of his ingenuity. My strong reaction to him touching my feet was confusing – of all the places he’s touched me, of all the angles he’s seen of me, I doubt my slightly callused heels would have been in any way shocking. “They’re ugly.” “Nothing on you is ugly,” he said, shaking his head. And then he kissed me before I could self deprecate again.

Why I blog (aka A Right to be Wrong)

2007-01-07T23:16:00.000-08:00

I stared at the screen for a few minutes not knowing where to start, which is different for me. I may no know where I’m going when I start writing an entry, but I almost always know where I want to start. I don’t blog because I’m some dating goddess. I don’t blog because I think I know more than you do. I don’t blog because I want to be your best girlfriend or because I think I can give you dating advice. I don’t blog because I want you to tear me apart. I don’t blog because I need your validation. I don’t blog because I need the attention. I don’t blog because I’m a bitch. I don’t blog because I think I’m always right. I don’t blog to bring other people down. I don’t blog because I want you to be your girlfriend. I don’t blog because I want your opinion. I don’t blog because I think I am perfect. I blog because I love to write. No, really. Love. To. Write. I’ve written little newsletters, short stories, bad poetry and journals since I was very young. (I wrote this one story many many years ago that wasn’t so much a story as it was an homage to my favorite color combination at the time – pastel pink and pastel green. In the “story” everything the girl has is pink and green and swirled and lovely. And I don’t remember exactly what happens to her, but I am certain that her watermelon-flavored pink-and-green lip gloss was VERY central to her ultimate salvation.) In the perfect world, I’d lounge about on a pillow and write all day and people would drive trucks up to my house and bring me money in exchange for the writing. But the trucks haven’t gotten here yet. And they’ll probably never come. So I blog to give my passion for writing somewhere to go. Blogging is tricky business. If I didn’t want to be read, I wouldn’t publish this on the Internet, right? But being read isn’t the only reason I do it. Some days, I think it was easier to blog when no one read. Do I need a thicker skin? Probably. I do LOVE that people read the blog. I love that people sometimes see a little piece of them in my writing. I have blogs that I read in the morning as a break from my mundane existence. The peek into someone’s life makes me happy. And if I can be that to a few people, then that’s great. But that is just a side effect of blogging, really. Because I do this for me. It helps me work through my feelings and remember the glorious things we don’t always – it is easy to forget the flush we get about something when it ends poorly. In addition to allowing me to look at myself, this blog allows me to cherish those perfect little moments that would otherwise be lost in the bigger picture. If you do love to write and you do open your blog up to comments, you’re bound to get unsavory remarks from time to time. You come to expect them. But, as I told a commenter on the last post, negative comments on your journal feel like some intruder has stormed into your home and taken a dump on your carpet. And I guess you could say that I opened the door. But there is a difference between constructive criticism (which, FYI, I’ve never really asked for, though I do appreciate it at times) and outright meanness (again, also never asked for and appreciated to a much lessor extent). Maybe, I think, I should shut the door from time to time. In closing, I’d remind you that you don’t know me. We haven’t had lunch and cocktails and mani-pedis. You know what I let you know about me. And if I sound defensive, it is because care about myself. If I’ve learned anything from being fiercely independent and opinionated, it is that you have to protect your own heart and soul. And desiring to do so doesn’t make me a weak person.

More than a mouthful

2007-01-04T22:29:00.000-08:00

I have a crush. A big crush. A crush that comes at such a terrible time for me that I just want to cry and pitch a fit about how unfair it is that my New Year’s Resolution is to get in better shape and I pick this particular moment to have a crush on a food blogger. Fine, it isn’t a real crush. It’s a blog crush. Her name is Deb, she writes at Smitten Kitchen, and she blogs the best best best food recipes and cooking tales with fantastic pictures that are just beautiful and I wish I could reach right on in through my laptop screen and take a bite. Not a little princess nibble, but a huge, hulking mouthful of yumminess – even my quasi-vegetarian self would probably eat anything, meat included, that looked as appetizing as Deb’s delights. This is precisely the problem. I am supposed to be eating green leaves with a light dusting of oil and vinegar! A properly measured serving of Cheerios with skim milk and half a banana! A small portion of baked fish with half a baked sweet potato! Not lusting after truffles and pecan bars (damn you Ina Garten!) and Bourbon! Pumpkin! Cheesecake! How trite of me to blog about overeating in early January, right? There should be a Technorati tag devoted to heavily clichéd posts about eating better in the New Year. But what disappoints me is while I never expect to be a tiny, waiflike thing, I know how to eat healthy food in a way that doesn’t cause me to gain weight (and, wonder of wonders, allows me to lose weight). And it doesn’t kill me. And it does taste good. And I do get to eat. In fact, the most successful diet I’ve ever been on allowed me to eat three normal-sized meals and two to three snacks a day. Mayo-free tuna salad. Natural peanut butter and bananas in pita pockets. Homemade blue cheese vinaigrette (yes, I was consulting my nurse practitioner about healthy eating strategies – seriously, try this, your medical professional has really good pointers and also will be excited to share them with you, promise – and she said that a modicum of cheese is okay and that she makes fresh salad dressing every day and that she’d rather me worry about cutting out tons of sugars, fried things and overeating than an some olive oil in my salad dressing) on my greens. And, ohmygod, if you have not had the sugar free Jell-o instant pudding in cheesecake flavor? Stop what you are doing and go to the store. I will wait for you to get back. Back? Good. Seriously, sliced strawberries (you really only need a few) on top of that pudding? Maybe it was because I’d cut my sugar intake down and assaulted my body with daily work outs, but that was my favorite after dinner dessert while I pondered how hot I was going to look after all of this. My point? I don’t have one. Except that I’m pissy that Monday is my “diet day.” (I always start diets on Mondays because I figure I’m already in a bad mood anyway.) Also, I cancelled my Match.com subscription. But if I happen to meet some awesome guy between now and the end of my subscription next week, I’m making this Guinness cake to lure him into my apartment, where I will lock the door and we will do nothing but eat cake all day long and never go on diets or climb onto elliptical machines. That’s my plan. Updated 1/7/06: Charming's diet discussion in the comments.

Mortification

2007-01-02T15:36:00.000-08:00

When I do things and immediately regret them – like, say, most of what I did on New Year’s Eve – I almost immediately want to change my habits so that I won’t have to run into the other parties involved. Find a new neighborhood. Leave my regular haunts. Move to a different city and change my name. (I think someone stands to make a lot of money by implementing a Witness Protection Program-style relocation project to help embarrassed singles escape multitudes of dating disasters.) I never know what to say and avoid confrontation like the plague. I won’t go to the Cigar Bar for at least two weeks now that I’ve kissed The Blackberry. Avoidance might not be the most mature answer to the question, but at least it saves me from having to face my mistakes like an adult. There is a problem with this approach to life. You can’t hide from people forever. And this has never been more evident than right now, at this very moment, when I am sitting in the coffeehouse by my apartment, otherwise known as my writing sanctuary. I try to avoid only writing at home because I get distracted and watch TV and cook dinner and chat on the phone. But armed with a $4 cup of coffee and my headphones, I write amazingly well because it is busy enough to keep me working and relaxing enough for me to really reach my creative place. Plus, there are fewer distractions and no pillows to beckon me back to bed. When I feel like I need to write as detox, to feel the thrill of my fingers flying across the keys of my ThinkPad, to revel in the release of just getting it all out of my system, I come to the coffee shop and it is just me and my laptop up against the big bad world of dating. Not today, unfortunately. As I type, The Blackberry is sitting across the coffee shop. He has seen me. I know this. But I have kept my head down and my iPod on. I look focused, like I could be working, when really I just want to die because he is here. It feels like he has invaded my personal space, which is ridiculous because I have no more claim to it than he does. And even though I know that he has no idea what I am working on, I worry that he can feel me ripping him to shreds. And I am embarrassed for the both of us. Such an unmatched pair. I despise him (even more so than I did before) and he knows it. I think it turns him on. I must leave in a half hour to go meet a friend to see a movie and The Blackberry is sitting right by the door. I could rush past and not say hello. It would be almost impossible for me to pass through the door and not see him. And he’d likely say something to me. I could ignore him. But I wonder if I am that cruel. Update: Not still trapped in the coffee shop. He got up from his table, I left through the opposite door as he was coming back. I'm kind of a moron for not thinking of that earlier. And I don't feel so cruel, because it's not like he came over and spoke to me. Do I think he thinks Sunday night was a mistake? Hard to tell. Here's to hoping ...

Happy Friggin’ 2007

2007-01-01T22:01:00.000-08:00

Note: This is long. Like almost 2,000 words long. Deal with it! There is actual boy gossip at the bottom. My low-key New Year’s Eve turned out to be a flurry of text messaging and alcohol that ended with me hiding my head in my blankets and pillows, mortified that I’d let myself act so needy and ridiculous and wishing I could ask for a redo. I started the evening by opting to wear one of my go-to black dresses, dangly red earrings (that broke midway through the night) and black satin platform peep toe shoes with a backstrap. I figured that I should be dressed like the hottest thing to go to bed alone. I topped my look with heavier-than-normal eye make up (it was New Year’s Eve, after all) and my newly perfected nighttime hairdo, which involves many products that both volumize my hair while also smoothing it so that it hangs flat after some light straightening. Prom Date arrived right at 9 p.m. and we cracked open the first bottle of white wine. I’d already had two beers of the yummy delicious localish seasonal brew variety. We planned to hang out for a little while before descending upon the cigar bar for the actual New Year. It was not to be. Prom Date’s friend (and The Blackberry’s former roommate) called to say that our beloved bar was charging a $20 cover and that very few people were there. (See: $20 cover.) I would have paid the cover, but the boys seemed highly perturbed that the bar where we always hang out, which is hardly a happening hotspot, would charge a cover. And so we decided to celebrate chez moi with wine and champagne and bowls of yummy wasabi peas and sesame sticks and fresh-from-the-box brownies. Another glass of wine later and I was ready to start spreading the text message love all over my cell phone’s address book. On Paper and I had exchanged a few texts – I’d assumed he didn’t want to see my anymore after some quite cold behavior on his part, but he called this week and we’d talked. I have no idea what he wants or if I can give it to him, but we’ll hopefully be hanging out this coming weekend, as he had a cold and did not go out New Year’s Eve. (Which I am inclined to believe, as he is pretty forthcoming about his plans.) I’d thought I’d seen The Nurse as I padded through the Fancy Chain Grocery Store earlier that evening to buy some last-minute supplies and two slices of olive-heavy pizza. It wasn’t him. Rather, it was a man of his height and approximate stature with reddish hair and similar features who was dressed and styled the way I’d always secretly wished The Nurse was. He had short hair (The Nurse had a tendency to let his get a touch too long) and a beard (not necessary, but cute in the winter) and was wearing well-worn jeans that actually fit and did not have tapered legs and a cream colored sweater with a zipper that clung to his frame just right. Well, this faux Nurse sighting got me thinking about the actual Nurse and of course I turned into a blathering idiot who thought it was a good idea to send him some early New Year’s greetings via text. Much to my surprise, he actually responded in kind. However, when I attempted to flip this into a late night visit to my place, I was summarily rejected as he ignored the several poorly-spelled texts I’d tapped out. At some point, I’d decided to instant message The Blackberry to see what the crowd at cigar bar was like. And this led to some stupid flirting. And the boys sent several messages to The Blackberry posing as me. I teased him that he didn’t have my gate code and wouldn’t be able to get into my apartment complex. I eventually gave him the code. “You better watch yourself,” Blackberry’s Friend told me. “That boy likes you. And if I know him, he sees your flirtation as an invitation to set up camp outside your apartment until you relent.” “Hardly. I have been quite clear about my intentions from the get go and I can promise you that I will not be sleeping with him. And I have told him this many times before.” “I’m just saying that it doesn’t matter what you say if someone believes the exact opposite.” But I was drunk and I didn’t think The Blackberry would actually come over when he had a whole bar full of women to hit on. He is a man of numbers – he’s said so himself – and the numbers were in his favor at the bar. As the night crept past midnight, champagne glasses were emptied and refilled and then emptied again. And the boys headed home around 2 a.m. I locked the door and curled up on the love seat. When I stayed still, I felt as if the room was spinning and I needed to grab onto the edges of the sofa to steady myself. I was near sleep when my cell phone went off. Someone was at the front gate for me. I groaned because I knew exactly who it was. And I could have ignored the call. But I figured he’d just keep calling until I buzzed him in, so I did. A few minutes later we were having beers. I was sitting in an easy chair and he was on the love seat. I’d chosen my seat strategically so that he couldn’t sit next to me. This worked for about five minutes until he asked me to join him on the love seat and I bragged about how comfortable my chair was. The next thing I knew, I’d volunteered to switch places with him so he could feel how comfortable the chair was. And then it took another three minutes for him to join me back on the loveseat. And then we were making out. He is an aggressive, tongue-happy kisser who is a bit sloppier than I enjoy. And he let his hands travel down my sides and I stopped him and told him, in no uncertain terms, that I was not going to sleep with him, take off my clothes, take off his clothes or anything else like that. He was mostly respectful of this, though I had to remind him of it a few times. He suggested several times that we move to my bed, but I shot him down each time. “We’ll just kiss, I swear,” he pleaded. But I was not giving in and his insistence began to wear on me. Finally I got up and sat on the chair. “It is time for you to go home,” I yawned. “I want to stay here.” “No,” I said firmly, motioning to the door. “It is time for everyone who doesn’t live here to not be here anymore.” He argued with me. “I won’t touch you, I swear.” But I never relented. I was losing my freewheeling buzz and I did not want him in my house when I woke up. Because I’d realized that this was a mistake. I’d worked so hard to continuously shoot him down over the past few months, as he is a terribly inappropriate man to date. He’s cocky to a fault and he talks about women like they are conquests. And I fear that I’m now going to be on that list of women he talks about as they walk through the bar. “See baby, see her? I know her REAL WELL, ifyouknowhwhatImean,” he says as he sees former flings. Whether or not he has slept with them, no one knows. But he leaves little doubt in people’s minds that he has bedded them all. Perception is reality in this case. I don’t want to be one of those women. And so he had to leave before I preemptively slapped him for saying such things about me. And before I realized that I would have to stay away from my favorite little cigar bar for the next few weeks to avoid his smugness. And this did not please me. At all. “You have to go now,” I said. I walked to the door and opened it, like a flight attendant giving him directions off of a plane. “Baby, I want to stay.” “No.” “I will just sleep on your doorstep.” “Go.” I closed the door and waited for him to leave. But I could see his outline in my window. He wasn’t going to leave. I pulled the door open. “I knew you’d change your mind, baby.” “I have not. Please go home. I am serious. Go home.” I shut the door again, flipped off he outside light and locked the deadbolt. I walked to the kitchen to get some water. But I could hear him talking outside my door. I didn’t see him in my window or peephole. I opened the door and he tumbled backwards onto the floor. He had been sitting on my doormat. “[Blackberry]! GO HOME!” “I’m not leaving.” “Get off of my porch.” “Fine,” he said. And he stood up and walked midway down the stairs and sat again, still talking. “I have NEIGHBORS,” I hissed. He wasn’t going anywhere. Like a stray cat. He’d tasted the milk I’d given him and he wasn’t going to leave now without eating a feast first. Well, I know a few things about stray cats. Not having a hose nearby, I decided I would have to improvise. The concrete felt cold beneath my bare feet and the wind whipped around my legs as I tip toed down the steps to where he sat. “Oh baby, you changed your mind,” he said, looking up at me hopefully. “No, I didn’t. You either go or you get wet,” I said. It was then that he realized I had a very full cup of water in each hand. “You wouldn’t,” he said. “I will,” I said, tipping one cup slightly so that a dribble of water sloshed over the side and onto the step behind him. “Either you go or I will soak you.” “Baby, I don’t want to go,” he said, as he eased up to a standing position. “Then sleep in your car,” I said, cocking my arm back, ready to splash him and his tan linen Miami Vice wannabe jacket. “Babe,” he said, backing up. “GO HOME.” He looked in my eyes and realized that I was dead serious and that he would soon be drenched if he called my bluff. So he went down the stairs, turned around and looked to me, begging for a reprieve. I tip toed back up to my apartment, pulled the door shut, locked the dead bolt and set the chain. I turned off all of the lights and climbed into bed, but not before I gulped down one of the huge cups of water. The next morning I woke up, moaned and reached for the other cup of water, which I’d wisely placed on my nightstand. I went into the kitchen to get some Advil for my pounding head, which felt like someone had sawed it open, replaced my normal-size brain with a much larger brain and stapled my head back shut. My computer was still on and I had an instant message from The Blackberry. “I got home safely. I had fun, did you?” I slammed my laptop shut and sulked back to my bed.

Plans? We don't need no stinkin' plans

2006-12-31T11:24:00.000-08:00

So, this New Year’s was supposed to be a couple of friends at my place. Snacks, drinks and a late-night trip to the little cigar bar across the street. Simple, relaxing, low key. Gone are the years of big house parties, renting out the back room of a bar, going out of town. Big New Years plans always end up causing too much stress – where are we going to stay, how much will it cost, what will I wear, who will drive us home, etc. “People who make huge plans for the New Year are really partying amateurs,” College Roommate informed me. “We don’t need to have some big to-do for New Year’s Eve because we are partying all-stars.” I’d agreed enthusiastically. Perhaps we were both covering up for our subpar plans. Me, drinking with a few people in the bar where I always go. Her, hitting bed early because she had to be up at the crack of dawn to drive to go see her boyfriend’s college football team play in some lame bowl game. (Our college plays in an ACTUAL bowl next week, thankyouverymuch.) I turned down an offer to go to New Orleans for a party that sounded like fun. I didn’t have a place to stay, wasn’t going to pay for a hotel room and was less than thrilled by the prospect of being anywhere near the French Quarter on New Year’s Eve. The last time I did that was several years ago and the guys we were with ended up getting in a fight with some guys from New York as we walked down Canal Street to the Quarter. I remember they were from New York because College Roommate had yelled, quite drunkenly, “I am from NEW ORLEANS. Why don’t you go back to BROOKLYN where you belong!” And I thought this was pretty funny because while my dear friend was from the general vicinity of New Orleans, she definitely didn’t live within the city limits. (Which I guess is splitting hairs when you’ve consumed countless cups of daiquiri, purchased in “milk jug” size for the occasion, while preparing to go out, so we let her slide.) And then the cops showed up and I remember crying for the purely selfish reason that if these guys got arrested, it was going to be me and my drunken belligerent friends wandering the city streets alone without a ride, unable to return to the suburbs where we were sleeping that night because I simply didn’t know the address of the apartment complex, so we wouldn’t even have been able to hail a damn cab. I love New Orleans, but I get lost almost every time I go. I have a terrible sense of direction and I don’t know the city well at all – I once led an expedition of revelers five blocks the wrong way down Canal because I didn’t pay attention to the fact that cross streets changed names – Bourbon becomes Carondelet, Royal becomes St. Charles. Alas, on that New Year’s Eve many years ago, the guys were able to slip out of the cops’ sight, grabbing us and pulling us down a side street and away from the action. “Outta mind, outta sight,” one guy, another friend’s older brother, told me as he patted a little bit of blood off of the side of his face. I nodded and wiped my eyes. I was 22. I’d seen my share of bar fights, but this was my first walking-to-the-bar fight. After some bar hopping and ridiculously overpriced drinks, we ended up at someone’s house in God-knows-where. (I thought we were on the West Bank, but each of my girlfriends has a different opinion as to where we actually were come 3 a.m.) I have a sneaking suspicion that our male tour guides insisted we go to this house to buy drugs – because no one offered us any drinks when we got there, which is pretty much unheard of for the Big Easy, and because we didn’t stay that long. After the hellacious hangover that I’d tried to stave off by drinking mint juleps the next morning with my Dad at Pat O’Briens before we went to a football game, I swore off New Orleans for New Year’s Eve and I’ve stayed closer to home. Since my overnight house guest just cancelled and it is looking like it is going to be a much smaller affair chez moi tonight, I’m thinking I don’t need to go buy more wine and chips at the store, as I planned. I also probably shouldn’t bake the brownies I’d planned to share with my guests. But I will. Just in case there is an early morning brownie-related emergency to which I need to attend.

2006 -- A good year?

2006-12-26T15:42:00.000-08:00

The end of another year has turned my thoughts to what I have achieved in the past 12 months and what I haven’t. I have gotten a better job. I have become friends with my parents. I kept my New Year’s Workout Resolution for three whole months. I’ve grown up considerably, even though I still have moments of panic, like on Christmas Eve when I realized I left my spare casserole dish at the office potluck and didn’t have anything to contain the Christmas Morning Breakfast Strata and called my mom freaking out and later flipped out while I was wrapping gifts because they looked so ugly and you would think that I would be GOOD at gift wrapping because everyone else in my family is and I am so talented at so many things, like falling down in high heels, spilling things and, to a lesser extent, dating. Dating. Oh, have I dated. I was hoping 2006 would be THE year. You know, the year where I fell blissfully in love over romantic candlelit dinners, afternoon picnics and evenings at home cooking and had a date for weddings and parties and Saturday nights and got flowers on my birthday and had someone other than my brother for whom I could buy comfy sweaters that I would later steal and wear because they smell so much like a man I loved. (I love my brother. I won’t be stealing his sweaters because that’s kind of creepy and he has a girlfriend to do that.) Not so much. I did, however, find a surge of confidence in the Spring and decided to get out there and online date – which has proven to be every bit as scary as I thought it would be. But it has also been fun. And as much as I complain about it, I will probably continue on for a few more months at least and take advantage of the confidence boosting effects of my New Year’s Resolution workout plan. (Finally putting that gym membership to good use!) But I’ll probably be switching to Yahoo! Personals when my Match.com subscription runs out in January. Maybe. And I did learn a lot of about how you can be happy even when you’re alone and how you at times have to buy those flowers for yourself and not rely on other people – especially men – to make you feel sexy and loved and special and beautiful and charming and irresistible. Sometimes. That will be the case this New Year’s Eve, as I seem to have alienated my only chance at a midnight kiss (or after hours fun) for the glorious celebration of the changing year. The whole detailed mess is probably best left between the two of us. I can’t decide if, in the end, I owe him an apology or if he owes me one or if the whole thing is being blown royally out of proportion. Suffice it to say that the correct response to your divorced Man du Jour when he tells a story that ends with, “And that’s the main reason why I’m not married anymore,” is NOT “Well I know one person who is very glad that you’re not married anymore,” followed by a soft kiss on the lips. No matter how cute you are. No matter how drunk you are. No matter how low-cut your dress is. No matter how sexy you look in those shoes. Just, you know, for future reference, in case you ever find yourself in that situation after a night of too many cosmos with one of your girlfriends while she downs something on the rocks and laments the parting of her boyfriend of six weeks (She really felt like he was the one, y’all!) and you decide that a late-night visit to your Man Candy’s house is, like, totally the best way to occupy the hours between closing time and hangoversville.

Well now I’m distracted …

2006-12-21T08:51:00.000-08:00

So, my "Romantic Daily Horoscope" from today says the following:

Astral influences indicate that love and abundance are coming your way, but you have to clearly visualize the bounty. It's your job to figure out how to improve your life using your vast store of inner resources.

I'm sorry, I can't move on to figuring out how to tap my inner resources to improve my life. I'm too busy clearly visualizing every sweaty moment of the hot, juicy bounty of sexy, tall, cuddly man love that I'd like to come my way. Look, the horoscope said I had to VISUALIZE these things! And WHO am I to argue with MY HOROSCOPE? So tonight's birthday celebration? Could be looking up.

Another year older, a new one's just begun

2006-12-19T00:14:00.000-08:00

As of today, I am no longer in my mid-20s. I’m in my late 20s. I’m almost 30. Twenty-seven used to be my “scary” age. The age when I was starting to get old. I don't have words of wisdom. I should HAVE some words of wisdom by now. Aw, hell.

Now accepting chick lit suggestions

2006-12-18T21:56:00.000-08:00

For some crazy reason, I want to read chick lit this holiday season. First on my list is BreakupBabe, which I bought months ago and never read, not because I didn't want to read it, but because I haven't really had the time. Then I could sift through all of the publicist-gifted books I get. "Dating Up" or "How to avoid marrying a Jerk," to name a few. (Seriously, Publishing Publicists, I love the free books. I do. Keep on keeping on. But don't fashion publicists want to help a sister out? Maybe some cute shoes like these or a Hobo International clutch in, say, Ocean? Didn't I once call "Envy Me" by Gucci the official scent of this blog? I also like the new Burberry scent! Free online dating? Don't you people want to use me for something other than book reviews that I sometimes don't even write? No? Just books?) Leave book suggestions in the comments. Remember, I’ve never brought myself to read an entire Shopaholic book. But I did like Bridget Jones.

Coming attractions

2006-12-17T23:06:00.000-08:00

Sunday afternoon I saw “The Holiday.” I happen to love seeing matinee movies alone with a big diet coke and candy, which I bring in my large purses, naturally. I get there early, pick out a good seat – high and in the middle. As the previews began, it was obvious to me that there was a projection error. There was a two-foot black stripe at the bottom of the screen and the actors’ heads were cut off at the top. I am not one to settle for a subpar movie experience. Theatres cannot always control their patrons. People will talk. Cell phones will ring. But they can definitely fix projection issues. So I abandoned my good seat, gathered my purse and diet coke and headed to the lobby to find a staff member. A theatre manager quickly agreed to have the project fixed. By the time I got back to the theatre, the film had been corrected so that it projected correctly. Fantastic. Not wanting to disturb my fellow moviegoers, I hunted for a row with several empty seats on the end. And as I found one, I missed a step and fell face first into the row. My drink splashed on me. My purse flew open. I was in a denim skirt, so I bashed my knees against the hard floor and I felt a breeze on my bottom. The theatre was dark, but everyone around me saw and the women around me gasped and jumped up to offer assistance. I was mortified. It was all I could do to reach under seats to put my belongings back in my purse and slouch in a seat so that I could examine my knees and assure everyone I was okay. Cheeks burning, I swigged from the diet coke that hadn’t spilled on me and slumped in my seat, hoping that the start of the movie would distract from my faceplant on the dirty movie theatre floor. The Holiday was good. Not spectacular, but entertaining.. It had all of the elements of a good romantic comedy – beautiful women finding their way in a cruel world, montages of budding romances, idyllic settings, charming male leads, great clothes, predictable plot. Exactly what I wanted. It won’t be a spoiler for me to say that one woman makes movie trailers. Needless to say, this is sort of a running theme, as she has a few flashes of what the movie trailer of her life would look like. This, of course, started me thinking about what the booming voice in a movie trailer would say if narrating the trailer to my little life.

“[Charming] grew up with in a typical Southern family …” [Cut to footage of 23-person family dinners.] “… surrounded by opinionated women …” [Cue shots of gossipy Southern ladies] “… who married young and raised children …” [Montage of cousins running through the house] “But when [Charming] was 17, she laid out a life plan ...” [Cut to footage of our young heroine telling the other girls at the lunch table, “I’m not going to be one of those woman who gets married and has babies young just because! I’ll wait until I’m 25 before I settle down! And then I’ll have my kids in my late twenties.”] “ … ten years later, [Charming]’s finding out that the best laid plans of Southern girls …” [Cue montage of clicking down the street in heels with coffee in hand, chatting on a cell phone, “It’s a date!”] “ … often go awry …” [Montage of falling on her face; hissing into her cell phone, “my date is CRYING about his ex wife!” and announcing “I’m going to be the ONLY single bridesmaid in the wedding!”] “ … This Spring, follow one woman as she tries to get herself back on track …” [Cue clips [Charming] making to do lists, going to the gym, smiling at men, with voiceover, “This will be the year that I get it all together.”] “… and finds that sometimes straying off course …” [Cut to [Charming] covering face and moaning to friends, “I was supposed to be married by now!”] “ … brings you where you need to be.” [Cue powerful chick lit pop music and scenes of dancing, kissing hot men, fabulous shoes]

I swear. I am too cheesy for words.

From bad to worse

2006-12-17T09:38:00.000-08:00

A few nights ago I was sitting in the cigar bar with Prom Date, after having been out to two bars after work with co-workers. I spied The Blackberry across the bar. He was talking with a Tall Man and it took me a few minutes to realize that they were looking at me pointedly. The Blackberry came over. “What did you and your friend have to say about me?” I asked The Blackberry “Oh, he wants to f—k you.” I almost choked on a sip of Merlot. I dismissed him as being silly. But then the Tall Man came up behind The Blackberry and mouthed, “I want you.” I raised an eyebrow. “I want you,” he mouthed again and motioned to the bathroom. I grimaced and shook my head. They walked off and I died laughing, “Do I look like the woman who has sex in the bathroom of a bar?” A few minutes later, The Blackberry was back. “You should thank me. I got that guy to go away.” “Oh. Really?” “Yes, I told him you were my girl.”

Advice?

2006-12-14T09:22:00.000-08:00

So, say you were shopping for your younger (24) brother's girlfriend and (probable) future fiancée. And you need a present that says, "I'm sorry my brother is a dirty hippie who would rather wear Birkenstocks and an old Phish T-shirt than get dressed up and shave and take you out to dinner, but I really do like you and hope that you marry him some day because even though you are very different people, you complement each other very well and he is always so happy to be with you and we all know that he is a very sweet man and will be a good father one day and I swear I am going to be very happy on the INSIDE when you tie the knot, even though on the OUTSIDE I'll be sitting in the corner of the reception mumbling into a champagne glass about being an Old Maid without a date to my own little brother's wedding. Oh, also, Merry Christmas."

Note: I have previously given her a gift basket of relaxation and beauty products and a scent diffuser ( like this one, but more expensive) and various members of my family throughout the years have gifted many picture frames and journals and candle sets.

Also, I've got a long shopping list. Less than $50. (And $50 could be pushing it.)

Oh …

2006-12-12T21:35:00.000-08:00

Welcome Glamour.com readers and much thanks to Alyssa Shelasky for the shout out on her blog See Alyssa Date on Glamour’s Web site. I was shocked – shocked – to see 400 to 500 extra readers today. Go visit Alyssa’s blog, where you can vote on her every dating move, and tell her that being evil makes for better blogging.

Snippets from Friday Night, Part 3

2006-12-12T09:05:00.000-08:00

After I left the show at the dive bar, I headed over to my regular cigar bar for a glass of red with Prom Date. I'd planned to do this all along – my other friends aren't night owls as I am. While they turned into pumpkins at midnight, I was still looking for some fun.

As previously discussed, I looked cute – sheerish wrap top over a camisole, jeans, pointy heels and smooth hair, thanks to the bitter cold that scared away the humidity. I didn't check my cell for texts before heading into the cigar bar, so I had no idea that The Blackberry had been asking for me. (Until I later checked my phone and saw a cautionary text from Prom Date. Too late. I was already in the bar.)

"Well there she is," The Blackberry commented as I walked in. I was mildly horrified that the only barstool left was next to him.

"And she sits next to me."

I rolled my eyes and ordered a Merlot. The Blackberry immediately started his pursuit in full force – complimenting me, doling out mild insults immediately followed by "I'm kidding! Just kidding, baby!"

I was having none of it and tried to maintain the cold exterior I keep up so well when he is around. The best offense is a good defense, especially when you're dealing with a terribly offensive guy who will stop at nothing to bed you and any other woman in a skirt who walks into the bar.

The Blackberry made a point to speak of text messages from another woman who needed a ride home – joking that she needed more than just "a ride in my car, if you know what I mean." He was clearly trying to bait me into showing some jealousy, though it clearly wasn't working. As I clicked through some late-night e-mails on my blackberry, The Blackberry complained that I never texted him.

"I don't have your number."

"I'm only going to tell it to you one time," he said, and then told me his number. I responded by sliding my blackberry and cell phone back into my purse.

"What was that?" I teased.

He repeated himself. Realizing that I wasn't taking the number down, he showed me that he had me in his blackberry – but only the address I use for junk mail and online personals.

"See, I have your information."

"You also have my blackberry number and e-mail address," I informed him. "So, no, I don't feel bad about not texting you. You've had my number for months. Because there is a process."

He paid his tab and leaned over so that only I could hear him. In the lowest of voices, he made his final serious plea.

"You know you want to come home with me."

"No."

"You do, I know you do. You want me."

"No."

"You just live across the street."

"No."

Defeated, he stood up and announced that he was going to pick up the woman who'd been begging for a ride home. He made reference to a local figure, a notorious playboy, and said, "You know why he got a lot of women? Because he didn't let rejection get him down. Nine out of 10 women may say no. But one will say yes."

He paused as he stood up and walked over to shake hands with Prom Date.

"The law of averages," he said, looking at me.

And then he walked back over to me.

"You were giving me this look like you were upset that I didn't kiss you goodbye," he said.

I rolled my eyes and turned my cheek, denying him a kiss on the lips. He wrapped an arm around me for a hug, but I looked forward and did not acknowledge it.

As he left, his friend said, "You do realize that he just called you a statistic, right?"

"I know."

"And that was a pretty good line about needing to give you a goodbye kiss," his friend said. "It caught you off guard and you didn't have time to protest."

At this point, the female bartender had to step in.

"Oh please, that is a terrible line," she said, rolling her eyes. "Notice that she didn't jump up and go home with him."

"Amen, sister," I said as I leaned over the bar to give her a high five.

Snippets from Friday Night, part 2

2006-12-11T12:53:00.000-08:00

"That guy, sitting behind you, is cute," I told my married friend. We'd settled into a table and in the group sitting nearby was a guy I'd spotted at the crowded bar earlier. He was most decidedly my physical type, which is so certain that my friends could point to the men I'm checking out at any given moment in any given situation. He was tall, broad-shouldered and stocky with dark hair.

She glanced over her shoulder and spied an older man. I shook my head no and talked her through the crowd until her gaze landed on the gentleman of the hour.

She nodded in agreement as I straightened up in my chair and coyly played with a section of my hair, trying to casually make eye contact and draw his attention.

A few minutes into this game of me silently willing him to notice me — a technique that I have much hope for, though it has been largely unsuccessful thus far — he stood up and left his table. As he walked by, my friend's husband leaned over to me and interrupted my thoughts, which at this point consisted of if I could trip this guy and make it look like an accident so that he would notice me and fall madly in love.

"See that guy walking by?"

"Yes …" I answered, planning to continue with, "Isn't he hot!"

My friend's husband interrupted me, "That guy, he is a total ASS."

I slumped back into my seat and shook my head, my dreams of innocent injury causing love halted by cruel reality.

"Of course he is."

Snippets from Friday Night, part 1

2006-12-10T10:30:00.000-08:00

“Well, THAT was an experience,” the Older Woman said as she exited the stall in the subpar restroom facilities of the dive bar where I was Friday night. For some crazy reason, a singer of Rat Pack-style music that we adore plays his yearly Christmas show at this hole-in-the-wall joint. The show attracts an odd mix of revelers – groups of people in their mid 20s, couples in their thirties and forties and gray-haired folks who like to relive their past days by dancing circles around us young whippersnappers. “Yes, the restrooms leave something to be desired,” I said, as I ran my fingers through my hair. “Well, I guess I can’t complain. I’m 65. Back in the day we went into the mens’ room in bars because the line was shorter.” “I wouldn’t recommend that now. A lot of bars only have troughs,” I said, smiling. “Really!” “Yes.” “May I ask how old you are?” “Almost 27,” I said. I had moved from hair to lipstick. “Honey, I have two children, 32 and 19. I’ve lived all of the stages of your lives.” “It only gets better, right?” “Oh yeah, honey, it only gets better,” she said, a grin spreading across her face. She didn’t look many days over 50. She was wearing plum denim slacks and a tan jacket and her hair showed no gray. I straightened the straps of the camisole that peaked out from under my wrap-style top. “That’s a very nice shirt,” she said. “It looks pretty on you.” “Thank you,” I said as I continued my adjustments. “But the camisole doesn’t stay in place and then it dips down too low.” “Well, honey, that’s because oh … you know …” she trailed off as she motioned to her chest. “And as someone who never really had much in that department, I must say, they are nice,” she continued. I was floored. I managed to stammer a “thank you” before heading out of the door. I sat down at my table and turned to my friends. “A 65-year-old woman in the bathroom just told me I have a nice rack,” I announced to my friends, who were equally floored that a stranger would compliment my breasts in the womens’ restroom. “Did she use those exact words?” A friend’s husband asked. “Not those words exactly. But close enough.” I said. “On the bright side, at least if I got hit on by someone tonight.”

Taking stock

2006-12-03T15:39:00.000-08:00

On Saturday night, after my social plans fell through and I’d watched my fill of football and grumbled about different BCS scenarios, I had considerable time to myself to think about my current dating status. (I was a pensive mood, not in a “woe is single me for being home alone on a Saturday night” mood, because, truthfully, a belly full of gumbo and beer makes cuddling under blankets on a cold and windy Saturday night that much nicer.) Things with On Paper, well, are disappointing. And I think this is because I we have varying expectations. This is completely my fault – he wanted to date me back in June and I freaked out about his pending divorce and broke things off after a bad experience with him. And then I remembered how much he liked me when I saw him out one night and text messaged him late one evening after being rebuffed by The Nurse. (And while we’re talking about The Nurse, I got an instant message from him the other day that said, “Want to find your match? Visit this site” and gave some URL. Before I could think twice, I’d responded with an “Excuse me?” because the fact that he'd send me THAT message or all messages made my blood boil. It took me about a minute to realize it was IM spam and that he must’ve had a virus. This whole experience confirmed my suspicions that when he decided he didn’t want to see me anymore, he blocked me on his friends list so I couldn’t see when he was online, which makes him the least mature person I’ve ever dated as an adult.) But back to On Paper. Since that fateful night where we met for a late night drink and then went back to his place under the guise of watching a movie, I have hung out with him twice. Once we met up for a drink and nightcap and then two weeks ago we went on an actual date – a movie, James Bond – and I had a really good time. And so when he called to apologize for not calling and we discussed hanging out this weekend, I’d assumed he wanted to move back to the dating track. And despite some concerns of my own, I was ready to do this as well. Which brings me back to being alone on Saturday night when he rebuffed my suggestion that we get a drink because he had to clean his house for company the next day. And it was like someone let the air out of my tires – a man opted for chores over Charming? Not good for my self-esteem. Of course I understand why he would think I was only interested in seeing him casually. Until recently I couldn’t see him as much more than a late-night phone call. But something made me want to give it a go, perhaps because he’s so polite and can be the perfect date. He even won me a teddy bear from one of those claw vending machines. Seriously. A teddy bear. That is so cute I that I think I might vomit.

Site note

2006-12-03T14:25:00.000-08:00

You’ll notice that I removed the NaNoWriMo button. I didn’t finish. I think I wrote 2,000 words. I couldn’t focus. I obviously wasn’t ready to commit to that much writing. Congrats to those who were.

I thought this was nice, but apparently I am wrong …

2006-12-01T08:35:00.000-08:00

I was pleasantly surprised to have a message from On Paper* last night. He was genuinely apologetic for not returning a text message I sent last week. (We'd gone on a movie date two weekends ago.)

I returned his call and we had a quick conversation where he apologized again for not calling – "It was sweet of you to call and I was in a grumpy mood so I didn't call back. I'm sorry."

We didn't make formal plans for the weekend, but we did talk about possibly hanging out. I just want to do something low-key, and I'm thinking of suggesting a movie in, away from the cold and the wind.

I relayed this via e-mail to College Roommate this morning.

"Don't let him off so easily," she warned. "How convenient that he calls right before the weekend."

Sigh.

* On Paper = the man formerly known as The Crier.

Pet Peeve No. 347549

2006-11-30T08:29:00.000-08:00

Saying "So when are you going to let me take you out for dinner?" or "Are you ever going to let me buy you a drink?" when you've never asked me out.

How about if you actually ask me out instead of flirting with me and then insinuating that I haven't let you take me out yet?

I have a job and a life and friends and plans this weekend. Seriously. Just ask me out.

Playlisting

2006-11-28T10:02:00.000-08:00

Herein I admit to having a taste for bad pop songs. My current choice of songs: "Upon This Tidal Wave Of Young Blood" by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah "I Belong to Me" by Jessica Simpson "Nothing at All" by Kasey Chambers "Irreplacable" by Beyonce "Red High Heels" by Kellie Pickler "Wreck of the Day '06" by Anna Nalick "Through Any Window" by Wiseley "Smile" by Lily Allen "New Day" by Kate Havnevik "Oh, It is Love" by HelloGoodbye "Come Here Boy" by Imogen Heap "Crazy Ex-girlfriend" by Miranda Lambert "In a Big Country" by Dashboard Confessional "Boston" by Augustana "When You Were Young" by The Killers "Fidelity" by Regina Spektor "Chemicals React" by AJ and Aly "Cornflake Girl" by Tori Amos "Mack the Knife" by Bobby Darin "Butterflies" by Dave Barnes

The 'roll has been updated.

2006-11-26T10:17:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Charming, but Single blogroll, Poker Girl in Vegas, Experimenting with Love, Confessional Highway and 20 some-odd other blogs. My blogroll can be found here. E-mail/comment/stand outside my window a la John Cusack in Say Anything if you’d like to be added. Thanks! Oh, and Neil, I found you a Cute Jewess! Now go read the real content below.

On Nice Guys

2006-11-24T09:12:00.000-08:00

I am so tired of hearing about how Nice Guys finish last and women never give them a chance because we are too busy having inappropriate relationships with Jerks who treat us like crap all of the time. So tired that I could bang my head against the wall until my obviously Nice-Guy-hating-brain splatters all over the place. People are not so easily categorized into “nice” and “jerk.” The guys who you think are “nice” sometimes turn out to be jerks and the jerks could actually be good guys. As humans, we are more complicated than that. We all have our moments. And the people who are stuck at the ends of the spectrum, those men who truly are 100 percent “nice” or 100 percent “jerk” are actually really boring and impossible to talk to. Because the interesting stuff about humans isn’t found in the extremes. It’s found in the middle, where us normal people live, balancing our good intentions and kind natures against our darker side that is more likely to misbehave and call people names, gossip, sleep around, act cocky and generally not always be polite. In short, sometimes the flaws are what attract us to people. Sometimes the flaws are what make people not boring. The thing is – I do like really kind-hearted people. I don’t always flock to the biggest ass in the room. I’ve spent plenty of nights talking to plenty of nice, quiet guys who never made the move to ask me out. Maybe they weren’t attracted to me. Maybe they were shy. But they were nice, and I flirted with them and nothing. (Not that every guy has to ask me out in order for him to be considered nice.) So I resent the notion that I (and other women) don’t like Nice Guys. I know as well as the next person that dating is hard. I put myself out there only to be shot down and frankly most days I’d rather hibernate in my apartment eating grapes and playing Sodoku than gussy myself up to go try to find a guy. It is tiring. (Because, FYI a lot of you Nice Guys aren’t as Nice as you think you are.) And I complain about it a lot. But ultimately I know that I have to go after what I want. And since I want a relationship more than a nerdy ability to order numbers correctly in boxes, I get my kind single ass out there and deal with spinster jokes from my family and the embarrassment and indignity of falling flat on your face trying to woo a guy or being completely rejected by someone who you thought liked you. So, no, I don’t feel sorry for grown men who sit in the corner and complain about how no women like them because they are Nice Guys. Do you know how many men I have flat out turned down in recent months? Two. One who is cocky and arrogant and another who tried to feel me up a in a parking lot and called me like a psycho five times in the span of 30 minutes. Neither of them were Nice Guys. And neither of them got what they wanted. What I’m saying is that I go out with normal people who ask me out. At least once. But as long as you’re the bitter Nice Guy sitting in the corner feeling sorry for himself because all of the women dislike you and only date jerks who are going to eventually hurt them because they’re not Nice like you, I can promise you that no woman is going to go out with you. Because she doesn’t even know you are interested in dating. Because your pathological fear of rejection has driven you so far into that corner that you’re no longer a nice, datable guy. You’re a creepy quiet dude who freaks women out because you stare at them inappropriately. I know, I know. Women can be evil witches. And so can men. We’ve all got baggage, people. And as long as you keep deluding yourself into thinking that women don’t like you because you’re a Nice Guy and not a Jerk, you are going to be alone. It would be like me refusing to try to date men because I’m not a skinny size two with perfect breasts and a flat stomach and Men Only Like Hot Models. I believed this for many years and consequently kept myself out of the game because I convinced myself that I wasn’t sexy and beautiful. You know what? There are men who like ladies with hips and a little more to love – and I know this because if there weren’t, I’d still be waiting for my first kiss. You have to carry yourself with confidence and walk with a sense of pride. It took me more than twenty years to truly become a datable woman and to realize that I would be a good mate, despite all of my shortcomings – or perhaps because of them. My point? Stop blaming your dating failures on Nice Guys Finishing Last and Evil Women Who Only Like Jerks. (We’ll let the Evil Women Who Only Like Jerks keep the Men Who Only Like Hot Models occupied and away from all of us Regular People Who Just Want Someone To Talk To.) Don’t be afraid to just be a Normal Guy who is attracted to certain women and who would be a good boyfriend and who isn’t going to freak out and hate the world every time someone turns him down. P.S. And if one more person sends me that “I’m sorry” e-mail forward about the guy who is sorry that he stood by some tragic girl as her friend and held back her hair when she puked and let her walk all over him only to be ignored and treated like just a friend … I will go postal. Because I’ve been the female equivalent of that, so I resent the idea that women are the evil purveyors of mean while the men all sit around innocently doing our bidding. Also, if you are that guy and you like that girl, then tell her how you feel. And if she rejects you, trust me, it will hurt like nothing has ever hurt before in your whole life and you might feel like you have a gaping wound and are bleeding for everyone to see. But ultimately, you’ll know. And the feeling isn’t fatal. I promise.

Love advice, 80s style

2006-11-20T14:20:00.000-08:00

On one of the first records I ever owned, a pre-Bobby Brown, pre-crack Whitney Houston asked, "How Will I Know?"

She was talking about a boy. She wanted to know if he loved her. And I remember thinking this was a lame song. Even as a young child, I thought Whitney Houston was pretty dumb.

"How could you NOT know?" I wondered. "It is LOVE."

I've always expected the butterflies. The stomach flip. I've felt these things for people before – the physical signs of a woman who is flush with emotion over a man.

But what about the others? The nice guys who for some reason don't make you weak in the knees as much as they deserve to? The ones who always return your text messages, who always open doors, who always comment on how pretty you look, who always sound excited to speak to you.

Do you penalize them for not wanting to vomit up your guts and feeling weak when you see them?

What about the ones who aren't so much afraid to let you into the little intimacies of their lives? When it feels effortless and you kind of just know things about them, like how they like superhero stories and save their ticket stubs from movies and always eat mushrooms in their omelets.

Do those things matter? And should they? Am I so obsessed with waiting for lightening to strike that I'm missing all of the little signs around me that are pointing me back to one of the normal guys in my life, about whom I think, "He's not the one, but he's one of my favorites."

How will I know, Whitney? I need to know, Whitney. Because I wanna dance with somebody who loves me.

Eventually, if not sooner.

Conversations about ghosts

2006-11-17T08:46:00.000-08:00

“I met the nicest guys the other night. It’s a shame you couldn’t meet us out,” Single Girl said, relaying her adventures from a night that turned from dinner into drinks into staying out late. “Yeah, I just couldn’t go out. I was too tired,” I said. “Cute?” “Very. I got their numbers.” “Oh! How is your man?” I asked. Single Girl had been seeing someone casually for a few weeks. They’d gone out on several dates and he’d come around to meet us for drinks. A PhD candidate and professor, he was polite and funny and smart and easy to talk to. I definitely approved of him as a potential boyfriend. “OH! I don’t think he’s my man,” she said. “I haven’t heard from him since last Saturday.” “What happened? We just got drinks together last Thursday! And you left with him. He is so nice [Single Girl].” “I don’t even know. We didn’t hang out on Friday because he was working on a big paper, but we talked on Saturday. He told me to call him after I was finished with dinner, and I assumed he wanted to hang out and take a break from work,” she said. “Right, sounds normal so far.” “And then when I called him he was very rude and short with me because he said I’d interrupted him,” she said. “Um, then why did he tell you to call him? Why did he answer the phone if he was in the middle of something? He shouldn’t get angry at you after he asked that you call him.” “I have NO idea. And he was all huffy to me when he said goodbye, so I just hung up without saying goodbye. But I felt bad about that later so I sent him a text message saying that I was sorry for just hanging up and that I hoped his paper was going well.” “Right, ok, that’s forgivable,” I said. “And?” “And nothing, I haven’t heard from him. To smooth things over I sent him a text the next day when his football team won. And still nothing.” “That makes no sense. You did what he told you to do and he got mad at you,” I said. “He’s just obviously not relationship material. Because if he was too busy to talk, he should have politely apologized and said he was working on a big project and that we could hang out another night. In fact, even if he called today I wouldn’t date him anymore,” she said. I admired her for standing her ground. She wasn’t going to let a guy be rude to her for no reason, especially after they’d had a few dates. If I were in that situation, I thought, I’d make excuses for his behavior and wish that he would call and forget that he’d be impolite. “I’m just glad I found out now and not six months down the line. But it does suck,” she said. “We’ll just pretend he died,” I said. “What?” “We’ll just pretend he died and no one told you. And then you don’t have to think he didn’t call. Because he couldn’t call. Because he died,” I said. “I love you. You are a great friend.” “This is what I did with The Nurse,” I said. “Until I saw him -- I mean, his ghost -- at the grocery.” “Oh! I saw him the other day when I was at work at the hospital,” she said. “Really? How did he look?” “Like the ghost of a man who wasn’t good enough for you,” she said. “I love you. You are a great friend.”

More online dating observations for men

2006-11-15T06:51:00.000-08:00

Things you should not put on your online dating profile: Pictures of you hugging different children who are obviously not your own. Seriously, dude, when I saw you hugging on young boys who look nothing like you, I thought you were a perv. Then I read your profile and saw that you were a teacher. But still, other people's kids on the profile? Not good. Pictures of you holding a gun. I know, I know, it isn't pointed AT me in the picture. But it IS pointed at the sky, which makes me think you might go crazy and start shooting up at the clouds while on a date with me, which would really cramp my style. References to how you don't mind shopping for clothes with a woman, but you hate having to shop for accessories, especially purses. That is a very specific kind of complaint and an odd one at that. You'll help me pick out a shirt but not shoes? Why are we going shopping together again? We haven't even been on a date yet! Also, I want to surprise you with how pretty I look all of the time and you shopping with me is going to ruin that. And the fact that you said that makes me think you regularly date women who insist on dragging you to the mall, which makes me think you're kind of a pushover. (Also, women? Please do not force your boyfriend to go shopping with you. Because I hate having to trip over bored men while I'm searching for the perfect jean or a new sweater. And I listen to them try to help you. And honestly, they're no good at it. They're scared to tell you anything negative about what you're trying on. Bring a girlfriend shopping instead.) That you're looking for a date within 300 miles of your home. I want a date, not a pen pal. References to sweating. Me sweating. You sweating. Us sweating together. My experience is that the guys who say they're going to make you sweat rarely do. Also, Southern Belles don't sweat. Because sweating makes you smell bad and look icky and Southern Belles NEVER smell bad or look icky. So we don't sweat. We glow.

Something in a shade of gray

2006-11-12T22:02:00.000-08:00

It’s hard for me to comprehend that I’m actually actively seeking a man right now. It’s so odd. I’ve always shrugged off my single status as a consequence of me not finding the right man. And that I needn’t look so hard because he would find me. Or we’d find each other. Fate and all of that good stuff. Then I turned 26 and all hell broke loose emotionally and I realized that I didn’t want to wake up 10 years from now alone and not at least be able to say that I’d tried. (If I’m never going to find The One, I don’t want it to be because I spent my life hiding under covers away from human contact.) But what next? Bored with online dating, tired of trying to find Him in smoky bars and wondering where to go. I get tired of it all, spend weekends alone. I scrunch my nose up at the guys who might be available. I’m too picky. Or sometimes, not picky enough, so I end up wasting time of guys when I know there’s no hope for a future. And this causes me to wonder if I’m at the point in my life where it is worth dating someone who isn’t The One. And then I get all stressed that I’m overthinking and that I should be having fun and not worrying so much about biological clocks and life schedules. I’m stalled. Or maybe I’m stalling. There’s a fine line between the two.

Common sense advice from a not-so-smug married

2006-11-10T01:20:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I was eating lunch with one of my married girlfriends and we were talking about children. I had just seen my baby cousin that weekend and I told her that lately I'd been feeling very maternal. I was smiling at and flirting with every baby I saw in the line at the grocery store or as I walked through the mall.

"It is a bit disconcerting," I said. "I see babies and I just want to hug them and kiss them and play with them and love them. I don't know what's come over me."

"Oh, honey, I wouldn't worry about that," she said, very matter of factly, in between sips of Diet Coke. "You're probably just ovulating."

Common sense advice from a not-so-smug married

2006-11-08T13:34:00.000-08:00

Couple Season

2006-11-05T17:50:00.000-08:00

Though it always feels like I'm in need of a date to something, right now is the time of year when I really start to feel constantly smacked over the head by my lack of a date for functions. It starts out slow. Next week is a casual charity event that I attended last year. It is a nice event for those of us who aren't well off enough to donate thousands of dollars to a cause. But you have to have a partner because you play rounds of games. Last year, I went with The Banker. She was a great partner. We had a lot of fun and we won almost every game we played. But this year she has a work event the same night, so I am left sans partner. We're buying tickets to the theatre for January. And I'm sitting here in November wondering what would happen if I bought two. Would I have a date or would I spend the entire week before trying to pawn my extra ticket off and feeling like a moron for being optimistic about my dating future? In my family, talk of Thanksgiving and Christmas starts early. Like, this week. Soon I'll get my cooking assignments for Thanksgiving Day and firm up my plans. The headcount will start and I'll be the only single adult. Again. And the same goes for Christmas – my brother will struggle to balance his plans and work to make sure he spends time with our family and his girlfriend's relatives as well. The only struggle I have is what to wear to Midnight Mass. I won't have a date for Christmas parties. Or New Year's Eve. And I often wonder if the joke about men not looking for a relationship between now and Valentine's Day holds true. I overcompensate by bringing fantastic food. Baked brie with Kahlua-pecan sauce. Three sides to Thanksgiving, "because I just love how the house smells when I cook up a storm," I'll exclaim with mock glee, nervously ripping up a paper napkin in my lap under the table. Because the smell is nice, but I really hate doing so many dishes.

The perils of flirting in costume

2006-11-01T07:39:00.000-08:00

Costumes add an interesting challenge to flirting. While most women I know go for subtly slutty (or outright whorish, depending on the outfit) with their Halloween costumes, men seem to go the other extreme. Either gross or odd. This can present problems. Can you flirt with someone with a fake eyeball dangling semi-realistically from their head? Is that guy in the mask looking at me? Could he take off the damn wig so I can see him better? Is that goofball being coy to match his character? Like the guy dressed as Magnum P.I. at the Halloween party I attended last night. Was he flirting with me? He had a fake moustache and a hat on his head so I could barely see his eyes. Maybe not? Probably not? When I tried to introduce myself, he shot back an in character, "I'm Magnum P.I." We talked some and he seemed to smile a lot. When I asked one of my coworkers who Magnum P.I. was – meaning the guy in the costume, not the character – I got an eyeroll and a lecture on 80s TV shows. By someone who is younger than I am. Fabulous. So, Mr. P.I., maybe you were flirting. I guess I'll never know, because that fake 'stache really threw me off.

Things I am scared of *

2006-10-31T09:00:00.000-08:00

I have my quirks — a couple of things I do out of a bit of fear that is so mild and silly that it is more superstition or habit than anything else. Each night I go through the apartment to make sure that the lights are all off. As I walk from my dark living area and into my bedroom, I speed up my pace a little bit and as I get about a foot and a half from the edge of the mattress, I leap right into the bed and quickly crawl to the middle, never letting my feet get close to the edge. When I was little I was afraid a witch was going to grab my tiny little ankles and pull me right down into her lair, which was under my bed. And 20-some-odd years later, I am still worried about this — but only at night. I also always check to make sure no one is in the shower when I go in the bathroom. Anyone's bathroom. My bathroom, my friends' bathrooms, my parents' bathrooms, bathrooms at a hotel, bathrooms at parties. You don't even want to know how many gross showers I had to peak in when I was at parties in college at some crappy house shared by four boys with one bathroom that they cleaned maybe once a semester when their parents were coming to visit. It is a mild obsession. I know no one is in the shower. But until I see that for myself, I am tense. My sister is the same way. It was mildly reassuring for me to know that I wasn't the only one who was checking for a psycho (dressed in a very scary clown mask, natch) in the shower with my conditioner, shower gel and exfoliating mitt. "It just makes sense to hide in the bathroom if you're a crazy axe murderer," my sister explains. "Because you'd definitely catch the person off guard and with their pants down." Not me. Because I have a plan. If I ever find someone in my shower, I'm going to pull the shower rod down and whack them over the head with it. And then run screaming into my bedroom, lock the door, push something in front of it and call the police. I just hope the Witch isn't under the bed when I get in there. * I know "of which I am scared" is proper grammar. But, seriously.

Will you be my Lois Lane? Part 2

2006-10-29T19:53:00.000-08:00

Note: Part 1 is here. Read it first! We snagged some barstools and I arranged myself confidently, shoulders back, purse in front of me on the bar, my light-pink tipped hands folded in my lap, enjoying slow sips of wine as I caught up with Single Girl, made plans for the next weekend when Party Girl would be in town and successfully defended myself from The Blackberry's numerous attempts to pick me up. He was persistent. Hand on my shoulder. Snappy lines. Invitations to dance – to this I rather cruelly drew his attention down my smooth legs to the heels I'd perched myself atop – they were black and tall and bare, with a mere one-inch strap of leather holding my foot in the shoe. "I don't own many shoes suitable for dancing," I said coolly. He left me alone for a bit after this. I texted Prom Date, "At the bar. You need to save me." And then I engaged one of The Blackberry's friends in a debate about who would maintain control of the Senate in the election and the friendly bet of a drink was wagered. Then The Blackberry was back, with two women flitting around him, both in costume. One was dressed as Tinkerbell, with the reddest of red lips to accompany. I recognized her immediately as the woman he'd bent over Prom Date's lap and kissed weeks before. Her friend was dressed in a mishmash of black clothes with a purple wig messily placed upon her head. A homemade sign taped to her said, "Getting Wiggy With It!" I was immediately glad I'd opted against wearing a costume to the bar. The Blackberry teased me about being cold, about not liking him, about having an agenda. "If I have an agenda, then I would love to see a copy of it," I snapped back, as I sipped from my second overfilled glass of wine. He tripped over his words and came up with, "You know what your agenda is." "No, I don't. When you figure it out, e-mail me a copy." He motioned to Tinkerbell and started talking. "The last time I saw her, you had her bent over to make out with her." He denied it, but not very convincingly. He ordered drinks for himself and Wig Girl. They took a few sips and he announced that they should dance, and left their drinks by me, with instructions to watch the drinks for them. Prom Date arrived and a few minutes later The Blackberry was back, with Wig Girl hanging on him. They retrieved their unscathed drinks and he looked at me. "You snooze, you lose," The Blackberry said, shooting a pointed glance at Wig Girl. "Oh really?" I said, with as little interest as I could muster. "You have such contempt for me," he said. "I don't understand why." "You don't like me because I'm honest," I said. "And contempt is a strong word. I have contempt for murderers and child molesters. I don't have contempt for you." At this point I'd ordered a third glass, but switched to my own tab, figuring that I didn't need to mooch off of The Blackberry all night. Single Girl was chatting with a professor who was now bankrolling her drinks. And as I reached for a third overfilled glass of wine, I was starting to feel a little warm and fuzzy. Like I needed a hug and a long slow kiss. Like someone should be taking advantage of my prettiness. Like me. So I flipped open the cell phone. The Crier/Good On Paper was out of town. And I landed on The Nurse. Now, I am not particularly proud of this, but after careful consideration, I decided that the pursuit of hugs was worth a little embarrassment. So I sent him a message. "Ok, I know we don't hang out. I am kind of loaded. My place later?" I regretted it the second I pressed send. Single Girl (who works at the same hospital as The Nurse) chastised me. Half-drunk Prom Date pointed out that even if he didn't call me back, I'd surely be no worse off – I wasn't really losing anything by asking. This sounded reasonable to me. The Blackberry was back. He had Wig Girl cornered off two barstools away from me. He'd still flutter over to me at times to make a comment. He opened his wallet to show me he'd kept my card – but he unwittingly pulled out someone else's before he finally located mine. I turned back to my wine. Single Girl continued talking to the professor. Not getting a response from The Nurse was grating on my nerves. I couldn't believe he wasn't calling me. I couldn't believe I cared. The Blackberry escorted Wig Girl out, I assumed to take her home with him. "Finally!" I slouched in my barstool. "I thought he'd never leave." A few minutes later he was back at my side. "Where's your friend with the Wig?" I asked. "She went home," he said. "And I'm saving myself for you." And he came up behind my barstool and slid his hands around my waist, pressing his body in closer to me. And he leaned in and – inches from my neck – he began whispering in my ear. I felt his hot breath on my skin and I straightened up in my chair as he told me he was going home and asked in hushed tones if I was going to come with him. "I'm good here, thanks," I said. He left alone and shortly thereafter Single Girl took me home. I straightened up around the house – possibly because I thought The Nurse might call. A few hours later, I woke up sitting in a chair in my living room, still dressed, still tipsy, still alone.

Doing my chores …

2006-10-29T12:53:00.000-08:00

I have updated my blogroll. Finally. And it was waaaay out of date. I started with 148 blogs this morning. I ended with 233. That’s right. I added 85 blogs to my blogroll. And then I got tired. I am mortified that some people blogrolled me months and months ago and I am just adding them now. Mortified. Like forgetting to send a wedding present mortified. Like leaving the house in a white shirt with a black bra mortified. Sorry. I may take Charlotte’s lead and get a blog personal assistant. So, I went through Technorati links and my e-mail and my sitemeter and my comments. But I KNOW I forgot some. So, if I did, please e-mail me, comment here, comment on the blogroll page. Do all three if you want. Also, e-mail me if I misspelled your name or blog title or whatever. It was a lot of cutting and pasting and coffee. A few notables from the new additions to the ‘roll: Best blog title of the new bunch added to the ‘roll: I was told there would be bacon This is funny. Especially since I hate bacon. If I were told there would be bacon, I would not be excited. Best Halloween costume posted about on a new addition to my blogroll: The Franzia Box from bee-spot. Dear God, how much Franzia did I drink in college? My old roommate and I would alternate who bought the box. I want to puke just thinking about it. Fellow NaNoWriMo participant: Life of a Georgia Farmer Bring it. Because I have 50,000 words inside of me. I know it. The anti-NaNoWriMo blogger new to the ‘roll: Jen All Day I will not abandon my blog. I will not! Two men after my own heart: Girlfriend ’07 Because I also want to have someone special to make out with on New Year’s Eve. Pimping the online dating: Yahoo! Personals Blog Yes, Yahoo! Personals has a blog written by their online dating experts. If I date online any longer, I may become an expert on how NOT to online date correctly. E-mail me, Yahoo! Personals Dating Experts! You read my blog. You know I need serious help with the online dating. The blogger whose pain I feel because I am a professional wing woman at times: The Misadventures of Wing-Woman Because I always wanted to be a red head, but no amount of hair dye and watching “My So-Called Life” could do it: Thoughts of a Crazy Red Head Guys, this is who you blame when you have to ask your girlfriend to marry you in some crazy way. Because, seriously, if this works out for him … you’ll all be screwed. (“Flowers? Candles! HE PAID $2.5 MILLION FOR A COMMERICIAL!”): My Super Proposal Because I’ve always wished I had a British accent: Girl Dates London I really like the word copasetic: The Copasetic Fish

Will you be my Lois Lane? part 1

2006-10-28T22:53:00.000-07:00

At some point during the day on Friday, I had decided that I was to look devastatingly hot that night when I joined friends for cocktails at a cigar bar. Devastatingly hot meant moisturizing, deep conditioning, plucking, exfoliating, polishing, moussing, straightening, brushing, combing, shadowing, concealing, powdering, smoothing, spraying and glossing entire sections of my body and being into a frenzy, boosting my bosoms with a cleavage enhancing bra and topping it all off with a black dress and three-inch heels, accessorized with dangling earrings and my new pink clutch from Latico NJ. This all took considerably longer than I’d hoped and left me craving a soft Henley and my sweatpants. But dressed to kill, I ran on my tippy toes to my friend Single Girl’s car as the wind whipped around my smooth legs, which were feeling excessively bare in the crisp October evening air. “Damn. You look hot. I just wore jeans,” Single Girl said. “You look great,” I said. “But I had to look fantastic tonight. I decided earlier today that because The Blackberry didn’t call, I was going to remind him of what he missed out on by ignoring that there was a process.” I checked my lips in my compact and smiled at my reflection. I was going to melt his smug face right off. “How do you know he’s going to be there?” she asked. “He will be there. He is always there.” “And so your plan is to …” “Look hot and see what happens,” I said. “So far, I can tell you that he isn’t my type and that I’m not going to go home with him.” “Uh-huh.” I don’t know why I was so intensely focused on this. Maybe I was a touch hurt that after weeks of bad flirting, I’d given him my number, sure that he would call. And his ego was too bruised from me rejecting him to call me. Which, in turn, bruised my ego because a man I didn’t really feel a great chemistry with had rejected me. It is the calculus of attraction. I didn’t make it up; I am just powerless to its equation. We entered in the back of the bar, past the band and I saw several men glance in our direction. The bar was running a bit slim on guys our age, and we passed through the loud back room and into the hall that would lead us into the area that is more of a smoking lounge. As I shuffled along the brick-paved hall, trying not to tip forward in my uncomfortably tall heels, The Blackberry breezed through. As he passed me, he looked me up and down and stammered, “Well, hello.” I nodded, tucked my clutch under my arm and walked by, channeling my inner catwalk queen. Single Girl was aghast. “That was him?” “I told you he wasn’t my type. Also, he’s in a Clark Kent turning into Superman costume. He doesn’t wear glasses.” We milled around the back bar waiting for drinks. Single Girl ordered Crown and Coke and I frustrated the bartender by ordering a wine that they didn’t have behind the bar. Single Girl sipped her drink and started a tab while I waited, quite impatiently, for my wine. No more than two minutes passed and The Blackberry whizzed back into the room, honed in on me, his target, and was at my side. “So, what’s going on? And will you be my Lois Lane?” “I think they couldn’t find my wine,” I said, ignoring his second question as I motioned to the bartender, who was uncorking the bottle and pouring me a generous glass. I introduced him to Single Girl. He shook her hand and then took mine and kissed it. “Hey!” he called to the bartender. “She drinks on me. And her too.” The bartender nodded and slid a very full glass of wine to me. “She’ll take care of you. She’s an ex-girlfriend of mine,” he said, sliding his hand into the small of my back. I tensed up and pulled my body from him as his fingertips grazed the soft fabric of my thin black dress and I turned to him to smile. He leaned in for a kiss and I turned my perfectly blushed cheek, thanked him for the wine and focused my attention back to Single Girl as he moved on to his next target. He was barely two steps away when Single Girl leaned into the bartender and said, “Transfer my drink to his tab.” And she slipped her credit card back into her purse. “[Single Girl]!” I gasped with mock horror. “Oh please,” she said, rolling her eyes and pausing for a sip of Crown. “If he thinks showing off and buying our drinks is going to woo you, then I say that tonight the drinks are on him.”

Shameless self promotion

2006-10-25T20:04:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I did an interview with a content producer from Associated Content, which is a Web site of freelance writers. You can read the interview here. Kind of long. It is me talking about why I blog, my views on dating and relationships and the future. It’s kind of odd to be called an “up-and-coming” blogger and a “rising star” of the blogosphere. I’m going to hire that Nick Katers to write my online personals profile. And, yes, I mentioned that I’m doing National Novel Writing Month. So I guess that means I have to now, huh? Damn.

Inspired

2006-10-24T23:11:00.000-07:00

I am pissed at The Nurse. Not because of the disappearing act or anything like that. Life’s too short. Seriously. No, I’m pissed at him because he rocked my world and then took it away. He gave me exactly what I craved and left me without it. He introduced me to the only terrible hole-in-the-wall bar in town that serves Fat Tire – my favorite. Illegal to sell here, natch. And now I can never go there again. Bastard. I was contemplating this beer because it reminds me of my favorite upcoming season of all. Holiday Beer Season. I had my first of the year tonight, Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale 2006. The full flavor of ale, the slight bitterness, the extra oomph of a bit of spice. Divine. All I can think is, “Please let the Anchor Steam Christmas Ale get here soon. I am wasting away without it!” Melodramatically, I wrote bad rhyming poetry to mark this important occasion: Pilsners and ciders and stouts, oh my! So many varieties of beer to try. An ale, a porter, preferably on tap, Domestic beer, foreign beer, I don’t give a crap. But of all the beer I’ve come to toast; Holiday brews, I love you the most.

I'll see your bad blind date and raise you a bad second date ...

2006-10-24T13:11:00.000-07:00

Last night at dinner we were sharing dating horror stories. It quickly became a competition to see who had the worst date story. Like a parlor game for singles, winner to be decided by the loudness of the groans heard 'round the table.

My friend went out with an engineer who had a very rigid schedule. When they were discussing lunch plans, he said he always took lunch for exactly an hour at 11:15 and said he liked only two restaurants. It did not go well.

I one-upped her with the guy who didn't drive because it was an "urban mindset thing."

She countered with the man she met for a sushi lunch date, who, upon receiving the check, agreed to split it with her (she offered) and then proceeded to pull out a rubber-banded roll of money, give her his half of the bill and tell her to put the whole tab on her credit card. Also, he didn't contribute for tip.

So I shared the story of the guy who cried when we saw "The Break Up" at the movies. And then talked about burning his ex-girlfriends things.

And I won.

I always win with that story.

After 26 years, she HAS learned something

2006-10-21T23:32:00.000-07:00

Friday night, after a grueling work week, I did my best to drag my tired self out of bed and into the shower so I could go out. I’d sent out an e-mail to some pals telling them I wanted to go out and I wasn’t letting a 13-hour work day and plans to work all day Saturday keep me from a glass of Evolution No. 9. Not now. Not ever. I ditched the black dress I was planning to wear in favor of an outfit I love – jeans, my favorite boots and a silky maroon top with an empire seam right below my bust line. Topped with a cute shrug if it is cold. This is one of my favorite go-to outfits for a casual cute night out. An hour later, Prom Date picked me up and we headed to my favorite downtown wine bar. Love the wine and atmosphere, hate the pretentiousness of having to wait for a table or a couch or an ottoman. All of the tables are marked “reserved” and two men alternate stopping you at the door and keeping you from just sitting – they even went so far as to put a “Reserved” sign up as we were paying our tabs later that night, just to make sure no one took our table when we left. But the wine is good, the place is relaxing and kind of hip and it is smoke-free, which my recent throat surgery having self really appreciates. Prom Date and I caught up and were joined by his younger cousin. The three of us joked around and after two glasses of wine and a few chance meetings with a couple of friends and acquaintances from years ago, Prom Date and I headed to a cigar bar for another drink before bed. (This bar has a pretty good ventilation system for a cigar bar and the smoke doesn’t seem to stay in the bar for very long.) The cigar bar is a favorite of The Blackberry, who may or may not live in the attic of the bar, judging from how much he is there. I had seen him a few weeks before (didn’t write about it) and we’d actually had a normal conversation. He wasn’t terribly drunk as he’d been a few weeks prior and all was well. We’d messaged back and forth a few times later and that was that. I settled in on a leather couch with Prom Date, who gleefully lit a cigar and ordered a gin and tonic. I celebrated my long week with a cosmo. We were talking about work when the Blackberry came through the doorway of the back room where the band was playing and into the quieter room where we were drinking. He took one look in our direction and made a beeline to me. He barely grazed by Prom Date and slid in next to me on the couch. Kiss on the cheek, arm on the shoulder in less than a minute, clearly a record of some sort. He was in full flirting mode. Prom Date kept giggling and giving me these looks as the Blackberry teased me and checked me out and commented on how soft my hair was. (As it should have been, what with the deep conditioning, the pin straight mousse, the pin straight shine spray, the hair spray and the Brilliant Brunette shine cream. But I digress.) “You have to come dance with me,” he said. “You must.” I giggled and motioned to my full cosmo, which was clearly not dance floor appropriate. And I crossed my legs and The Blackberry looked down at my high heeled boots and was taken aback. He called them sexy and asked me to dance again. I declined again and he excused himself to the back to the listen to the band. Prom Date and I had barely had a chance to gossip about him when he returned, more persistent this time. He convinced Prom Date to watch my drink and me to join him for a dance. And even though I was clearly not in the mood, his earnestness was endearing and I took him up on the offer, wobbly sexy boots and all. I don’t remember the first song we danced to, but the second was “What’s going on” by Marvin Gaye. He was completely uninhibited on the dance floor and I still can’t decide if he was being silly or if he is equally earnest with his dancing style. He twirled me around and rested a hand on my hip. He was into me. Bad. A woman he introduced as his ex-girlfriend told me that he was a keeper. I smiled and tried not to break my ankle in my heels. After our second dance he leaned in and gave me a peck on the lips. And I led us back to the other room, unsure of how I felt. He introduced another female patron as an ex-girlfriend and I began to wonder if he’d dating every woman in the place and if he’d ever bothered to go to another bar in town. There are many. As the evening wore on, his flirtations continued. As I excused myself for yawning because I was tired and we paid our tab, he said, “So, your place?” “Excuse me?” “You’re place. Is right across the street, right?” “Yes.” “So, let’s go.” “I’m going to go. But alone. I need to get to bed because I have to work tomorrow.” “So?” “So, I’m going to sleep. Alone.” “I’ll wake you up nice and early.” “I’m sorry. I’m leaving alone.” He seemed playfully hurt. “You’re really rejecting me?” he asked. “I’m just saying that I’m going home alone,” I said, trying to be diplomatic. He gently argued a bit and I was firm in return. “I’m not going to randomly do that.” “You call this random?” He was referring to the months of missed connections. The Match.com. Seeing me out with Prom Date. Making an ass out of himself drunk. Being a gentleman the next time we hung out. “I’m going home alone. Because there is a process.” “A process.” “Yeah, like dinner,” Prom Date chimed in. He was ready to go home. I stood up and The Blackberry gave me a hug and tried to kiss me for real this time. I gave him a peck on the lips again. “You’re really leaving alone?” “Yes.” “Why?” I reached into my purse and fished out my business card. As I pressed it into his hand, I said, “Because there is a process.” And I turned on my heel and walked out.

More leopard-print ballet flat news (aka: Charming is not very inspired today)

2006-10-18T09:34:00.000-07:00

Actual e-mails:

From: Charming, but singe
To: College Roommate

Re: Grumpy mood

I should have worn more color today. I'm in all black!

---

From College Roommate
To: Charming, but single

Re Grumpy mood

I didn't realize color made your mood better. Are our ensembles like one giant mood ring?

---

From: Charming, but singe
To: College Roommate

Re: Grumpy mood

It is a theory I'm trying out. I'm in all black today. Except for my leopard ballet flats.

---

From College Roommate
To: Charming, but single

Re: Grumpy mood

I think my leopard flats are more casual than yours. I can only wear them with jeans. Not to work. What are you wearing yours with?

---

From: Charming, but singe
To: College Roommate

Re: Grumpy mood
All black. Black pants and a black shirt with 70s or 80s style batwing sleeves.

---

From College Roommate
To: Charming, but single

Re: Grumpy mood

I'm confused. Are you a leopard or a bat?

---

From: Charming, but singe
To: College Roommate

Re: Grumpy mood

I'm a leopard who might need to make a quick escape … hence the wings.

Sleep is for wimps and normal people

2006-10-16T01:08:00.000-07:00

I can never sleep on Sunday nights. It doesn’t matter how much I do, how early I got up, what I have to do on Monday morning. I could run a freaking marathon and follow it up with a million push-ups on Sunday, and I still would be up until freaking 4 a.m. that night. It’s the anticipation. Of the week. What will happen? Will I work 80 hours this week? Will I have fun on my Margarita Date? Are my black pants ironed? Am I ready for my Tuesday meeting? Maybe I should get out of bed and iron those black pants. And if the black pants are ironed, what am I going to wear with them? Should I wear the round toe leopard print ballet flats or the pointy toe black flats? Is the fact that I purchased two pairs of flats to replace my big heels a sign that I’m losing my mojo? Is that soft cranberry sweater I bought this weekend dressy enough for Monday? No. It’s more of a Friday outfit. It has a hood. It is a soft sweater cranberry-colored hoodie. What was I thinking? I don’t wear hoodies. I stole my sister’s hoodie once. It was comfy, but I felt frumpy. I gave it back. Yes, the sweater hoodie and the flats. Signs of the loss of my mojo and impending doom. The kind of doom that will come because I’m on track to get maybe two hours sleep tonight. If that. And I have to bring doughnuts to work tomorrow. And yes, that date. Margaritas. Tuesday night maybe? That polka dot wrap dress would be cute for the Margarita Date. With a camisole underneath it because too much cleavage is inadvisable for a first date. Especially since I’m kind of sure that I really am not going to really mesh with him and I’m only really going out with him because I said I would and I’m a nice girl. Crap. It is 3 a.m. My alarm goes off at 5 a.m. Double crap.

Note

2006-10-16T01:05:00.000-07:00

Anonymous comments are back. Be nice.

Dressing the part

2006-10-13T09:39:00.000-07:00

One year in college I didn't think I was going to have the night off for Halloween. In fact, I never thought I was going to have the night off for Halloween.

When I did, I had to pull together something quick. I wore a dress from a formal in high school (always always always keep your formal dresses handy, ladies!) and made a sash with toilet paper. I carried a toilet brush (I cleaned it well first). I teased my hair within an inch of its life.

I was "Miss Tidy Bowl."

It was horrible. People didn't get it and I spent most of the night explaining that I didn't accidentally have toilet paper stuck to my heel. By the end of the evening I lost my toilet brush and had to go buy a new one to clean the bathroom in my apartment. I left a pile of toilet paper in my path and I lost my sash. I looked like a very sad high school senior in a navy blue gown with bad hair and makeup who managed to sneak into a college bar and then realized that college bars aren't fun when you're in tall shoes and a floor-length gown.

I was miserable.

I gave up on costumes after this disaster. I am really bad at planning ahead. Now I go with the time-honored tradition of wearing something slutty and putting on a combo of animal ears and a nose. (This year I'm thinking of wearing a mini dress with wings! Like a Slutty Butterfly!)

Mixed bag of thoughts

2006-10-12T12:28:00.000-07:00

A few things:

I have disabled anonymous comments. I have my reasons. I am terribly sorry to people who want to comment anonymously. Perhaps you should consider getting a Blogger username. (With Blogger Beta, I think you can even use a Gmail account.) Anonymous commenters who have issues with this policy can e-mail me and tell me how lovely I am directly.
I want a life coach. Being sick, I watched a lot of “Made” on MTV. Those kids all did amazing things with the help of their life coaches. (Ok, fine, cheerleading coaches. But the damn show isn’t about being a beauty queen anyway.) (Also, I want to be a cheerleader.)
I just got off of the phone with my salon and I think they think I’m nuts. Because I was scheduling my haircut and brow wax and I’ve been going to two locations because I liked the waxer at one and the colorist at another and now I’m not doing color anymore, so I am consolidating my services to one location and the woman I spoke with was like, “So, you want an eyebrow wax with [Waxer] and you don’t care who cuts your hair?” like I was crazy choosing my Brow Artist over my Hair Trimmer. And maybe I am. But I’ve been growing my hair out for months and I really just need someone with steady hands to trims off about an inch and shape my bangs. I wear it back to work most days anyway. My eyebrows, on the other hand, need special love and attention.
Also, does anyone else’s salon make them fill out a medical form before getting a brow wax? This is a new thing my salon has implemented. I have to list my medications and allergies on a slip of paper before each brow waxing. I guess someone must’ve had a Bad Wax Reaction. Weird. I also have to sign the form. Perhaps I should have my lawyer look it over.
I have a date next week, I think. He asked me to get margaritas after work one night and I asked what days he was free and he said, “All of them.” We’ll see.
My friend the Social Worker started working at the hospital where The Nurse works. We joked that she might run into him and quickly dismissed this prospect, because it seemed highly unlikely that she’d interact with him. She worked in his service and ran into him on the FIRST DAY. Hah. She said via e-mail that we needed to have a serious talk because, “you are much better than that very terrible man.” I love my friends.
Also, I would like to thank Crazy for calling me at 2 a.m., letting the phone ring and then hanging up. I certainly appreciated having my sleep disrupted.

An Open Letter to the Men Who Message Me Through Match (aka “Why Dating in the South is Hard”)

2006-10-11T11:34:00.000-07:00

Dear Men, Thank you for your interest in dating me. I am truly humbled by your decision to wink at me for free and/or e-mail me to comment on the size of my lips in my picture. I DO have Nice Lips, thanks for noticing! I see that you are from a very small town. I do not really know where that is, nor have I been there by choice, I am sure. Feel free to continue pursuing me; however, let it be known that I am probably not going to drive to Podunkville to meet you at some double wide trailer that’s been converted to a bar so that we can listen to Skynard on the jukebox and drink Budweiser. Read my profile. Does it say anything about Budweiser? If we date for several months and I like you, I may make a trip out to the homestead as part of the give and take of a relationship. But if you’re just casually seeing me in hopes of interacting with my Nice Lips, you will come to the city. That’s where my Nice Lips like to go out. But really, I’m getting ahead of myself. Because there are some major wrinkles in your profile that need to be ironed out before we can continue. Why are you wearing Denim Overalls in that picture? Look, I understand that not everyone works in an office. I live here too and I get that in some places, there are more oysters than offices. And I’m ok with you not being a briefcase-toting office inhabitant as long as you are a hardworker. That being said, why are you wearing Denim Overalls in that picture? Don’t send me a picture of you working, hunting, fishing, hanging out or generally being in Denim Overalls. Denim Overalls do not make me lose my breath. Put on jeans and polo and take a picture. It ain’t rocket science. Also, is that Robert E. Lee standing next to you? I thought he was dead! No? That’s your buddy dressed as Robert E. Lee? Oh, well since you explained that to me … NO. Civil War Reenactors are WORSE than Men in Denim Overalls (when there is no overlap). I’m almost glad that you have a picture with you and Faux-bert E. Lee on your dating profile, because I won’t accidentally go out with you now and have to text my girlfriends from the bathroom that “My Date reenacts Civil War Battles.” Come on, dude, do you think I’m going to explain to my girlfriends, “Oh, [My Boyfriend] can’t make it because they’re getting ready to re-enact the War of Northern Aggression and he’s in charge of making costumes?” while we sip cocktails? Hell no. I can’t even believe I just wrote “the War of Northern Aggression” out. I can almost get over the plethora of trucks and four wheelers in your dating profile. I don’t really like the guns. Or the dead animals. But when you are in your picture in Denim Overalls standing next to some dude dressed as Robert E. Lee, I draw the line. I like Southern Men. I really do. And if one of you would show up in seersucker on your profile, I’d swoon and e-mail your picture around to my girlfriends and write three drafts of the e-mail I was going to send you. Because I love me some Southern Gentlemen. But there are moments in my dating life when I start to wonder if there are any datable men here. When the Civil War Reenactors and the Confederate Band of Brothers start to wink at me? One of those times. Cheers, Charming

Makeover!

2006-10-09T21:50:00.000-07:00

Duh, there's a new banner. Grapefruitish? Thoughts?

The Burden of Dating Online

2006-10-09T13:35:00.000-07:00

After having a so-so time with my first “round” of online dating (three men earned a date – one didn’t work out; one turned out to be a kind of nice guy I see casually sometimes; one I actually dated for a few weeks before he went missing), I was unsure of what to do next. It is October, and I have to be honest when I say that I had high hopes to be dating someone this fall. Spring stereotypically is a time for new love and being in love, or so they say. The flowers and birds and sunshine and nice weather. I get it, I do. For me the fall is a great time. Football. Crisp weather. Close-toed shoes and light sweaters. Friends in town for the weekend. Hot coffee instead of granitas in the morning. Warm jewel tones instead of brights. And it would be a fantastic time to be dating someone. That brings me back to the search. One thing I hate about online dating is the cost. I just subbed to Match.com for three months and the cost was more than $50. That isn’t exactly a huge amount to pay for three months of service – a nice dinner and night a out, a pair of shoes – and I’ll be glad to pay it if I end up getting some dates out of it. But if I continue to strike out, I’m going to wish I’d bought myself a new pair of heels and struck out to find a man the old fashioned way. I’d considered going back to Yahoo! Personals, but I tend to get messages from people who don’t live in the city there. And I’m more likely to get messaged by older guys, it seems. Perhaps it is a stereotype, but Match seems to be where the guys in my dating range in my city seem to be. Either that or I’ve spent more time on my Match profile. Who knows? Also, I’m not sure I’m ready to pay for two dating services at once. Even if it does mean doubling my chance of meeting potential fall dates. There are other things I hate about online dating. The lack of punctuation. The creepy pictures. The very odd e-mails. I got a very odd e-mail on a free dating site recently. (I wish I’d saved it.) It was from a man who lived about 45 minutes away. He was 37. And very direct. He said, “I’m not really here for dating or a relationship. I think that sometimes people have romance. And I’m getting older and it is time for me to have a child. Judging from your picture, our children would be beautiful. I’m sure you get a lot of messages on here. But if you’re ready to make love for a baby, please contact me.” The kicker? On his profile, he was NUDE and, um, AT ATTENTION. (I guess this site didn’t have screeners?) Anyway, I reported his profile for inappropriate photos and moved on. Because, hello, I am no one’s baby factory and far from that desperate. So I’m back to another three months of winks and e-mails on Match and the continuation of the quest to have someone to smooch on New Years Eve.

She's alive! (And on medication)

2006-10-06T09:24:00.000-07:00

Ok, I didn’t die or stop dating or blogging. I had surgery. My tonsils out. And I really am fine. But having your tonsils out gets rougher as you age because healing takes longer. And I knew this going in. I did. But I still had this vision involving me lounging about on a sea of pillows and blankets, numb on pain medication, while I watched Grey’s Anatomy and The Office and my mom fetched my chocolate milkshakes, which I could drink without worry of calories because I wouldn’t be able to eat actual food anyway. And I would be able to wax poetic and write drippy posts (see: pain medication). Well, it was not to be. Apparently when a doctor carves out serious holes in the side of your throat, even the best pain meds leave something to be desired. The past week has been a sea of liquid medications, obnoxious pain, headaches, fever and near dehydration. And NONE of my doctors looked like Patrick Dempsey. And I couldn’t eat chocolate shakes because I can’t use a straw and because ice cream makes my stomach hurt. So my mom’s been going all Nurse Ratched and forcefeeding me popsicles and a custom cocktail of orange Gatorade and water (because pure Gatorade hurts my throat too much) on the rocks. In a fever-induced crying fit, I think I swore off ever having any kind of surgery again. Or having children. Also, I promised my mom I would make sure she got the best nursing home ever – with the good rocking chairs – for not letting me die. So I can’t really afford to have kids, because I hear long term care is pretty pricey. Sigh.

He's alive! (And shopping at my grocery store.)

2006-09-24T20:34:00.000-07:00

Sunday afternoon I was minding my own business, shopping at the Pricey Fancy Grocery Store near my house. I try to avoid doing much grocery shopping at a place that has such reasonably priced wares as $8 bottles of maple syrup, $6 loaves of sandwich bread and $19 a pound mushrooms, for obvious financial reasons. But I love the smells and the tastes and so I sometimes splurge on Rosemary Sourdough bread and fancy cheese and the best damn salad bar in the world. Just because. I was dressed for the grocery store, wearing those jeans I wear when I’m not out to impress anyone – they slide down my hips a bit and they’re a touch too short to wear with heels – and a T-shirt from a football game in 2000 (I swear, there’s a date on it), with flip flops and my hair in a messy bun and no make-up whatsoever. I was there for goat cheese, not socializing. I’m shuffling through the aisles and getting some veggies from the salad bar and I look up and there he is. The Nurse. I wasn’t sure it was him until he looked up and I made eye contact with him, the guy who gave me butterflies and then took them away without reason or explanation or apology. Now, I’m not saying that there’s a right time to run into the most recent man to drop off of the face of the earth and reject you, because there isn’t. (Though I did have this fantasy involving me in a short dress with shiny hair on the arm of a Hot Doctor, but it was immature and unrealistic.) But Sunday, when I was in my crappy Around the House clothes with my crappy Around the House hair, I couldn’t think of a less right time to see The Nurse. Couldn’t I have least been in my nice jeans or in a cute shirt with cleavage? And brushed hair and lip gloss? I don’t know why I care about looking unkempt for someone who’s seen me first thing in the morning with bad breath and worse hair. And while in my fantasy I walked up to him with my stilettos clicking to punctuate each step and sexily say hello, in the cold hard reality of my grocery store nightmare, I rolled my eyes and headed quickly down the center aisle and away from the salad bar, past a case of frozen edamame, around to an aisle of fancy root vegetable chips. I flipped open my cell and called friends until The Lawyer* answered. I kept the conversation peppy as I checked out and loaded my bags into the car, but as soon as I was safely alone in my car, I spilled the beans. “[The Nurse] was in the store. I just saw him and he saw me and he hasn’t talked to me in weeks and he just saw me and IT WAS NOT GOOD,” I said, describing my old T-shirt and jeans and the pint of Ben and Jerry’s resting in my basket. “And so I had to be on the phone with SOMEONE to distract me.” The Lawyer commiserated with me and offered up this suggestion, “Maybe it wasn’t him?” “Maybe, but no, we made eye contact, I’m pretty sure it was him,” I said as I put the car in reverse and drove through the parking lot. I turned down the next row, heading to the street. And The Nurse was walking toward me with an older-looking woman and I had to laugh. “It is definitely him,” I told The Lawyer. “And he just saw me. He is walking in my direction looking at me in my car driving right by him. And he’s with a woman, but he’s not being affectionate. So it could be his mom or something.” I paused. “I could run him over.” She persuaded me against this choice and said, “You know I bet he calls you this week.” I just laughed because I knew this would never happen. “You laugh,” she said. “But boys forget. And now that he’s soon you, he’ll remember.” I appreciated her sweetness, but knew she could never be serious. BFE called me later and I told her about seeing The Nurse. “God, what was he doing in MY NEIGHBORHOOD,” I fumed. “That store is three minutes from MY HOUSE. He lives a ways away. There is another PERFECTLY GOOD grocery store near HIS HOUSE.” She laughed. “I mean, this is CLEARLY my grocery store,” I continued. “CLEARLY,” she agreed. “I should have run him over when I had the chance.” “Nah,” she said. “Messy.” * Things with The Lawyer are fine now, thanks for asking.

Pumpkin is the new black

2006-09-18T06:08:00.000-07:00

Though BFE is not yet engaged, we've been gossiping quite a bit about wedding details and plans, which is still kind of fun to do now because the reality hasn't set in yet due to her nonengaged status.

Witness the following text message exchange:

Charming: So, all those years that you talked about orange bridesmaid dresses. You weren't serious, right?

BFE: We're hoping that the color of the wedding is going to be red-orange, yes.

Charming: I think orange is probably going to look bad on me. Are you absolutely sure I can't wear black?

BFE: I'm not going to be a Bridezilla, but absolutely no black. I'm pretty firm on this.

Charming: I just want you to know that you're the only person I love enough to wear an orange dress in your wedding.

BFE: I know, and I love you too. And you're going to look beautiful and having you around me will make me look beautiful too.

That boy of hers better pop the question before I lose my willingness to wear orange.

I am (kind of) an open book (AKA "The post where I promise to answer the questions you ask with a modicum of wit and self deprecation")

2006-09-14T15:27:00.000-07:00

Apparently I get an itch every six or seven months to open the floor for questions. In case you have not noticed, I am a touch extroverted and I like to share. Also, as I am on mandatory rest this weekend, which means no men, no drinking, no going out, no eating out, no parties, no shoe shopping, no anything fun except for DVDs and orange juice and soup. Responsible Me has grounded Wild Child Me for letting Us get so fatigued. So you asking me questions is really just a way for me to have something to blog about without having to actually leave my apartment or stop watching Grey’s Anatomy, the McDreamy/McSteamy/McVet Season or risk doing something that involves make-up, a flat iron and a bra. Plus, I know people have questions – I always have questions for bloggers I read, but it seems in appropriate to just blurt them out. I am giving you permission to blurt them out. So rack your brains for good questions and leave them in the comments. I reserve the right to not answer them should I think they are too personal or mean-spirited. Yes, the PR person in me knows that “No Comment” equals “Guilty” or “You caught me!” or “Bite me.” Yet the woman in me doesn’t care. Previous question-and-answer sessions can be found here and here, so go see what y’all (the Royal Y’all, my reading public) have already asked me.

Makin’ her big sister proud

2006-09-13T13:04:00.000-07:00

The other day I was hanging out at my parents' house before a family dinner. Talk turned to my still-in-high-school sister's dating life, which annoyed her to no end and thrilled me, since it stopped my mom from asking me for the 400th time if I was being careful with the "men from that –ahem!—'service' on the Internet."

"What happened to that guy from formal last year?" I pried with glee. "He was cute!"

He'd been a set up, a friend of her friend's boyfriend who went to another fancy school in town. They'd hung out several times and went to both of their schools' formals together, but it was clearly more out of mutual necessity than actual romance or chemistry.

(This is all fine and dandy with me because the child is still so young. She has all the time in the world to follow in the neurotic dating disaster footsteps of her fair sister.)

My parents ribbed her for his not calling. Just the way they've joked with me from ages 16 to 26. They mean to be playful, but it stings from time to time.

"I think he died and no one told your sister," Dad teased.

My sister narrowed her eyes at my parents and with turned a defiant gaze in my direction.

"I think he died and no one cared," she smirked to me.

Second fiddle? Hardly

2006-09-12T08:51:00.000-07:00

The Friday night text messages started after I was already half in bed. I’ve been trying my best to rest and failing to do so each weekend. I’ve been sick off and on since July and I need to stay in for an entire weekend and lounge on my bed and drink orange juice and eat healthy food. But this wasn’t to happen on Friday night. Prom Date was at a bar that is right near my apartment and he suggested that I meet him for a glass of wine. He casually mentioned that The Blackberry was there, but quickly pointed out that they hadn’t spoken about me. I figured that one glass of wine wouldn’t kill me, so I slid into jeans and a flowy maroon top with some copper accents. I twisted my hair up and pinned it in a messy bun against my head, accessorized and added a light dusting of makeup. I didn’t really want to see The Blackberry, since he hadn’t made a move to ask me out even though he’s viewed my Match profile several times recently. But, I figured I had Prom Date there to entertain me. I found Prom Date and his friends quickly and ordered a Pinot Gris. Prom Date invited me to sit in an empty bar stool and as I did, he said, quite devilishly, “I’m sure [The Blackberry] won’t mind if you sit in his chair.” I giggled because The Blackberry was nowhere to be found. So I settled in with Prom Date and we talked about work and such for a while. The bar we were at is divided into two main rooms – the back half is darker and louder and home to a band most nights – the front, where we were, is a cigar bar. It’s brighter and quieter and more relaxing. I saw The Blackberry come into the front room, but I didn’t budge from my seat or my conversation with Prom Date and company. The Blackberry had a woman with him. She looked young and kind of drunk. He hung all over her while he talked to someone. Prom Date mouthed “I’m sorry” to me. I just giggled and shook my head. Truth be told, I couldn’t fault the dude for being with a woman, as we’d never been on a date or formally hung out since he started messaging me on Match. He had no idea I’d be at the bar, so no harm, no foul, right? It did feel kind of awkward that he hadn’t spoken to me. At one point, he was standing right next to my barstool and I didn’t even seem to register to him. Did my picture look that different? Did not having my hair down make that big of a difference? He was propped against this woman and made sure she’d agree to bring him home – but pointed out that he had to be up early to go out of town in the morning. I rolled my eyes for her. As soon as his Female Companion went to the back room again, he made reference to visiting his girlfriend out of town, noting that Female Companion didn’t know about that with a very hearty laugh. I rolled my eyes for both of them. Then with me, it was a different story. He turned and pretended to recognize me for the first time and made this show of asking if I remembered him. I smiled and said I did. He was drunk. Very drunk. For a guy who once bragged to me via instant message that he had one glass of merlot a night and that’s all, he was slamming back mixed drinks like a pro. I humored him in conversation, but I was pretty closed off to his advances – he’d been hanging onto another woman and joking about some out-of-town girlfriend. And my perch on my barstool put him at perfect eye level to leer at my chest, which he did without regard to if I’d care. He sloppily draped an arm around my shoulder and leaned in close to me to talk. I was trying to be polite but short to his flirtation, knowing full well he’d run back to his Female Companion as soon as she returned because she was a Sure Thing. “Remember when we used to instant message?” he asked. “On my Blackberry?” He patted the device, which hung from its holster on his belt. Cell phones are not accessories and should not be worn as such, except by doctors or others in times of crisis. This is a firm rule I abide by, although I must say that many men I know are phone-wearers, presumably because they don’t carry purses. “Of course, I’m not on it tonight,” he said, patting it again. “No Blackberry for me tonight!” He went on about how he’d been wined and dined by a contractor for work earlier in the evening and more about the Blackberry. He was trying to show off. “Well, I never bring my Blackberry out to bars,” I said. “Who needs to work that much?” I motioned to my personal cell phone and shot him a smug glance, because it takes more than a fancy cell phone to impress me. “Also, I never trust people who try to get me drunk.” Clearly, I was not going to play into his self-importance. Recognizing such, he tried another flirting tactic – “You look even prettier than in your picture,” he slurred. I rolled my eyes, for me this time. A few minutes later Female Companion came back. His hand flew from my shoulder and quickly went around her waist. I rolled my eyes for the both of us. He made a big show of flirting with her, even leaning her back onto Prom Date’s lap to grind against her and kiss her neck. Prom Date shot me this look of total pain and disbelief and mouthed, “I’m sorry” again. I just winked at him. Soon The Blackberry and Female Companion returned to the other room to dance. He didn’t even bother to wave to me or say goodbye. “I am so sorry about that,” Prom Date said. “I had no idea.” “He’s drunk,” I said. “Trust me, I’m amused. My married girlfriends depend on me for good stories like this one – they live vicariously through my single girl adventures. And I’ve never had a guy try to play two girls at one time so blatantly. And so poorly.” I kissed Prom Date on the cheek and headed out into the night. “You’re not going to tell [The Blackberry] goodbye?” he asked. “Hardly.” “He would be all about you normally. He just really wants to sleep with that other girl tonight, I guess.” I laughed. “I don’t need that. I have too many other prospects to deal with that.” And I walked out like I believed this was true.

How to lose a girl in 10 seconds

2006-09-07T10:10:00.000-07:00

Saturday evening I met a pal up at a bar for a drink. I'd actually been to this bar three weeks in a row and I'd noticed that there was a guy who was checking me out, including when I was having drinks with On Paper*.

Saturday was no exception – this same guy was giving me The Eye from across the bar. He'd smile and say hello, but he seemed a bit shy to come over and talk to me.

I was giving off the right signals, I thought. I wanted Shy Guy to come say hello and have a drink with me, but having a female friend there probably wasn't helping my case. By the end of the night I was facing him completely as I'd turned my back to this other man who would NOT leave me alone. He stood obnoxiously close to our barstools and blatantly moved to come sit next to me. He introduced himself, I was polite and shook his hand, but he was awkward and dorky and unable to hold my interest.

So, my friend had a boy meet her and they decided to head home. I planned to finish my beer and do the same, but I told them not to wait for me, as I was hoping Shy Guy would come say hello since I'd be alone.

Sure enough, he did. I was immediately underwhelmed when he told me that he was 41, since that's not my age demographic, but we talked for a little while. He gave me his number and I called his cell so that he would have mine. I was thinking coffee or dinner one night with an older man might be good for me.

The bar neared closing time and I was ready to head home when Shy Guy asked a very forward question – "Where are we continuing this conversation?"

"I don't know about you, I'm but I'm going home to bed. Alone," I said firmly. "It would be terribly inappropriate for you to come."

He seemed a bit dejected, but offered to walk me to my car. I didn't really need an escort as I was parked right up front, but I accepted.

When Shy Guy got me to my car and gave me a hug, he immediately went in for a kiss and a grab. I twisted from his grasp and got into my car as he asked for me to follow him home. And then he said, "Or I'll just follow you home."

Having none of it, I said, "No. Just call me at a more appropriate hour."

As I pulled out of the parking lot, I wondered what I'd do if he followed me. So I waited until he'd turned out and I turned and went the other directions, traveling away from my apartment while I called B on the phone. I talked to B for a few minutes while I watched for Shy Guy's car. Not seeing it, I hit the Interstate to take the long way home.

Shy Guy called twice on my way home and then three times after I was safely in my bed, in my gated complex, behind a deadbolt, door chain and locked bedroom door – just for good measure. I never answered and don't plan to if he ever calls again.

Overreacting on my part? Maybe. But gentlemen, you should know that crazy doesn't get the ladies.

* FYI: "On Paper" is the new name for The Crier, because I feel like second chances deserve better nicknames.

Another notch in my lipstick case, part 2

2006-09-05T15:51:00.000-07:00

Note: Read the first part if you haven’t already. Two Saturdays ago, bolstered by a new little black dress and some darling animal print kitten heels, I set out into the night for some good times with my friends. Truth be told, I was still reeling from my best’s friends announcement of her impending engagement and my soon-to-be bridesmaid status. This combined with my latest failed attempt at dating had me needing some validation that I was, in fact, great. Maybe it is unhealthy. I am enough most of the time. And I don’t need outside forces to make me feel good about myself. But there are moments when I lose sight of this and think I need to see myself reflected in someone else’s eager eyes to feel my confidence surge. It’s a nasty habit I fall back on. And, I know I’m not alone in this insecurity and the need to be indulged when I am down. Drugs, alcohol, shoes, shopping, men, women, cars, vacations, food, jewelry – we all have our vices. I composed the perfect sexy text message to The Nurse on my way to the bar. It was cute and flirty. I described my outfit from head to toe, undergarments and all. “You find any of this appealing?” was my closer. I didn’t send it at first. I waited until I was with girlfriends – Southern Belle and her sister. “I draft my texts in advance,” I bragged. “I am a professional communicator.” “Oh honey, no,” Southern Belle’s Sister said. “You gotta be coy on the first round. Make him come to you.” We settled on a less overt text. The Nurse replied immediately that he had to work in the morning. It was barely 10 p.m. and I was feeling mighty rejected. He could have met me for one drink if he cared. I blasted off the sexy text message, adding that I could keep him occupied until he had to be at work. I haven’t heard from him since, which is just fine, I guess. I was overzealous; I should have played it safe. But I’ve been playing it safe for 26 and a half years and, well; sometimes you just have to put it out there. As Best Friend Ever had told me earlier on the phone, “Babe, I know what everyone else has told you, but me, I go after what I want. And you have to make up your own mind, but if you want to see him tonight, you go after what you want.” The flip side to this is that now I was left looking like a million bucks and feeling like two dollars. And all of the Hoegaardens in the bar weren’t going to shake me from my bad mood. I flipped through the address book of my phone. Surely I had some sort of “In Case of Emergency” contact for these situations. I passed on many guys, B included. And then I landed on the Crier. Now, to back up a bit, I had seen the Crier weeks before. And he was still very into me. And I was talking to my College Roommate the other day and she said, “You know, we all thought that Crying Guy was too emotional, but now that I see the Nurse, I think maybe we were wrong.” This planted the seed in my mind, and after consulting with several other friends, I’d decided that maybe I was kind of a jerk to the Crier. He’s a nice guy who made a minor tactical error on a date and I’m the jerk who blabbed about it to everyone. So, I sent him a text message on that lonely Saturday night. And, like I knew he would, he called, ecstatic to hear from me. I felt a pang of guilt as I stood outside the bar and flirted with him on the phone, convincing him to come meet me for a late night drink. I all but skipped back into the bar. My friends couldn’t believe he’d agreed to meet me; I’d called him because I knew he would. My friends moved on for the night, so I parked myself up at the bar for a glass of wine while I waited for him to show up. Two men flirted with me unsuccessfully. (“That’s a nice Kenneth Cole bag” is NOT a pick-up line, FYI.) I didn’t see the Crier come in and he came up behind me, wrapped his arms around my shoulders and said hello. We left my drunken suitors at the bar and found a table. The Crier bought me another glass of wine and settled in with a beer and we caught up. He has the best smile and he spoke animatedly about how glad he was that I’d reached out to him and how I looked fantastic. “That dress,” he said. “You look great in that dress.” As I talked to him, I realized that he really is Perfect on Paper. He’s about to turn 30, he has a good job, he’s just purchased a townhouse, he’s polite and well-mannered, he’s tall and husky, he is crazy about me and – this is the kicker – he coaches his nephew’s kid football team because the child’s father isn’t in the picture. He literally drives to another town for no other reason than to coach a six-year-old’s football team. (I think my ovaries just jumped a little bit.) But … there always must be a but. I just don’t get that punched-in-the-gut feeling when I’m around him, like I’m so nervous and so full of butterflies that I might need to run to the bathroom to throw up. I have a good time with him, but I don’t feel the urge to rip his clothes off or profess my undying affection. I’m never flustered around him. I feel as if he likes me much more than I like him. He speaks of making plans or trying a new restaurant and it doesn’t even faze me. He’s got these beefy arms that wrap around me so well – but I don’t have to have them there. My mind thinks, “Great!” but I can’t get breathless over him for some reason. We finished our drinks and he suggested watching a movie. I thought about resisting and going home alone. It would be unfair to lead him on, I thought. But he is so kind and sweet that I gave into desire and went to watch a movie at his place. He gave me a tour of the partially empty townhouse, noting that his living room furniture comes out of storage soon. He was so proud of his home, showing off places where he picked the colors himself and where he did painting and maintenance. He walked me through the upstairs and a guest bedroom he’s been working on and showed off the small balcony outside his master suite. “Not a bad view,” he joked, as I headed over to the railing. “Waterfront,” he giggled, motioning to the creek below. He was leaning against the door frame leading from his bedroom to the balcony, watching with glee as I tiptoed barefoot across the wooden floor. I turned and leaned my back against the rail, reaching out with my hands grasping the railing on each side of me. “Waterfront, eh?” I grinned. And he smiled and walked over from the door to his room, wrapped his hands around my waist and kissed me softly.

Another notch in my lipstick case

2006-09-04T09:33:00.000-07:00

Note: The blog vacation was hard, because there were moments during the past two weeks where I just really wanted to write. This post is from two weeks ago, FYI. On Monday, after working most of the weekend, I finished a big work project around 8 p.m. I told The Nurse, he seemed happy for me. I was ecstatic – I felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders as I scratched something off of my “To Do” list. I wanted my bed and possibly a massage, but first I wanted a celebratory drink. I sent The Nurse a text to meet me for a beer, he sent back that he was staying in. I, tired and emotional, quipped back, "Maybe I am just cranky and tired, but I feel like I have been trying to hang out with you for weeks and you don't care." I smiled as I sent it off. This was clearly going to be the text message that ended the whole damn thing and I was just happy I'd sent it. Because you don't go out with me several (six or seven) times and get intimate with me many times and then just stop. You don't get to just walk away like that without giving me an explanation. Because it isn’t nothing and you don’t get to pretend that it was. And I don't care what the books say. He doesn't have to be into me, but he can at least have the nerve to tell me instead of dropping off into oblivion. He texted back that we would hang out and that he'd been busy with school. I wanted to scream – I hadn’t had a day off of work in longer than I’d care to admit and I’d worked from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. that day. I do appreciate that school is a lot of work, but I wanted to reply, “You don’t know busy, buddy. I am the Queen of Busy and I’m still managing to try to see your Not Busy Ass.” Cooler heads prevailed and I replied that I just needed some reassurance to make sure that I wasn't making an ass out of myself. (Which I was, but you know, c'est la vie.) Tuesday and Wednesday we talked and he acted like nothing happened. Thursday I asked what he was doing and he said he had plans with his church. I didn't even know he HAD a church. He certainly hadn't spent his Sunday mornings in July and early August inside of a church, if you know what I'm saying … And plans? He makes plans? On Friday as I rushed out the door in the morning, I felt a slight stab of disappointment. I caught a glimpse of a baseball cap The Nurse left at my house one morning. It was sitting on my table staring at me, a physical reminder that a guy I had really liked was in my house a week or so before and inexplicably not again. And this little flutter in my stomach told me that I'd been had, that it was over, that he wasn't coming back for his hat, or to return the books he'd borrowed or to hold me close to his chest and wrap his arms around me and kiss the spot at the base of my neck where my shoulders meet. And it made me sad, because it was a month or so of fun (and worry, of course) and I genuinely liked this man. I was mad that I cared. Friday night after dinner and two beers at a restaurant, I was to meet some girlfriends for wine at a bar. I went home to change and lounged on my bed for a few minutes, texted The Nurse because I am officially THAT girl and I felt the tight squeeze of disappointment wrap around me where his body should be. I wanted so badly for him to just reply and let me know that I hadn't been wrong about him. I started answering work e-mails and woke up the next morning, fully clothed, with all of the lights and the TV on, Blackberry snuggled next to me. I had missed text messages galore on my personal cell – from my friends, wondering why the hell I wasn't out on a Friday night. The only text I really wanted never came. Saturday after a few hours of work (are we seeing a trend here?), I joined the Banker for another Tent Sale, which was less vicious than the last. I bought a pair of really simple Steven by Steve Madden black flat sandals and some cute animal print slides. After working more in the afternoon, I decided that I would look fabulous and sexy and go out and do it up right. Screw The Nurse and his promises to call and then not calling. Screw them all for being predictable, for running for God knows why. And screw me for falling for their song and dance and thinking that this time would be any different than the rest. After some relaxing, I began getting ready to go out. I was Veeting my legs to smooth, hair-free perfection when Best Friend Ever called. “You’ve got 10 minutes before I have to jump in the shower,” I said. And I continued with the Veeting of the legs and washing my face and and plucking my eyebrows while she gushed about her fabulous boyfriend. I told her about The Nurse and the text message about making an ass out of myself. She listened and dutifully commented on how he was missing out on something great and how I was lovely and smart. Trite things always sound so sincere and special when Best Friend Ever says them – I believe her more than anyone else. “So, ok, not to make an ass out of myself,” she said. “But … I have some news.” “News?” My ears perked up, thinking it was gossip about someone from high school or an ex or something. “Well, you see, [Boyfriend] is going to ask me to marry him before the end of the year …” I felt my stomach drop to the floor and tears prickle my eyes. Like she had killed a man or something. She was leaving me. She was really going to leave me alone and become one of Them. I swallowed. “Really? You’re going to say …” I trailed off. “Yes.” I squealed and leaned against the bathroom counter. I really was happy for her. And I gushed, “He really is the nicest most wonderful man you’ve ever dated. And he treats you so well. And you are so happy.” “I know!” “Seriously, this is awesome,” I said. “This is so great.” I repeated it again, convincing myself. “So, hold [Date] of next year, because that’s my goal. We’re getting married here, so you’ll have to travel, so that’s why I’m telling you now even though he hasn’t asked me officially yet.” “Thank you.” I began mentally budgeting plane tickets and a bridesmaid dress and wedding presents and a hotel and time off of work. She gushed some more about the church where they were to get married, the discussions of the ring and other preparations, like the insane size of her wedding party, since he has a huge family and many friends. “You’re telling me I have just over a year to get a date suitable for the weekend wedding of my best friend.” “Yes.” “And to the gym.” We said our goodbyes and I leaned over the sink to regain the composure I’d lost in the last 15 minutes of the call. I was ecstatic for her, but I still felt like vomiting up my guts because I just wasn’t sure I was quite ready to see her walk down the aisle. I’d known her boyfriend was right for her, but there is a big difference between knowing your Best Friend is happy with a man and shopping for a bridesmaid dress. I looked up in the mirror and rubbed my eyes. And then I turned on the shower really hot and let it steam up the bathroom. By the time my shower was over, I’d washed the fear and sadness away. Twenty minutes later I finished lining my eyes and slid into a little black dress. I spun in front of the mirror, tucked my lip gloss into my purse and hurried out into the night to make some mischief.

Hiatus By The Numbers

2006-09-03T15:49:00.000-07:00

I am blatantly stealing this format from excellent blogger Mr. Pinkerton, who does this every week. I will blog actual thoughts later, as it has been a busy break. (Also, to my newsletter posse, I sent a message a few days ago. Don’t know if you got it.) Pairs of shoes purchased at another tent sale: 2 Cost of said shoes: $21 Cost of said shoes if purchased at full price: $170 Boys kissed: 1 Times I saw The Nurse: 0 Times I tried to see The Nurse: At least 5 Times The Nurse promised to make plans: 3 Plans made with The Nurse: 0 Text massages received from The Nurse: 1 Times spoken to The Nurse: 0 Second chances given to another man (details to come): 1 Times listened to “Over My Head” by The Fray: at least 10 (a day) Hours worked: Too many to count Unread Blackberry emails: 400 (I obviously don’t know all of the tricks to working my Blackberry just yet, since I can't get the e-mails to show up as "read.") Time spent watching Pam and Jim fanvids on YouTube: 45 minutes Black dresses purchased from Target for less than $25: 1 Times cried on August 29: At least three (that I can remember) Hoegardens: Six(ish) pints Harmless Blog Crushes formed: 1 Tonsils that must come out: 2 Eyebrows waxed: 2 Sick Days: 1 Tailgates: 1 New tank tops in school-appropriate colors: 1 Numbers given out: 1 Psycho men: 1 Posts written: 3 Good stuff to come, I promise. Missed ya.

August 29

2006-08-29T06:00:00.000-07:00

Note: Coming off of hiatus for a bit. To get some Katrina context, read my posts from a year ago here, here and here. And this one too. A year has passed and the wounds are still very fresh. I don’t know what to say other than that it is heartbreaking to see a place you love in ruins, to see people on TV suffering and know, “That is in my backyard.” To hear your family members talk about their homes. Their old homes that were underwater. Their new homes that could never be the same. New Orleans is a city about emotion and wonder and merriment. And life without it could never be the same. I don’t have wise words to say or things to offer. I still blink twice when I’m in New Orleans. And rebuilding is hard. Anyone who tells you that it isn’t has never really hit rock bottom. But the signs of rebirth are around us – like the street cars rumbling down the streets, Mardi Gras and JazzFest, the new roof Superdome, beignets at Café du Monde, mail service, electricity. There is much left to do. Areas of the city look like a hurricane hit there yesterday still, one year later. But in a town that still manages to cheer for one of the worst teams in the NFL, the Saints’ bumper sticker rings true – “You Gotta Have Faith.” New Orleans, for all your faults and problems and oddities, if ever I cease to love … For the thoughts, the prayers, the money, the charity, the tears, the food, the donations, the clothes, your love, your support, your attention, the Gulf Coast says merci, mes amis. Beaucoup.

RE: Brief Blog Hiatus

2006-08-20T11:57:00.000-07:00

All -- I am taking a blog vacay starting today and running until September 1. It is for a lot of reasons, all of them personal. But the most important is that I simply need a break from blogging and if I just stop posting for a few days that won't be enough. I need an actual moratorium on blogging here. Days and days of no new content to cleanse my blogger's palate. I am tired and working constantly, I’m stuck in a dating rut from hell and am feeling like to put myself out there too much – and, in the wise words of my favorite cheesy country song of the moment by Julie Roberts, “Men and mascara, they always run.” I know what you're thinking. How many blogs disappear after a hiatus? Go on break and never come back? And how could I need a break from something I enjoy? Not me my friends. I enjoy having this journal too much to leave for good. It's become an extension of me, a cherished placed for my thoughts and a special secret that only I know about. In short, I simply love it. But it can be rough sometimes. I feel pressure to produce new and higher quality posts, to go on more dates, to give more of the dirty details about my encounters, to live the Charming, but single life … and sometimes it gets tiring. And I don't always have something fun to do and I like to just hang and I really need some down time. To be notified via e-mail of my return, please join my fancy Yahoo! Newsletter group and by e-mailing charmingbutsingle-subscribe@yahoogroups.com or visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/charmingbutsingle/. It is announcement only and I'll be sure to send y'all an e-mail upon my glorious return to the 'sphere, feeling refreshed, relaxed and metaphorically tanned. And you can still send me e-mail at the address on the right. I will try to read and respond as I can. Now drink a cosmo with me and go play with the other bloggers on my 'roll … Bye (for now), La Charming

Waiting

2006-08-16T07:00:00.000-07:00

You know what I hate about dating? So much potential around me, but the time it takes to cultivate the seed and have it grow into something more moves at a snail’s pace. And I’m left just sitting here tapping my fingers impatiently waiting. For the good stuff. With The Nurse doing finals, our status is pretty much left hanging, though I have to say that we do talk everyday, which I think is promising. I wanted to have the Talk, but I’m very not very confrontational when it comes to these matters. But he hasn’t signed on to Match in two weeks (not that I know how to check without him knowing I checked … who me? Stalker?), which I think is probably a sign that he actually has been busy and stressed. Or that he’s not dating half of the city. Or that he’s already dating half of the women on Match, so he doesn’t need to sign on anymore. And my frustration-fueled Match.com Man Spree of a few weeks ago left me e-mailing a few guys, but that seems to have fizzled, probably because I wasn’t very dedicated to it. I also chatted with The Blackberry, who I think doesn’t really remember too much about me, honestly. Which is hysterical. And The Crier has been messaging me. He’s moved into a new townhouse and he said he wants me to have me over for a glass of wine. (Even after I told him I was seeing someone. Because, you know, if you’re going to overstate a relationship, you should at least have a good reason, like not having to see the guy who cried on a date again …) That sound you hear is me blocking him on Messenger and running away quickly in high heels …

Weekend Update: Sleeping on it

2006-08-13T08:04:00.000-07:00

(Note: This is long. Sorry. Treats for people who read all 1700 words and comment!) Friday night I had plans to get all gussied up with The Lawyer and pals because she was in town for some sort of law-related meeting for the day. I’d had a long week and I was feeling generally grumpy, hormonal, emotional and restless. I’d already cried once in the past few days from sheer frustration about nothing really important and a night out with my good friends sounded like just the salve for my wounded spirit. I know what my friends like. And when The Lawyer comes in town, I always chill a bottle of cheap champagne and get guacamole, salsa and other nacho fixins for a pre-dinner cocktail-hour-slash-hair-and-make-up session. A few glasses of mass produced champagne, some serious hair straightening, two black dresses and some heels later, we were off to eat at a new bistro I love with Southern Belle. We’d wanted to have a small girls-only dinner alone for the three of us to catch up about work and life and, most importantly, men and sex. Now, I have to flash back to say that I did invite The Nurse to come meet us after dinner for drinks at a Fancy Downtown Wine Bar, but he declined due to low cash flow. He explained that he was on a tight budget while he waited for his fall student loan to come in and because of his lighter work schedule (he takes summer session finals next week) and that he couldn’t afford the Fancy Downtown Wine Bar. I felt for him because I remember being in school and looking down at my wallet, thinking, “How can I possibly only have $23.12 to live off of until my loan check gets here?” I thought about offering to pay, but decided that might bruise his ego too much. That said, I was pretty hurt. TOO hurt. I explained that a friend was in from out of town and how we were getting dressed up all pretty and he apologized for not going. And I said it was okay because I didn’t want him to feel bad, even though it felt not okay at all. There was a little part of me that was furious – how did he not know how important this was to me? And I could feel the tears of frustration returning and I rushed to the bathroom at work and splashed water on my face and decided that before I let my outrage overtake me, I’d give myself a day or two to calm down. After all, I’d almost flown into a rage earlier in the week when I couldn’t find a Diet Coke at a store – clearly I was in the middle of hormone-induced hell. (As an aside, I don’t normally blame being emotional on my hormones and generally think women who use PMS as a constant excuse for bitchiness are pretty lame, but for various health-related reasons I had a much rougher time than normal this month. I feel much better now, thanksforasking.) Also, I didn’t say, “[Nurse] this is a good friend of mine from college and I’d like you to come be my boyfriend for tonight so that my friends will get to meet you because I think you are fantastic and that they are fantastic and it would be nice if y’all met.” Instead, I said, “Oh, it’s okay! Another time.” And I decided that before I let Irrational Charming take over, I’d at least give it a few days to see if I was still mad. (And I’d give him the benefit of the doubt, because apparently he isn’t a mind reader? Who knew?) But back to dinner. We talked about a lot of things, but my giddiness about my blossoming relationship caused me to gush. A lot. And I’m sure I yapped on about him, as you would expect from someone who is generally over the moon with the person he or she is dating. And I didn’t feel bad about it because I have been in the opposite role many a time with The Lawyer when she was all breathless over some guy and couldn’t be stopped from sharing every detail of his wonderfulness. Sure, we all may gag and roll our eyes, but true friends sit there and listen to you drool about how cute it was when he cradled you while you were watching Rent that time and how cute he is when he smokes a cigarette. (Somewhere in the Best Friend Contract is a clause about listening to about your friends’ new relationships and new men because you know that they will listen about yours, which has a partner clause about breakups and broken hearts and men to hate.) We left the restaurant and headed to the bar, texting people to meet us. In the end, The Banker and Prom Date joined us and we ran into some other friends once we got there. They were arranging our table and we were settling in when The Nurse called. I left the group to stand in the lobby and talk to him. “Heeeello,” he said, sounding so damn cute. “Hi, how are you?” I replied, my voice raising a few octaves to my I-am-swooning-because-you-are-so-damn-cute level. I was hoping he was calling to come meet us. “I have a song stuck in my head,” he said. “Oh? What’s that?” I was confused. He called because he had a song stuck in his head? And then he started singing the most ridiculous version of “Today For You” from Rent, which reminded him of me because we’d watched it together. It was so silly that I wished he was right there because I would have pushed him up against the wall and kissed him full on the lips in front of the Fancy Downtown Wine Bar and God and my friends and the whole damn world. “Toooodaaaay for yoooou, toooomorrow for meeee,” he continued. I could tell his was dancing around being silly. “You’d make a pretty mean drag queen,” I joked. “Maybe you can borrow some of my shoes.” We talked for a few minutes and I decided then in there that The Nurse does like me and that while the relationship was far from ideal right now, the strong physical chemistry we have and the affection we both obviously feel for each other was a good enough combination to at least try to see where this goes. I wished him a good evening (he was heading to his dive bar, where we both could drink all night for the cost of one glass of white wine from Argentina that I drank with glee) and bid him adieu. We sent cute text messages back and forth all night. I had a good time we my friends at the bar and I slowed my drinking to a crawl because it was obvious that The Lawyer was too drunk to drive us home. After several glasses of water and a few hours, I felt fine. “Where is Nurse!” she slurred at me. “He’s at his bar, I told you he wasn’t coming.” “Then we’re going to his bar.” “Oh, no we’re not.” “Why?” “I invited him to come, he didn’t want to and so I’m not going over there. He had his chance to see me tonight and he didn’t take it.” “Are you ashamed of him?” “WHAT?” I was floored when she asked this. I was so far from ashamed of The Nurse. I wanted to run around with him next to me and tell random strangers on the street, “This is The Nurse and he is my boyfriend and he’s a really good kisser.” “Well, are you ashamed of us?” “No, babe, I’m just unsure of our relationship and I’m not ready to bombard him with everyone right now.” And then she went on a tirade about how she never came in town (not totally true) and she was never going to get to meet him and it was unfair. And she tried to grab my phone and send him a text message, saying that she’d explain that it was her and asking if we could meet up with him. “No. Absolutely not.” I tucked my phone in my clutch and set it on my lap. “He’ll think it is cute!” “No, he won’t. He’ll think it is neurotic and weird and we are not doing it. Men do not think that stuff like that is cute.” I shot Prom Date a glance and he nodded in agreement. “We used to do stuff like that back in the day!” “And none of our relationships have ever worked out before.” She was silent. We left several hours later after I was cornered by a man with the hugest ears in the world who talked my normal-sized ears off about school and work and whatever else interested him. He asked for a business card and I apologized for not having one and breathed a sigh of relief when he left. I gathered The Lawyer up and got her to the car. And she slurred the whole way home about not getting to meet The Nurse. And I called him to tell him goodnight and she was yelling in the background about him coming over. “So, what are you doing now?” he asked. “Putting my extremely drunk friend to bed,” I said. “Wanna watch a movie?” “Um, no movie tonight.” And The Lawyer started yelling, “Movie! Watch a movie!” I finally got her home and she put on her pajamas and ate her leftovers from dinner. We talked while snacking and somehow the conversation took a turn back to how upset she was that she hadn’t met The Nurse. “I’m sorry, it just wasn’t the right time,” I said. “Well, I had to hear about him all night, at least you could have introduced us,” she said, with a hint of venom to her voice. I rolled my eyes and went into the bathroom to change into my pajamas. When I came out, she was asleep on the couch. And I didn’t know it then, but she would be gone before I woke up the next morning. It took me awhile to get to sleep that night. I kept thinking about what she’d said. Had I talked about him that much? Had I been unreasonable? Had I acted any different than any of my other friends would act if they were in the midst of a fledgling courtship? Why did she seem so angry about this guy I was clearly starting to adore? I didn’t get the answers just then, but I felt better about it all by the time the sun started peeking through my shades the next morning.

Make me a match ...

2006-08-11T06:08:00.000-07:00

There was a time when I used to get all excited about my new matches from online dating. I’d get the little “potential matches” e-mails and think, “Oh! New guys! Yay!” Now, not so much. My thrice weekly match.com e-mail of potential matches recommends that I could "match" with the following people:

A guy I went to elementary school with, not to be confused with any of the other guys I went to school with that it has tried to set me up with.
The Nurse, which is nice, because it's good to know that Match thinks I'm compatible with a guy I'm dating.
A guy who has a screenname that indicates that he is a "nuclear" provider of oral pleasure for women. (Seriously.)
A man who is, no lie, dressed in a tux with no shoes and is standing with one foot on the ground and one propped up really high on the arm of a couch. (Really? That's the BEST picture you have?) Also, he doesn't want kids, which is not in line with my preferences at all. (Even when I SAY what I want I don’t get it!)

This is not helping. I just want to date one person and be done with it.

Boys, Boys, Boys

2006-08-10T13:34:00.000-07:00

I was snuggled in bed the other night when a text message from a high school buddy (My Prom Date, actually) invited me to come have a drink. He's recently moved back to town and it seemed like a good idea and he was at a nearby bar and I figured what the hell. I slid back into my wrap dress from work that day – minus the camisole that made it work appropriate. In 10 minutes I was out of the house and heading to the bar for a Cosmo with Absolut and good company.

I found my friend and joined him in a slouchy leather couch and immediately saw a good friend's ex-husband sitting across the way. He had to have seen me and my friend and it was made worse by the fact that both of us were in the wedding. The ex-groom unites with his ex bridesmaid and ex groomsman? Classic.

I procured a Cosmo and settled in to catch up with Prom Date, who is looking for a job and generally enjoying his first few days back in town. He's sweet and when I was 16 I was so sure he liked me oh so much. (He didn't.) But there's no chemistry at all and we just get along really well and it is nice to have him back from New Orleans. (My grandmother still thinks we're getting married.)

In the middle of out nice conversation, I noticed a group of people enter and gather nearby our couch. And one of them looked oh-so-familiar. It was The Crier, with his friends.

Of course he rushed over to say hello and gave me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek and started talking nonstop about how his divorce was final Monday and he was closing on his townhouse on Thursday and he's been so busy and he misses talking to me. And then he invited me to join their group in the next room for a birthday celebration and I politely declined.

I settled back into the couch and Prom Date was like, "Who is that guy?" And before I could tell him the story, The Crier was dragging a friend over to meet me. I stood up and shook hands and smiled.

I sat down on the couch again, slightly annoyed because I really just wanted to drink my Cosmo with my pal and talk about stuff. And I finally got a chance to tell Prom Date about The Crier and seeing the movie. Prom Date interrupted me.

“Wasn’t that movie a comedy?”

“Yes, but that really isn’t the point.”

“Well, that guy OBVIOUSLY likes you.”

“Really? Still?”

“Yes, really. Obviously. Totally.”

I giggled uncomfortably and we continued our conversation.

Then, Prom Date giggled as a man walked by. I raised an eyebrow.

“That’s your friend,” he said.

“Who?”

“[The Blackberry].”

The Blackberry actually knows Prom Date and was there the first night we met. And after the messaging and finding me on MySpace and trying to get me to come out, The Blackberry never actually met me for a date and it kind of fizzled. And he sat at the bar near our couch and didn’t come over and say hello. He just drank a lone glass of red wine and played with his Blackberry.

“Are you going to go over there?”

“Um, no, he never asked me out. He e-mailed me and found me on MySpace and we chatted, but he never went as far as asking me out and he could come say hello now and I’m not running over there. Plus, I’m kind of dating someone. Not, like, exclusively or officially or anything. But, you know, we’re seeing each other.”

And then I told Prom Date about The Nurse and got all mushy and it was fun.

I ordered another Cosmo and snagged a cigarette from Prom Date. I lit it and took a drag. It tasted not as good as when I share them with The Nurse.

In walked The Crier, with another friend.

“[Charming], this is my college roommate. He’s the birthday boy.”

“Oh, Happy Birthday. Nice to meet you,” I said, standing up for the third time, regretting ever having smiled and waved and hugged him when he came inside. We talked for a few more minutes. I was starting to feel more than slightly uncomfortable with this attention. His friends seemed mildly confused as to why he was introducing me. We went on two dates. Hardly anything to write home about.

He left us alone and I rolled my eyes and settled back into the couch.

I tried to determine if The Blackberry had noticed me. There was no way that he hadn’t. Had he not recognized me? My hair was back, but surely he saw me with a mutual acquaintance.

We rambled on and I labored over my second Cosmo, just enjoying hanging out with Prom Date and not being at work and getting to relax and have a good time.

And then The Crier and company came in. They were leaving. So, of course, he had to come tell me goodbye. And talk to me. For the fourth time that night. (That’s TWO times for each date we went on!)

He gave me a hug and kept an arm around my waist, promised to check in with me (yay, right?), told me how great I looked and how glad he was to see me and how he missed talking to me and how happy he was to be divorced.

I smiled and nodded a lot. I waited for him to leave the bar and collapsed (in a very ladylike way) on the couch next to Prom Date.

“What did I do to deserve to have this guy that I don’t even like fall all over me like that? I mean, really. Who did I piss off?”

He just laughed.

We finished our drinks and decided that it was probably better to sleep than for me to have a third Cosmo. As I headed out, I put my shoulders back, smiled and walked past the bar where The Blackberry was, wondering if he’d check me out.

He did.

Raining on Sunday

2006-08-07T10:19:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning, er, early afternoon, after being up much, much too late with The Nurse on Saturday night, we finally managed to pry ourselves from sleep, only to hear the rain coming down hard against the window in my room.

A rainy Sunday. The best kind.

He suggested that we watch a movie and we decided on "Rent," which amused me, since most guys I've dated would rather die than watch a musical. We propped up against the pillows and watched and I tried not to sing along too much, seeing as I know all of the songs from the movie version.

I love "Rent." It is one of those movies that I imagine will always make me cry, like "Steel Magnolias" when Sally Field is in the cemetery and she starts screaming, "I could run from here to Texas and back. But my daughter can't! She NEVER COULD." Or when Maggie reads that ee cummings poem in "In Her Shoes." Or when Carrie and Aidan break up at Charlotte's wedding in Season Three of "Sex and the City."

I'm girlie girl and a sucker for a good tear-jerkin' plotline and when Angel dies in "Rent" and Maureen gets to the part about them being the lucky ones and then Collins sings the reprise of "I'll Cover You," well, I turn into a tear factory.

I am aware of this on Sunday morning and I'm trying to keep it all in check, but of course I feel the tears coming on. And I'm trying not to sniffle, because I feel like it is a bit too early in my nonrelationship for blatant displays of emotion and that I've recently dumped a guy for crying during a movie – although that was arguably different. I tried to slyly wipe my eye.

The Nurse noticed and stretched out an arm around me.

"Come here," he said, and he pulled me into the crook of his body and my head rested on his chest. And I tried not to cry too hard for poor Angel and the Rent family, which of course, is impossible as Collins booms in his deep voice the song that just months before spoke to his and Angel's blossoming love.

It felt nice, like I could stay bundled up in his arms all day. Like something a couple would do. Like what I' ve been wanting. Like maybe I've been overreacting to the things he does that annoy me, like his tendency to not plan in advance.

After the movie, we decided to eat lunch and then he headed back to my bed. It was still raining and I was feeling like putting the afternoon to good use, so I crawled on top of him and tried to take away the remote.

"Oh! Rambo is on!" he said, glimpsing around my head.

"What?" I leaned in closer to him.

"Rambo."

I stared at him blankly and attempted to wrangle the remote from his grasp.

"You can't honestly want to watch 'Rambo' right now," I said, pressing his wrist against the pillows and heading for his neck.

"Hey, seriously, 'Rambo' is on," he said, and in one swift motion he grabbed me by the hips and set me beside him on the bed.

At that moment, I hated and Sylvester Stallone and Brian Dennehy and Green Berets and the Vietnam War and trees and Rocky (just for good measure) and testosterone and boxing and guns and helicopters and dirt and rocks and remote controls and anything and everything even loosely associated with "Rambo" for ruining my perfect Rainy Sunday. I fumed silently and eventually took a nap, telling The Nurse grumpily to "wake me up when Rambo dies." And he laughed, because apparently, Rambo survives to make a sequel. (But not because anyone asked me for my opinion as to what should happen to him.)

As I drifted back to sleep next to The Nurse, who was enthralled with the movie, I started to get a feeling in my stomach – if he's stealing the remote and passing on afternoon lovin', then maybe we are becoming a couple.

Reasons No. 4537 and 4538 why I love Southern Men ...

2006-08-04T08:20:00.000-07:00

Two purely fashion-related reasons:

Seersucker suits
White bucs.

All spring and summer long. Updated: By request, the seersucker suit and white bucs:

The reasons

2006-08-02T18:28:00.000-07:00

I know I’ve been online dating, which is really just dating en masse. But really, I just wanted to go out with some guys until I found a nice one to actually date. I never wanted to be with several men at once. I’m a terrible juggler and really disorganized. And maybe I won’t be dating a lot of people at once. Maybe The Nurse will call me up tomorrow and announce that he wants to just date me. Maybe he’ll never call again. Either way, I just winked at five boys and e-mailed another five. Am I being silly and passive aggressive by looking for guys to go out with instead of just asking The Nurse what the hell is wrong with him? Maybe. So why am I doing it? Because he thinks I’m dating other men anyway. Because if he can go out with multiple women, then I can go out with multiple men. Because I don’t want to wake up in two months and realize that I’m being strung along by a guy who is never going to only date one woman. Because I deserve a guy who only wants to date me. Because I want to have someone to kiss on New Year’s this year. Because I’m scared I’m falling for him. Because I’ll need someone to keep me warm in a few months. Because these boots were made for walking. Because I would be a fabulous girlfriend. Because there are so many love songs to dance to. Because I don’t need a reason. Because I’m too fun to stay at home alone. Because this woman waits for no man. Because I forgot how much fun it was to hold hands. Because my ovaries want me to. Because I have a little black dress that’s begging to be worn. Because I can.

The Parents’ Inquisition

2006-08-02T07:27:00.000-07:00

So, I told my parents that I was seeing The Nurse. It wasn’t because I have any idea where this relationship is going after almost a month of dating. It was mostly because I couldn’t come to a family dinner because I was going out with him. And partially because they act as if I am a lost cause – a spinster, a permanent singleton, a future hermit shut in cat lady. I wanted them to know that I am not totally hopeless. That I do interact with guys and that men like me and that – gasp! – I do sometimes have a date on a Saturday night and I can’t come to dinner. That I am hot stuff! So far from Spinsterhood! So! Far! Their reaction left a little to be desired. “A date?” My Mother repeated loudly into the phone in that tone that you’d use if someone, say, announced that they were joining the circus or something. “Where did you meet this date?” In the background, I could hear shuffling and noise like a herd of people running to the phone. And my Father echoed her sentiments, “[Charming] has a date?” It was only mildy humiliating. And the humiliation only got worse the next day when I visited them for lunch. I barely made it into the door and my Father came over to me. As I took a seat at the kitchen table, he put on arm on my shoulder and said, quite patronizingly, “Don’t worry, I don’t think meeting someone on Match.com is weird. I know they all think using a Web site to find a date is weird, but I don’t.” He motioned to my Mother and my Brother, who were anxiously awaiting the details of my dating life so that they could pick it apart. You would have thought they’d never spoken to a single woman in her mid-20s before, which is odd, since I am their daughter. Like this “Online Dating” thing was something I made up for all of the other Trekkies and Star Wars fans. “You’ve been out with several of these guys?” Mother asked nervously, like I was letting rapists and serial killers into my home. “You, like, let them drive you places?” Mom expressed concern for my safety. I felt as if she was judging me for turning to personal ads and I knew that she’d probably told my aunts about this and was considering how she’d tell my grandmother and that soon my chatty, judgmental Catholic family would be buzzing about my dating life and how I met a man on the “Internets,” with that hushed tone of voice that Southern Catholic women save for the really juicy gossip, like when the couple down the street gets divorced because he was sleeping with his secretary or when So-and-So’s kid doesn’t get into Fancy Catholic Private School because she is a behavior problem. And that if I did stop seeing The Nurse, they’d want to know if I’d still be on Match.com. I answered the basic questions – where he is from, what he does, what he looks like, why I liked him. “Is he nice?” Mom asked. “No, Mom, he’s a total jerk and I hate spending time with him,” I sniped. “What didn’t you tell us about him sooner?” “Because it’s a casual thing. We’re just dating and I didn’t want it to be this BIG THING.” My Brother, who at 24 has a live-in girlfriend he’s been dating since he was 18, was less kind in his questions. “So, is this guy, like, damaged goods?” he asked from across the table. I almost choked on the air I breathed in. “Damaged goods? Like, how?” “Well, he’s 30 and he doesn’t have a woman.” “I’m 26 and I don’t have a man, does that make ME damaged goods?” I crossed my legs and folded my arms across my chest and gave him the Oldest Child Staredown, just daring him to answer. He changed the subject. “So, when do we get to meet this guy?” he asked. “I gotta meet this guy.” I threw my hands up in the air. “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you I was kind of casually seeing someone,” I said. “Why?” asked my mom. “Because of this questioning! And wanting to meet him! This is like the Spanish Inquisition,” I said. “Only, without the killing me after questioning.”

Weekend Update: Dating is fun again

2006-07-31T05:33:00.000-07:00

Note: This post is long and I am quickly becoming "That Girl" who drools about the guy she's dating in detail everyday. (Seriously, try having a non-Nurse-related conversation with me. I dare you.) Saturday I came to the realization that I needed something in the way of a sign that The Nurse wanted to date me. As I was re-reading the letter I’d never send to him, the things I’d never say to him, the words I wanted too much to be able to have him read, my text message notification went off. We’d been having one of our texting sessions. He’d messaged me late Friday when I was already fast asleep after eating too much pizza and discussing life over Scrabble with The Banker. I’d returned the text on Saturday and that had started it. Me with the questions, him with the short one word texts. We’d just gotten to the, “Do you have plans for tonight?” stage and I was sure that his response would be the sign I was needing at that moment. That he would get it. That he would respond coyly with something like, “I plan to take you to dinner if you’ll have me. And then I’ll cancel my Match.com membership and be yours yours yours.” And then maybe he’d sign it “L8tr.” And I’d want to strangle him for being so lame. Back in reality, I checked my messages. “No,” he wrote back. I felt a wave of disgust come over my body and I slammed my cell phone down hard on the table in the coffee shop. So hard that a woman three tables over noticed and looked up. And I tucked my head down and pretended to work on my computer, fuming that he’d been so obtuse as to not ask me out. Not wanting to think that this was the sign I’d asked for, because if it was, I wanted a do over. I plotted my next move. After a few minutes I gave in and texted that if he wanted to hang out he should let me know, because I am the lame one. And he immediately texted back that he did want to hang out and moved to make plans. So I felt slightly better, but not totally sexy and desirable. How was I dating The Guy Who Doesn’t Call? When I am with him, he is The Guy Who Can’t Keep His Hands Off Of Me. A few hours later I was pacing in my living room, fully made up and anxious because he was late. He showed up and we quickly kissed hello before jetting off to the show. I felt like part of a couple as he grabbed my leg and held my hand tight. And partway through he leaned over and gave me a quick peck on the lips and when the movie ended we waited until the theater cleared while we talked and he leaned over to kiss me again and jokingly suggest an alternate activity for an empty theater. I slapped away his hand and pulled him to his feet. And we headed out to his car, teasing and pinching and giggling like all of those couples that I usually hate because they seem oblivious to the fact that other people have to witness their overt PDAs and incessant laughter. He was in the mood for Thai, but we knew nowhere to get that at 10 p.m., so we picked up the ingredients to spice up a boxed Pad Thai dinner and some really dark beer. We knocked back two beers while I cooked. We had two cutting boards in tandem – he chopped flat leaf parsley because we didn’t have cilantro and juicied a fresh lime like a pro. And I served us two plates of Pad Thai that I don’t think he loved – but he ate it like a good boy. He took a quick call from a female friend and then turned his attention back to me. We discussed going out for some drinks and cuddled on my love seat. He hopped up to grab another beer for us to share and laughed at the prevalence of Miller Lite cans in my fridge. I explained that they belonged to a friend and he was quick on his feet, “A friend? He likes Miller Lite?” “It’s a she. Not a date.” And I straddled his lap and we kissed. “So, you didn’t have a date over here drinking Miller Lite?” “No.” And I took his bottom lip between mine and held his head between my hands. “You been going out with anyone?” he asked. I should have lied. I should have said yes. I should have told him about The Drunk Lawyer who keeps calling or just made someone up. But I said no instead. “And how many people are you seeing?” I needed to know. “I’ve been going out with women. Like, getting coffee or a drink.” I pulled back. “But that doesn’t mean I’m dating them,” he said. “I’m just going out.” He pulled my face to his to reassure me. “And my friend who called earlier is not one of them. Just a friend, so you know.” “I didn’t think you’d be so bold as to take a call from another woman you were dating while you were at my house,” I said. He laughed. “I don’t think bold has anything to do with it,” he said. “It just wouldn’t be fair. To you or her.” A little piece of me seized up inside. I should have said that I wanted him to see just me. That I wanted him to not date around, that I liked him, that I wanted him just for me. But I just let that little piece of me hurt inside. This was our sixth date and I was unsure that I could share this man, who was really starting to pull at my heartstrings a touch, who was sitting with me on a Saturday night eating dinner and cuddling and being so boyfriendly. We stopped talking and concentrated on kissing. Later we went to The Bar and ordered up a round of drinks. I met a blur of every bar regular The Nurse knew. He was surveying the crowd and his eyes landed on a woman across the bar. “Who ya looking at?” At this point I was tipsy and he was driving. “No one,” he said. “I thought I recognized a girl.” “Oh, is another one of your girlfriends here?” I teased and leaned in to kiss him. “I don’t normally bring women here. It took me three dates to get you here.” He looked at me with intensity. Was this his way of saying that of his harem of Match.com ladies, I was somehow special? “And, yes, I remember things like how many dates it took to bring someone to my bar.” It was kind of sweet. As the night wore on, I became solely focused on how much I liked The Nurse and how much he seemed to like me and put the thoughts of his dating ways away. We sang along to songs by Weezer at the Cake cover of “I Will Survive.” And we settled into bar stools because my feet hurt. I butchered the words to everything that played and he seemed to dig it. He told me that his friend I’d met a few weeks ago had excitedly asked where I was on Friday night. We were both pleased by this and I went over to his stool. “You’re too far away over here,” I pouted, drunk from the beer and the boy. And, like some sort of hysterical punctuation mark, “Let’s Get It On” blared over the speakers. “Oooooh, I loved this song,” I exclaimed. I was shaky on my feet in my favorite bronze sandals, which he’d called “not real shoes” as I’d squealed when we’d cut through damp grass in the parking lot. I leaned into him, grabbing the arms of the wooden barstool where he sat and my lips touched his. “I can feel it nooooow, baby,” I serenaded him. “Tryin’ to hold back these feelings for so loooong.” He just laughed at how un Marvin Gaye I was. “I can see you like this song,” he chuckled, kissing my cheek. I grabbed his hand. “Come on come on come on,” I twisted my body at the hips. He was confused. “You want to go now? Shouldn’t we pay the tab?” I smiled and twirled in a circle underneath our grasped hands, my eyes blazing and my smile beaming. “I see,” he grinned and stood up, pulling me close to him to dance. And he twirled me around twice and I almost fell over several times. Steadying myself, I took his face in my hands and kissed him softly. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. And we did.

Falling is like this

2006-07-29T13:41:00.000-07:00

Seriously.

I do want you to like me. Because I am really starting to like you a lot. And I think we could have a lot of fun together.

I like that you are completely relaxed around me and I like that I feel fairly relaxed around you – to be honest, I’m unable to completely relax around any man, because I always have my guard slightly raised because my emotions alternate between fear of rejection and worry that I’m doing the wrong thing and that my thighs are too big and that this is too much cleavage and that you are going to notice how my over confidence goes away when you look at me like that and I just feel my insides slowly melt and I think that if you knew that I was starting to care you might worry that I was going to become needy and that I was going to crowd you.

And if I could change that I let the physical aspect of this escalate so quickly, I would. But I can’t and I don’t think losing sleep over it is really going to make it better. Frankly, I don’t really regret it all that much.

I like that you kiss me in public when I see you. I like big smile that spreads across your face when I walk up. It makes me feel special and wanted and sexy and all of those things are very important to me. I love when you wrap your arm around me and when I am with you I know that you are focused on me and only me and that isn’t something I am used to and I never thought it would feel this good and, to be honest, that scares me more than anything else.

I feel like I have to pry things out of you. And you never make plans in advance, or at least not with me. And it feels very undignified for me to constantly try to pin you down – your kiss says you want me, your behavior makes me wonder. Do you find your desire for me at the bottom of a bottle of beer? I can’t change that, but I surely want to know. Because I’ll be alone for forever before settling for that, my friend.

Dating at this age is hard. When I was 16 and I liked a guy, I wondered if he’d ask me to a football game or to be his date to a formal. Ten years later, I think, “His job is stable and that would be a good basis for raising a family.” And I try to go into these things with my heart and not my ovaries, but we’re not juniors in high school anymore. And I wish I could go back to those days when a corsage was all I needed, but I am a realist. And I am not going to pretend to be content being anyone’s plaything, arm candy or convenience.

Maybe I’m reading too much into this and maybe I’m rewarding your non-planning lifestyle by continuing to see you. Maybe I’m just conditioned to be fearful because I wear previous letdowns close to my heart. And I will never forget them and that isn’t your fault, but if you could just try to reassure me or send me some sort of sign that this real and not something I’ve imagined, then maybe I would just let go and freefall and dive into your arms and tell my mom about you and introduce you to my friends and not worry about looking like a fool. Yet again.

That is what I really want to do. It’s what I’ve wanted for a long, long time. I just need a sign.

From you.

Bless you, caller ID gods

2006-07-27T20:10:00.000-07:00

For more than a week I have been getting a lot of random calls on my cell phone from numbers I don’t recognize. As a proponent of call screening, I do not answer numbers I don’t recognize on my personal cell. And I have a longstanding policy against returning strange calls if someone doesn’t leave me a voicemail. They come at odd times – like at 11 p.m. and 1:30 a.m. and then 2:30 a.m. on the weekends. And they’re not local calls. Today, I got three during the day. And I was livid. So livid that I almost answered and yelled at the caller. But I was at work and I just wanted to leave and so I silenced the phone and finished up my e-mail and left. As I was about to make a phone call when I saw that a voicemail was there. The mystery caller had decided to reveal him or herself. “Hi, [Charming],” said man who sounded kind of unsure of himself. “This is [Drunk Lawyer]. We met at [Bar in New Orleans] a few weeks ago and you said you would be coming into town again and, you know, I wanted to see when. Please return this call.” Thankfully I had not left the parking spot or I think we would have had a dangerous situation on our hands. I cackled at the thought of me going to meet Drunk Lawyer in New Orleans for a night. This was the same Drunk Lawyer who was a terrible kisser and tried to unzip my pants in a bar. Who was not so cute and terribly dorky. I immediately saved his number in my phone and scrolled back through my call history. He had been calling a lot, but this was his first message. He was getting braver. So I called one of my friends who’d been out that night. “Oh! A boy called,” she said, always the Polyanna. “I don’t remember him. Was he cute?” “That night he asked me to go see his Historic Courtyard, which I think was code for his penis,” I deadpanned. “And he was a bad kisser and he tried to unzip my pants in the bar.” “Oh.” She was dejected. “He’s been calling a lot,” I said. “A LOT.” We discussed options for getting rid of him and his mass calling, ranging from saying I was married to faking my death to (and this one is my favorite) having a man answer the phone and yell, “Why are you calling my girlfriend! STALKER!” In the end, we decided call screening was the most humane option.

The green-eyed monster creeps in ...

2006-07-27T07:05:00.000-07:00

One downside of online dating is that when you meet someone and you start dating them, there is still the possibility that you are still dating other people.

And both of you know it.

I haven’t been out with any other men since I began dating The Nurse. None of the men who have messaged me lately have been good prospects and I’ve neglected the process of messaging men myself.

Last night I was at a work function and The Nurse was celebrating passing a test he’d been studying for all week. We met up for a drink and ended the night at my place.

As we stood in my messy kitchen snacking, he commented on the dishes in the sink.

“I cooked last night and didn’t do them.”

“So you cooked?”

“Yep, tofu stir fry with noodles and mushrooms.”

“Oooooh,” he said, raising an eyebrow.

“What?” I leaned into him and tugged on his untucked shirt.

“You don’t have any left?”

“No, I didn’t make that much.”

“You had a date over here,” he teased, wrapping an arm around my waist.

“No, I didn’t make that much.” I twisted from his grasp and began clearing the counter.

He picked up an empty popcorn bag and shook it.

“You DID have a date over here,” he said, waving the bag like evidence.

“Nope, just ate popcorn for dinner one night.”

“It’s okay if you had another man over here. You can date.”

I just rolled my eyes.

We snuggled in bed later and he started giggling. I inquired as to his laughter. He told me about a scene in “My Super Ex Girlfriend,” which he’d seen that night, in which Luke Wilson’s girlfriend breaks the bed during sex.

“We thought that was really funny.”

My ears perked up at the “we.”

“You don’t strike me as the ‘My Super Ex Girlfriend’ type,” I said, fishing for information about this “we” of which he spoke.

“It was cute. We enjoyed it.”

Again with the “we.”

I didn’t ask who he’d seen the movie with because I didn’t want to be the jealous type. But as I fell asleep, I just had to wonder -- Who’s dating other people now?

A quick thought

2006-07-26T07:04:00.000-07:00

There are days when I pray with all of my heart that the person who introduced text messaging as an effective means of communication when you are kind of maybe seeing someone spends the rest of eternity in a burning pit of flaming death trying to interpret said someone's intent based on vague messages like "Maybe, I'll let you know" or "LOL, ok."

I'm just saying.

Heading down a dangerous road …

2006-07-23T15:25:00.000-07:00

Friday night I had dinner with a friend of mine that turned into drinks with a group of friends. I'd been telling myself all week that I was not going out and that I was not going to drink, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

The theme of the night was "I don't care that The Nurse didn't ask me out for this weekend." And I was trying my hardest not to care, but it was clear to everyone that I was a touch hurt, because my crush is quickly becoming more substantial.

Saturday I ran errands and enjoyed relaxing. I regularly go on "e-mail silence" until Saturday afternoon as a way to not feel as if I am working too hard on the weekend. So I was pleasantly surprised when I had an e-mail from The Nurse apologizing for not calling and saying he hoped I was feeling better. We exchanged a flurry of text messages later that evening.

Since B didn't have to work on a Saturday for awhile, I was to meet him and some friends at a bar. By the time I'd dressed and left my apartment, they'd decided to go home because they said the bar wasn't fun. So I strode into B's house in my favorite dark jeans and a stretchy shirt with batwing sleeves that is oh-so late 70s/early 80s chic. I'd deep conditioned my hair and let it air dry for an hour or so, so the pretty natural curls and waves that it has when I just let it be were bouncing down to my shoulders.

"Damn, it has been awhile since I've seen you," B said.

"What do you mean?"

"You have long hair now."

"I've had long hair for awhile."

"But, um, it isn't always, so wavy."

"I know. I deep conditioned."

"It's very pretty."

I beamed and grabbed a Dos Equis from the fridge. I'd hoped my friends would at least be lively, but they were lounging around being boring.

"You're very smiley," he said.

"I'm sort of casually seeing someone. Very casually."

"Oh … so you're not seeing him tonight?"

"I might see him later. I didn't want to look too eager."

And then The Nurse sent a text message that he was finished at the hospital (it was almost midnight) and he was going to a costume party at the bar where we'd met last week.

I joked about what his costume was and we bounced messages back and forth. B's ears seemed to perk up each time my phone notified me of a message. (I might have imagined this, but it would have been cool.)

After some chit chat about what each of us was doing, The Nurse messaged asked what I though about seeing a play his friends were in next month. I played it cool in my response, but I was secretly thrilled that he was making plans with me so far in advance and to do something that seemed very girlfriendy. (I keep trying not to get attached, maintain my distance, but it is hard.) Plus, the good kissing.

A few minutes later I bowed out gracefully and left B's house to meet The Nurse for one last beer. I walked into the crowded bar and made my way through women in animal ears and various hats and capes.

He smiled when he saw me and gave me a sweet kiss hello.

And he barely let go of me for the rest of the night.

Still Rock N Roll to me

2006-07-22T16:48:00.000-07:00

Apparently, I have official ceased being cool and have officially become old and crotchety.

I set out for my regular Saturday morning errands – the produce stand, various stores, returns, etc. I enjoy not having deadlines and meetings and conference calls and the fact that my most important task of the day today involved locating the new Snow Patrol CD.

So, with my face properly scrubbed free of all makeup and dirt (I wear only moisturizer and Burt’s Bee’s lip balm on Saturdays), I headed over to Best Buy to purchase said Snow Patrol CD because I am obsessed with the song “Chasing Cars.”

I ended up getting Gnarls Barkley, Julie Roberts and Snow Patrol and I was pumped that I had some new music to listen to. I immediately listened to “Chasing Cars” about a four times on the way to visit my parents.

“I have CDs you might want to listen to,” I offered to my sister when I arrived.

She looked at me like I was crazy. Because apparently since I don’t routinely listen to The Fray and Deathcab for Cutie, I have suspect taste in music.

“I know, CDs, like actual CDs. Not iTunes. I’m so, like, old school,” I said.

She looked at me like I should never say the words “old school” again.

She did seem pleasantly surprised with my purchases and moved to quickly put them on her iPod. (I swear, I’m the only living person without an iPod.) She was less impressed with my dancing to “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley and looked away, embarrassed, like the entire junior class of her high school was hiding in the closet witnessing my dorkiness.

While she fiddled with her laptop, I strapped on her iPod to listen to some of this stuff the younguns like these days. I made it through about 10 seconds of Panic! At the Disco before my ears went into a state of Panic! And not in a good way.

“Oh! I love this song,” I exclaimed as I switched on “Buttons” by the Pussycat Dolls and danced seductively around her bedroom.

“You keep pushing all my buttons, baby,” I harmonized loudly with the iPod.

My sister looked at me like I was from some other solar system where they didn’t have MTV.

“What did you say?” she demanded.

“You keep pushing all my buttons, baby.” I punctuated the line with a groin thrust, just to completely mortify her.

“That’s not the words.”

“Of course it is, I have heard this song before.” I didn’t know where, but I had.

She put it on in iTunes and turned the volume up.

“It is ‘LOOSEN up my buttons,’” she said, like she was trying to explain addition to a first grader.

“No. It sounds like ‘PUSHING’.”

“[Charming] it is ‘LOOSEN.’ The way you sing it doesn’t make sense.”

“It could make sense.”

“Oh really? All of this time you though it said, ‘You keep pushing all my buttons’? HOW WOULD THAT EVEN WORK?”

“Well …” I didn’t want to have to explain anatomy or innuendo to my younger sister.

“I mean, seriously, what did you think?”

“I thought it was just a generic sexual reference.”

And then she laughed so hard that she actually fell over on her bed.

Then she made me a CD with songs by Fort Minor, Deathcab for Cutie, The Postal Service, Mae, David Barnes and The Fray.

An Open Letter to Myself on the Occasion of a Growing Crush

2006-07-19T19:55:00.000-07:00

Note from CBS: It’s been awhile since I wrote one of these open letters … and I am definitely in need of one, methinks.

Dear Charming,

I know that you are quite taken with – dare I say smitten? – A certain Medical Professional who is a great kisser and smokes a good cigarette. He is attentive. He is dorky in the best kind of way.

And the chemistry is there.

That said, I encourage you to stop the freefall plunge into Attachment just yet. It is perfectly fine to want things to work out. You do deserve a nice guy who is capable of having an adult relationship. But you can’t confuse this lusty flirtation with anything more than the beginnings of a really good crush with fun extracurriculars.

Because at this point, that is all that it is.

And until he shows his hand, hold yours close to the vest. Call me a cynic, dear, but there’s nothing that says that slowly giving into your desires and developing feelings is bad. In fact, truth be told, it is probably much better to take a step back and wait for his next move. You are stuck in the haze, my dear. You are having the inappropriate daydreams about his involvement in your life, aren’t you? (I know you are. And that one about a rainy Sunday was fantastic, if I do say so myself.) You are settling for his last-minute plans with you when you are deserving of some forethought.

Make sure he’s right before you get attached. Don’t put the dreams of a relationship before the right guy.

Put down the phone. Stop checking your e-mail obsessively. He will call. And while you’re waiting, you should plan a date with another suitor for sure.

And if he doesn’t call, then we SERIOUSLY have to talk about your approach to dating.

Right after we have a cosmo and two Camel UltraLights.

Sincerely,

Charming

Sharing a smoke

2006-07-18T18:24:00.000-07:00

From CBS: Probably not the details y'all were hoping for ...

“Does anyone have a cigarette?”

The Nurse tapped his fingers on my knee and asked his question again, this time to me directly.

“You don’t smoke,” I said, the words floating playfully from my mouth.

His friend agreed with me. The Nurse got a devilish grin on his face and the tapping became more intense.

“She doesn’t either,” he told his friend, motioning to me with a nod. “But look, I’m sure she has some.”

He squeezed the back of my neck, just below my hairline, seeing my playfulness and raising it with a smug grin.

I set aside the leather flap on my hobo purse so he could see inside, proud to prove him wrong.

“Sure don’t,” I beamed as he peered into my straw bag and around my lipsticks and cell phone and compact. I rubbed his knee as to punctuate my smirk.

The friend passed a single Marlboro Red across the wooden table top and I moved closer to him on the corner bench. I watched The Nurse light the cigarette and take a long, slow drag, enjoying it like a smoker who only reluctantly quit because he, like me, was too smart to start to smoke in the first place. He paused to let tendrils of smoke swirl out through his pink lips and rise upward to the ceiling and his hand grasped my knee tightly.

“You want?”

I looked up from the cool brown bottle and nodded and he slid his hand over to my mouth, touching the cigarette to my shiny lips as it balanced between two of his fingers. I took it between them. It felt sexy and intimate to breathe in the smoke through his hand. Almost warmer than the quick peck we shared when I found him at the bar, when our bodies had barely touched, but I could feel his hand almost rest against the brown fabric of the shirt covering my stomach.

Taking a drag felt like the beginning of intense, teasing foreplay and the small bit of nicotine I allowed myself went straight to my brain and I felt clouds moving in like before an afternoon rain shower.

The fingers from his other hand drumming on my leg quieted the voices in my head that chided me for dabbling in the nasty habit I’d worked to quit.

I let my hand graze his arm as I pushed it aside, tilted my head away and shot him a sideways glance, our eyes meeting in a shared stare.

And I quickly forced a column of smoke from my half-smiling mouth and into the bar in one long breath.

Diving in

2006-07-17T15:48:00.000-07:00

Note from CBS: Edited for grammar. Don't blog while running fever. I entered the weekend with some doubts about the status of things with The Nurse. He hadn’t asked me out for the weekend after our second date and I was questioning his intentions. I was psyching myself out and the best thing would have been to not think about it and go out and have dinner with a friend.

But when have I ever done the best thing?

So after dinner, I sent off a text message asking what he was doing. He was at work until 11 and then he was going out with friends he hadn’t seen in awhile.

I was crawled up in bed and, of course, took his response as a blow off since he didn’t invite me or suggest we hang out on Saturday. But my work week had been long, and before I could think of an appropriate response, I was fast asleep.

I shouldn’t have been so offended, but I was. Perhaps it is because of the flurry of e-mails exchanged and the time we’d spent together. Perhaps he hadn’t felt the chemistry I had. Perhaps Match.com had lulled me into a false sense of intimacy. (I’m sure I wouldn’t be the first to fall this way.)

Saturday I had plans to go out with Southern Belle and some friends. I relaxed all evening before pulling myself together to head to the bar with my friends. The Nurse had text messaged to find out how my car shopping was going that day. (I’d told him that I was looking.)

Around 9:30 p.m., as I brushed a golden shadow across my eyelids, The Nurse text messaged to announce that he got off of work at 11. We volleyed messages back and forth as I finished prepping for my evening out. I left things open, not promising to meet him, but not saying that I wouldn’t.

I had two beers with my friends, who quickly decided that they wanted to go dancing. I wasn’t in the mood and The Nurse had texted where he would be, so I decided to meet him. (My friends understood.)

As I pulled up to the bar where he was, I was underwhelmed. It was clearly not my scene at all. I took a deep breath, clipped back my long hair and applied a light layer of Clinque gloss to my lips and a thin layer of powder over my face. I stepped out of the car and balanced on my high heel, adjusted my shirt and headed into the bar.

As I reached for the door, it swung open and a guy I know from childhood came lumbering out in a black bowling-style shirt with some sort of motorcycle cross on the back of it. A big hoop hung from one ear and a stud was in the other – clearly his straight-laced mother had a heart attack when she saw that. I chuckled at that thought. But his face and his slightly curly hair were the same as when I knew him years ago, when we swam on the neighborhood swim team together.

We both stopped and smiled. He looked me down and said, with disbelief, “What are YOU doing here?” motioning to the bar with his eyes.

“Um, I’m here to meet a friend.”

“Oh, well, okay.”

We talked for a few minutes and he seemed weirded out by my presence.

I entered the bar, which seemed to have a relatively normal crowd, a little less polished than what I’m used to for sure. But no one bit me, although a few people did toss a glance my way. The bar was small and it was decorated with skull and crossbones that were more Pirate than Harley Motorcycle Gang. I figured that with that new Johnny Depp movie, pirates could possibly be the new black.

I found The Nurse, he gave me a hug and snagged us a booth. The fashion was still very much lacking (untucked polo and khaki shorts that were possibly a bit too small), but he had come from work, so I guess that I should be glad that he wasn’t in scrubs, right?

He was drinking PBR out of the can, but I settled for a microbrew I love that I don’t think can be legally sold where I live. We had a nice chat and bar regulars came by to say hello. The Nurse introduced me as his friend, but it was clear (to me, I think) that he was interested in me as a date. He was quick to include me in his conversations and explain things to me and I felt him rub my knee under the table when he flirted or thought I needed reassurance. We talked to another regular, The Waitress, and her boyfriend for at least a beer or so.

We paid out, I went to the surprisingly clean ladies’ room and joined him outside of the bar. He gave me a sweet kiss.

“You know, when you weren’t looking, [The Waitress] told me that she liked you,” he said and kissed me gently again.

“Really?” I said with surprise. I hadn’t thought the regulars would be impressed with my dressy shoes and taste for wine, especially since I’d joked that I normally order cosmopolitans at bars.

“Yeah, really.”

We kissed again.

“So, where are you headed?” I asked softly.

“Well, that depends,” he said. “On you.”

He rested a hand on my hip.

“Well, my place is just a few minutes away,” I said.

He pulled me to him and kissed me again.

And I just giggled and pulled away, swatting his hand away.

“Just a few minutes away,” I emphasized.

Snippets

2006-07-14T10:00:00.000-07:00

Thanks, darlins

For all of the kind words of support and the personal e-mails over the past few days. Lurkers coming out of the woodwork and sending me kind thoughts and everything. My word!

Y'all are refreshing like a mint julep on a Saturday afternoon.

The Nurse

We had a great second date. There's been some texting, but no formal second date set. I am starting to worry – we had our second date on Tuesday night and he didn't ask me out for the weekend? I thought we had a great time.

Also, can you text message from a hospital?

Karaoke

Yes, a guy from Match is talking to me and asks me to karaoke on the first date.

Right.

Being bold

2006-07-13T10:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I volunteered to take a quick break from work and fetch lunch for me and a co-worker from a place down the street, so I could breathe some fresh air and move around a bit. I was enjoying my two block walk and generally keeping to myself as I entered the building, pretty oblivious to everyone else.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone I knew. Little Mister Small Town. I wasn't sure that it was him, so I went to the counter and ordered the food and waited. I shot a sideways glance toward the table by the window – it was him, he was looking at me, but he was with a group of people.

I fussed with my bags, slid my wallet back into my purse and slyly fixed the hem of my shirt so that it laid flat against my body. And I put my shoulders back and turned to the door, walking by his table.

He looked away from the group, smiled and mouthed "Hello."

I mouthed "Hi" back and slid my sunglasses on to head out into the world.

Another chance encounter and I couldn't help myself from wondering if there was a reason I kept seeing him places. I am hopelessly romantic and I've seen too many romantic comedies, perhaps. I went to put it out of my mind.

But on the two block walk back, I decided that I let these opportunities go by too often. I don't act on them and then I wonder.

I returned to my desk, dug into my salad and drafted a coy e-mail.

From: Charming
To: Little Mister Small Town
Re: Hello
Hi, we met many moons ago at a bar with [Friends' names]. You gave me your card (did I seek your official counsel at the bar that night?). Anyway, I just saw you at lunch but I didn't want to interrupt you. I feel rude not saying hello since we work near to each other. Maybe next time I'll get to say hello in person.
--- Charming

He hasn't e-mailed back, but I'm not freaking out. Either he does or doesn't, but at least I made a bold gesture. If he's interested, he'll e-mail back. If he's not and the hellos and coy smiles are just friendliness, he won't.

I am proud of myself. I never make such bold moves. I just let things fester until they drive me insane. I don't know where this new surge of confidence is coming from. But I like it.

I don't give a damn about my bad reputation

2006-07-11T10:05:00.000-07:00

It has been brought to my attention that I am lacking in the morals department. That perhaps because I drink and dance and go wild (at times) and kiss boys, I am a bad person, deficient of character. That I am a slut.

I gave up a long time ago on trying to please people with my conduct. I could be morally sound in the eyes of the judgmental, uptight few who look down on others to make themselves feel better for their own shortcomings or I could feel happy and whole and not worry about pleasing others as long as I could look myself in the mirror each morning when I rise and each evening before I go to sleep.

Sunday morning I woke up and when I looked in the mirror my hair was mussed beyond belief and my eye makeup was smudged from sleep. And I maybe wasn't asking for a medal for my exploits from the previous night, but I certainly wasn't going to beat myself up about drinking (I had a designated driver) and kissing (I stopped the situation from escalating into something more). In the hard fluorescent light of the morning, I might have made different choices.

I am honest on this blog. I delete some details and I don't share everything, but for the most part, this is what it is like to be me. To be a young, single woman with an active social life, dating men, going out – warts and all. This life is mine. Much like I choose my shoes and clothes, I have chosen to live how I live and the last time I checked, I stand alone in these shoes and suffer when this goes poorly. This blog helps me see my life up close and I don't always like everything I do. Imagine if you put your own life in black in white on display. Would you like everything you see?

Little comments about my shirt (which, if you read closely, you would know was a wrap shirt on top of a black camisole, so it is hardly as if I was overly exposed when the tie slipped open) have somehow been given some sort of importance because I mentioned them. Really, it was a bathroom conversation that I thought was a cute slice of life and an example of women been chatty. (Also, it is what "writers" call a "flashback" or a "theme" or "humor.") The fact that I participated in a conversation about casual sex somehow makes me slutty in people's minds. Never mind that I sleep alone most nights. (We also talked about our careers, mortgages and played shuffleboard on Saturday night, so I guess in addition to being slutty, I am also a candidate for assisted living.)

I write because it is cathartic, because it is fun, because it helps me gather my ideas. I can (and do) take negative criticism. Commenting when because I think I've been misjudged doesn't make me thin-skinned. I was merely trying to add some context, but I suppose some people have made up their minds about me being a bad person based on a handful of incidents and comments from a small segment of my life. It is easy to judge some anonymous woman you don't know. And, I stand by the statement that if you dislike what you read here or how I act, you can read someone else's blog. (I hear there are, like, millions of them.)

Why waste your time hating me when you can be actually enjoying something else?

Weekend Update: And they have the pictures to prove it …

2006-07-09T22:17:00.000-07:00

I joined The Lawyer and friends in New Orleans for some drinking and dancing on Saturday night. Three of us dressed and primped at The Lawyer’s house before. I had forgotten how fun it was to try on outfits and pick shoes and accessories with the girls. (I’d packed four pairs of shoes, three purses and several shirt options for my night of city fun.) After some intense hair straightening and struggling to apply an almost midnight blue eyeliner (works well with my blue eyes; it is almost black and is a lot prettier than it sounds), we slipped into our heels and tucked the essentials – a digital camera, lip gloss, debit card, emergency cash – into our cute purses and headed out to find some mischief. We strolled confidently into a small bar that played host to a mix of people our age and older and swayed back and forth some to the canned blues and Al Green songs that blared over the speakers, pausing to groan when “Hurricane” by Bob Dylan came on, before skillfully commandeering an area of worn leather club chairs and couches for our crew. I fiddled with my phone, paused and wrote a text message to The Nurse. Short and sweet: “Just thought I’d say hello. Hope you’re having a good time at the wedding. Later, charming.” I ducked into the bathroom to check my look. I was wearing jeans, sandals with an ankle strap and three inches of heel and a satin camisole underneath a sheer black wrap top with flutter sleeves. The top did little to cover the camisole and I turned to check my profile and make sure the lace ties holding the top shirt closed were secure around my waist. “I like that top,” a woman powdering her face in the mirror next to me said. “Thanks … just trying to make sure it doesn’t come loose,” I said, finishing my spin. We both laughed. “That could come in handy later if you need easy access,” she joked. “Yes, at midnight it is presumptuous to think I’d take the shirt off,” I said. “But come 3 a.m., the fact that this is held together by a flimsy belt may come in handy.” We wished each other well and I glossed my lips before rejoining my friends. After a few hours of subdued drinking and some R-rated talk about the ease with which both genders can find a lay, we headed to a very crowded, nondescript bar full of people our age and younger and plastic cups of bottom shelf liquors and some very loud hip hop and pop music. This wasn’t my ideal location, but once a cool, crisp gulp of Red Stripe passed my lips and joined several glasses of pinot grigio in my system, I felt like dancing. And dance I did … around puddles of drink and broken pieces of glass on the dance floor, swigging Red Stripes like they were water and doing shots when they were placed in front of me. I shook my humps, dropped it like it was hot and generally made a fool of myself. The beauty of all of this is that I knew no one in the entire bar save my friends, meaning I could dance without being embarrassed by my less-than-stellar drunk girl dancing moves. So inspired by the dancing was I that I soon found myself trying to force my friends to dance on the small wooden stage and then on the bench of a booth we’d taken over. They laughed and egged me on, knowing I’d reached that critical time when there’s no turning back, when I simply must dance and release the stress that builds in my system. And the next thing I know, I am dancing with a very aggressive, very dorky guy on the stage. And he is kissing me and he is a terrible, forceful kisser who thrusts his tongue around my mouth with no regard to rhythm or speed or intensity or if I’m even enjoying the kiss. We move to a booth, because I am drunk, but I am not about making a spectacle of myself on the stage. And I try to talk to him – he is 29, a lawyer, originally from New York. And then he is licking my neck and swirling his tongue in my ear – attempting to give me a lobotomy with his kiss, I imagine. My friends hover by and check in with me, asking if I’m okay. And I, for some godforsaken reason, am. I miss making out with boys. And so my friends, ever supportive, took some very embarrassing pictures of me. (Thankfully they forgot that the digital camera is mine and the pictures will safely be filed in my computer’s recycle bin.) I am trying to pull myself from this boy when he asks to unzip my pants. I think not. Thankfully, my friends picked this moment to unceremoniously pluck me from his grasp and leave the bar. It is nearing 3:30 and it is time to leave. He asks when I’m coming back to the city and scribbles his personal numbers on his business card. I write down some string of numbers that I am almost certain was not my cell number, smile and stand to gather my purse and camera. And my damn shirt is untied.

An explanation

2006-07-09T20:45:00.000-07:00

We all have moments when we misjudge a situation or a person. We think someone is flirting with us when they are not. And we put the cart before the horse.

This happened to me Friday.

I feel good ...

2006-07-07T09:46:00.000-07:00

Today's a day when I don't mind feeling like my horoscope. My romantic daily horoscope from today:

Yowza! If the stars have anything to say about it, you're extra-adventurous, super-creative and totally inspiring at the moment. And, yes, all this equals completely burning hot. Make the most of your fine self!

Another possible man on the horizon. (Not from online dating!)

Not to be obnoxiously optimistic, but when it rains it pours and right now it is sprinkling men for La Charming.

On leaving some thing(s) to the imagination

2006-07-05T21:47:00.000-07:00

When I leaned in to The Nurse and gave him a light peck before pulling away and smiling shyly, I didn't do it because I wanted to tease him or play hard to get or leave him wanting more.

I didn't kiss him because I was uncomfortable standing in front of a shopping center, afternoon traffic, more than 100 cars and the summertime heat. There were people with children, for crying out loud!

The thing is, I don't think most guys like it when you play hard to get. Maybe as a bit of foreplay … being coy with a boy, acting shy and sweet when he knows you are far from it –- I think this can be a fun form of flirting. But I'd hardly base my entire dating philosophy on the idea that because some people like the thrill of the chase and the agony of wondering when the teasing will stop I should my physical feelings and those of my date.

No thank you. If I want it, I go for it. Truth is, I could have pushed him up against the car and made out with him. And I would have because I have no qualms about going for what I want.

That said, I think restraint can be sexy. Leaving something to the proper time and place is worth it. Timing is very important. Why self consciously kiss in a busy parking lot where I'm uptight and nervous when I could wait and ultimately have a better experience later?

And, I hardly think my unwillingness to kiss The Nurse made any difference to him either way.

He called on Tuesday.*

* I was at a family function. When I spoke to him later, he had wanted me to come help him pick out a shirt and tie for his sister's wedding before he left to go out of town until next Monday. He'd already been shopping, so I had to decline. My friends are split on the appropriateness of this, with some thinking it is a bit early for such a "girlfriend" kind of activity, while others think this means he just wanted a cute way to see me again before he left. And talking about this all day via e-mail to the Dating by Committee girls has made me giddy to see him again.

Café au date

2006-07-03T16:17:00.000-07:00

The first date with the Nurse went well. He was running late, but he called and warned me in advance, which was the polite thing to do.

The first minutes were awkward. Ordering coffee and getting situated always is. The first thing he did was bump the table and spill coffee everywhere – except for on me, fortunately.

The conversation flowed well. He tells a good story and is easy to talk to. We hit on both of our jobs. He told me about nursing school (to clarify, I knew that he was in nursing school and not already a nurse). He works in a critical care unit and finishes in December. (The down side being that he lives with his mother, but he was quick to point out that this was an arrangement made only so he could focus on his studies, that he'd lived on his own for many years when he decided to change course and go to nursing school and that he was moving as soon as he graduated. So, I am giving him the benefit of the doubt because I appreciate that he has a plan and is obviously working toward something. If he were working at a bar and mooching off of his parents, I'd feel differently.)

We had a few cups of coffee and moved to an outside table. He again suggested a walk, but we were in a very populated area near a strip mall and so the only walking would be past a nail salon and a few restaurants. (As an aside, men should realize that we pick public places for first dates for a reason.) But, knowing that he'd a big fan of walks, I may suggest a short hike at a nearby swamp/wildlife area, which would be a fun way to do some walking and some talking, I think.

At first I was iffy because he seemed a bit standoffish and had some challenges in the fashion department (untucked polo with jeans and dirty tennis shoes). But I quickly warmed up to his humor and had a really nice time.

He was explaining how he used to brew his own beer when a woman at a nearby table interrupted us. We would talk and she would chime in, as if she were completely oblivious to the fact that we were obviously on a date.

He was chiding me about my age, seeing as he is almost five years older than I am. The woman chimed in.

"Honey, you have nuthin to worry about," she said. "I'muh almost to da big FOUR-OH and people still think I'muh yung."

She then proceeded to tell us how she was 37 and she had a boyfriend who was 27 and how people didn't believe she wasn't in her mid-20s herself. This woman was wearing black stretch pants, a striped long sleeve T-shirt and brown sandals with her hair messily tossed into a ponytail. She looked like she'd spent far too many hours in the sun, had a thick country accent and looked like she was well over 40.

She was either delusional or drunk. Possibly both.

As she left, the Nurse leaned over and said in his best hick accent, "She's hot stuff, Miss I'm Not 40. She's got herself a 27 year old and everything!"

We devolved into laughter and the casual touching started. A hand on my knee or my shoulder. All good date signs.

We parted after almost three hours of coffee. (I thought I was going to turn into a café au lait.) He walked me to my car and we hugged. (He also hugged me when he got there, but we're from the South and we do that, so it wasn't odd.)

And then, in the middle of a busy parking lot in a strip mall in the plain day of the afternoon at the end of our coffee date, he leaned in for a kiss.

I could see him close his eyes, a clear kiss signal. I gave him a quick peck. He clearly wanted more, as he'd rested a hand on my hip and was pulling on my blouse.

I pulled back and smiled, thanked him for the nice date and said we should hang out again. He was leaving town for a few days, but promised to call when he returned.

I smiled as he walked away and climbed in the car, wondering if I am a prude for not wanting to play tonsil hockey in front of an office supply store and a family of four eating beignets on a lazy afternoon.

Coffee and ...

2006-07-02T22:03:00.000-07:00

I have just accepted a first date with the Nurse, who is 30 and has a nice profile. He’s been very furiously e-mailing me for the past few days and dropped a hint that he wanted to hang out on Saturday, but I was going dancing with the Girls. So, we’re having a coffee date tomorrow afternoon. (Four-day weekends rule.) His online flirting has been impressive. He quickly commented when I uploaded a new photo as part of my profile makeover. (Although he said something about my cheeks, which was a bit odd. Guys, commenting on how my cheeks are round makes me think that I need to pick a less pudgy picture. Stick with “You’re eyes are pretty” or “You have a nice smile.”) He suggested lunch a walk or coffee. I mentally vetoed lunch because I want to work in the morning and because I wanted a cheaper first date in case we didn’t hit it off. And I also thought a walk was a bad idea, because it is hotter than Hades here and I like to look perky and well made up on dates. (Plus, I haven’t been to the gym in weeks – WEEKS! – and I think me huffing and puffing and reaching for my inhaler would be bad. And the potential to smell bad is high.) So, coffee sounded good – an inexpensive first date in a laid-back environment that has a low risk of my hair becoming frizzy. I’ve been assembling date wear options. This is my third date from one of these online dating sites, so I’m more comfortable with the process. I am to wear something cute and demure, emphasizing my assets, covering my flaws. Enough make up to look pretty and polished, heels to make me no taller than my date’s profile says he is, earrings to dangle, big sexy sunglasses so that I can enter the place with an air of cool confidence. And straight hair, because that's what's in my profile picture. My planned outfit is jeans with a white camisole and a sort of delicate floral thin wrap blouse with low black heels because this guy is only three inches taller than I am. Casual cute. I also started my methodical dating practices a few days ago. I favorited about 30 guys and I started by winking at a few and then e-mailing some in blocks of three or four. It’s been interesting to see who responds – guys who I thought were certain to respond have left my winks unreturned while guys I thought were probably unlikely to give me the time of day have e-mailed. It goes to show that you can’t judge a book by its cover or a single man by his Match.com profile.

Subpar expectations

2006-06-29T20:09:00.000-07:00

There are certain things about online dating that make me want to punch my computer screen. Like sorting through 57 pages of pictures and profiles and finding two acceptable guys. Or really liking a profile and then getting to the section for race and ethnicity and seeing that the guy has written, “Yes, I am 100 percent white! Oh yeah!” And then wondering if I’m subconsciously attracted to a guy who brags about being “100 percent white” and maybe I need to re-evaluate some things. My newest pet peeve is when I’m looking at a profile of a guy who contacted me on Match.com and it says, “HE E-MAILED YOU!” in all caps and with an exclamation point on the top of the profile. HE! E-MAILED! YOU! Is this really an all caps exclamation point situation? Some random dude that I probably won’t like sent me an e-mail? HE! E-MAILED! YOU! Does he want a cookie? Save the emphasis for something important – like, say, “HE CALLED YOU BACK!” or, even better, “HE IS NORMAL!” Folks, it’s a slippery slope and I fear I’m heading straight to bitter.

Pardon my progress

2006-06-26T20:14:00.000-07:00

Updated: I installed a new template. ~~I’m still working out all of the kinks and updating the sidebar and banner.~~ The banner is now fixed. It is just a placeholder until I have time to design a new one. :) Please be patient and report any bugs in the comments to the post. (And I haven't forgotten about updating my blogroll, I promise.) Thanks! New post a-comin'!

New leads

2006-06-25T20:23:00.000-07:00

I’ve spent the past few days revamping my online dating profile. I figured that since I’m paying for another month, I should put some effort into it – a new picture, perhaps. Updating my interests and refining the language. Kind of like getting a virtual haircut and a push-up bra, if you will. I’ve been e-mailing with two new guys for the past few days. Both are 30. One is a writer and the other is a nurse. Both have cute pictures and messaged me, which is nice. The down side to the Writer is that he lives about 45 minutes away. I am opposed to this because I want the support of someone in town. I’ve said it before – I don’t want to have to drive more than a half hour for a post-work hug. That’s just not the kind of person I am. The Nurse looks more promising. He lives in town and we seem to have a lot of things in common. He’s tall. Tall enough that I would only wear heels and still stand shorter than he does. This excites me. I’m trying not to approach this like a job, but I’m thinking that I should set goals. “Wink” at a certain number of guys. Settle for no going out with no fewer than four or five guys a month. Set tangible benchmarks to measure my dating success – much like I do for projects and tasks in my job. I’ve also done some rejecting. One guy who was two years younger than I am who seemed too religious for me and didn’t drink. After dealing with the Relief Worker and his judgment, I decided that I didn’t want to have to pretend to not be a social butterfly party girl from the get go to impress a guy. No thank you. The other guy was my age, but had a child. And my name is not Mommy. Also, The Crier messaged me and apologized for making me feel uncomfortable and asked that I call him to hang out as “friends.” No thanks.

Help me help myself get unsingle

2006-06-21T22:00:00.000-07:00

I happen to be reading a book called “Why You’re Still Single: Things your friends would tell you if you promised not to get mad,” which opens with a wonderful Ben Franklin quote about insanity being “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” It’s a quote about innovation – one I’ve heard many times. I’ve never before related it to my single life and quest for men. But it plays into my recent dabbling in online dating – it’s a kind of dating torture I’ve never previously tried. (Also, it is slowly driving me insane.) But back to “Why You’re Still Single.” The book, by Evan Marc Katz and Linda Holmes, outlines some tried and true situations and ruts we all fall into in what, at times, seems to be a never-ending journey of dates and heartbreaks. The premise is obviously simple, in that we have our blinders on to the things we do to hinder our dating happiness. And, I’d be willing to bet that I’m not the only single in the world who could write a laundry list of reasons why my friends aren’t attached, while coming up clueless when it comes to my own dating deficiencies. I want to be the heroine in the story of my life and to believe that I am always in the right and am above reproach. Of course, I know this could never be true. Surely I am wrong sometimes. In fact, I’m sure that the readers of this little Journal of Dates and Drinks could tell me a thing or two about what I’m doing wrong. (Not that being single is wrong. But seeing as I’d like to not be alone right now, it can’t be right.) Since I have a handy little guide in front of me, I set out to pinpoint some of the things that I think I’m doing wrong, which I have to admit some of my friends have told me on occasion. (On a side note, I have to say that Linda Holmes is my kinda gal. She says her hate for self help for the single girl books stems from the fact that they are “insulting, condescending nonsense, shot through with sexist claptrap and a hundred other kinds of poison.” Amen, sister. Raise your hand if you felt insulted with the “Men don’t like you because they think you are pathetic – but you’re not, sister! Girlfriend you’re cute! Just DUMB ABOUT MEN!” attitude of “He’s Just Not That Into You.”) As a disclaimer, I must say that if you read this book as a checklist of your behaviors, you will think you are totally screwed. Because you could easily find yourself in every chapter and every reason they give – or a small piece of you, that is. The point is not to stress about how you acted for the two hours in the privacy of your apartment when you cried over your last relationship. It’s about what you did in the months and years before and after those two hours. Trust me, we’re all desperate and miserable sometimes. But rather than focus on actions and attitudes that take up 1 percent of our dating lives, we should find the overarching themes and instances that reoccur the other 99 percent of the time. But back to the book. They hit the proverbial nail on my head with the first chapter – so much so that I almost stopped reading and said, “That’s it! I have been diagnosed.” Chapter One, “Do I want to date right now?” is me in a nutshell. So much that I felt stalked, almost. Because I say I want a man, but I don’t always follow up with action, or I spend too many nights in or I spend too much time in situations where dating is impossible, like work or with B or playing Scrabble with my girlfriends. And yes, I know I won’t trip over my next boyfriend in my living room while I’m moisturizing my elbows and plucking my eyebrows on a Saturday night or while accompanying couples to dinner or trying not to spill crumbs on my keyboard at work. I’ve always known this. It’s tough to balance a career that’s just getting some momentum with a social life that’s been buzzing for years and is very quickly becoming too tiresome for my not-21-year-old self, especially when you consider that I like to have some me time to write and cook and hang out and dance around like a moron to a Pussycat Dolls song in my PJs in my living room. So that’s been my excuse for allotting a healthy amount of hermit time in addition to time spent complaining about a lack of male attention with my girlfriends. Yes, I do want to date. But I also don’t want to go on bad dates and lower my standards. Sigh. And my time is valuable to me. And maybe this is my problem. Or one of them. (I also occasionally get too negative about men to be a good date, am stubborn, have a mile-long list of dealbreakers, etc.) You have to commit to dating before you can actually find someone to date – otherwise it’s like whining about feeling fat while you eat a candy bar. I knock guys out of contention for silly reasons. I get hung up on past annoyances and use them as an excuse to not date. I say that I want to date, but sometimes I have to wonder if I really do. So I’m about halfway through “Why You’re Still Single.” It’s an easy read because it is heavily subdivided and has a handy table of contents up front. All the better to help you zoom in on the problems specific to your personal mating mishaps. I do have to say that reading self-help or advice books is kind of against my nature. (I have an abnormally high opinion of my personal complexity and I like to think that I’m too unique to find solace in a book like this, though I am clearly wrong.) But there’s a lot of wit to be had here. The spoonful of sugar approach to advice. Also I’d be lying if I said a lot of it wasn’t things I already know, even if I don’t admit to myself that I see them reflected in my life. In fact, though I’m sure the authors would benefit more financially if the book were somehow filled with things you didn’t already know, they’d probably admit that none of this is rocket science. It’s just that if you already knew and embraced their common sense strategies and advice, then you most likely wouldn’t be obsessing about being single, right? Knowing about a potential problem or the root cause of your condition is only half the battle. And this book (like many before) aims to arm you for action. Time will tell, right?