January 27, 2004
When pressed about why they think I'm not in a long-term relationship, some of my girlfriends meekly answer that I'm a bit... analytical.
I ask them to expound on that point and give examples. I serve a nice wine paired with brie as I offer to teach them PowerPoint so they can illustrate what they mean with the help of graphics. I figure if they really feel that way, it's simple enough to throw together a pie chart.
This observation crops up in all of my relationships, but really, what's so hard about being specific and delineating your feelings? If bullet points are what it takes, then you may as well use them.
I talked to my mom today and told her I'm discouraged about my writing. Although neither of us is particularly religious, she told me about an inspiring preacher she saw on TV. She said his sermons are all about thinking big and that he is so positive. I asked if he said to think big or to think positive, because to me there's a world of difference. While I totally believe in being positive, I can trace many of my problems back to thinking big.
"Is he on network television or the Trinity channel?" I asked.
"Channel 9 here, I think. I'm not sure what it would be in your area…"
"Now let's get back to what he said. Try to remember his exact words. Did he say big or positive?"
"I think I hear one of my neighbors at the door."
"Did he mention what you're supposed to do while you're waiting for the positive and/or big thing to happen?"
I heard her open a bottle of wine.
"I think you should come home to Minnesota for a while, sweetheart. You obviously need to connect with someone and I think blood relatives may be the way to go."
January 26, 2004
My latest auction on eBay:
Imaginary Hooters Ex-Girlfriend Item #2982983280
Description: Really I've never worked at Hooters, but you can tell people it was you who took me away from all that, because as the proud winner of this auction, I'M YOUR IMAGINARY EX GIRLFRIEND!
Why waste your valuable time Instant Messaging and sending emails to a 51-year-old insurance salesman posing as a college girl on the Internet when you can cut straight to the euphoria of the break up? Oh, the freedom! I will block you from my buddy list and not answer any of your emails, just like a real-life ex-girlfriend.
I will truthfully deny ever dating you and people will just assume I'm bitter because you were the best sex I ever had or that I'm in denial because I can't accept the breakup (because you were the best sex I ever had).
As an added bonus, I am sort of an Internet celebrity. If I end up with a book or movie deal, my publicist and agent will deny that I ever dated you. People will automatically assume that we had a torrid affair and I'm trying to leave my "bad boy" past behind and reinvent myself like Madonna does, or the denial-because-you-were-the-best-sex-I-ever-had thing again.
January 23, 2004
Conventional wisdom says that when you're looking for a job as I am, you should treat it as a job and send out applications and follow up on leads for eight hours a day. I'm desperate for work and willing to do whatever it takes, so I sat down to send out resumes and then thought "Screw it, there are no jobs in Seattle" and went to the movies instead.
I saw Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! and told myself it was research for the web site. I had a moment's hesitation where I thought the movie might be too Disney for me, but I bought a ticket anyway, and of course it was.
Although I strenuously avoid chain restaurants, for some reason I only see films at theaters that have 14 or more screens. This is odd and noteworthy in Seattle, since the city prides itself on having great movie theaters with character. One, which I of course haven't been to, apparently has a pianist in the lobby and is considered one of the 10 most charming film venues in the country. I'm too busy paying $9 to see movies at the mall to notice.
Anyway, after I dragged myself from the gothic drizzle into the lobby and had my ticket taken under chandeliers like sea anemones that changed color every few moments, I made my way up to the third floor past black-and-white photos autographed by stars like Garbo.
I was just barely on time and climbed over a seat so as not to disturb any of the senior citizens in the rows around me. Sweet Christ, they knew how to make movie seats back in the day -- it was like being in a crimson, overstuffed living room chair and the sight lines were perfect. The clear art deco sugar-cone shaped fixtures dimmed their pink and pistachio ice cream scoop lights and the movie began. The screen was huge. The sound was thundering. It was even better than the theater next to the food court downtown.
Unfortunately the movie did not live up to the venue, although I saw that Roger Ebert gave it three stars. I always agreed more with the guy who died anyway. The directing was off, the female lead was boring and even Topher Grace seemed unnatural, which is just, well, unnatural. The guy who played Tad Hamilton -- Josh Duhamel -- was worth sitting through the rest of the drudgery for, though. I suspect he was supposed to be a Hollywood cliché, but he came off as having depth and heart. When the small-town girl who wins a date with him asks what else he does besides being a movie star, he has no answer since his life is so one-dimensional. It totally resonated with me, as I basically have no reply when people ask me what I'm interested in apart from writing. I like grocery shopping and prime time TV, but I'm not sure if they're actual hobbies.
On another win-a-date scenario, I had to call a girl for the guy who won my first I Will Ask Someone On a Date for You eBay auction. I was so nervous. I don't know how men do it. My first interview ever for the web site was on live television. I was more nervous about calling a woman I'll never meet for a guy I'll never meet. If she had said no, I would have been more upset than he was. Thankfully for me, she said yes.
Of course after writing my heart out for over a year, this stupid I Will Ask Someone On A Date thing is going to be my claim to fame. That first auction is at over 8,000 visitors even though it closed days ago. I wish it would make me a pile of money so that I could pursue one of my other hobbies -- emailing strangers on eBay and mocking them for having only 14 visitors at their auctions.
January 21, 2004
A whole cottage-industry is growing around my eBay auction where I'll ask someone on a date for you, item #2979429609. I'm thinking of taking it on the road and making it my new career. It got something like 4,000 visits in one afternoon. I suspect it was on the news. Of course, like its parent company DatingAmy.com, it's not making any money.
Along those lines I'm also going forward with a book.
January 18, 2004
My web site first started to get popular during Trista's reign as "the bachelorette." People asked me about her; people told me I was her, yet I've never seen the show. Oddly, I have no interest in a series about a woman dating X number of men. I've somehow avoided ever seeing her interviewed, but now I at least know who Trista is.
I also know who Donald Trump is. While Bill Gates quietly accrues his billions just across the water from me here in Seattle, The Donald lives in New York! and has a many-storied apartment overlooking The Park! in which he Entertains Royalty! He is the glitter-rock star in the stadium show that is capitalism. Anyway, once you've been in an episode of Sex and the City, I know who you are even if you're not rich.
Last week I casually flipped on The Apprentice, the much-hyped, stupid reality show that features overachieving twenty-somethings who want to work for The Donald for a $250K salary, which is a pay cut for some of them.
The first episode featured a guy who started an Internet company about cigars in his studio apartment; bright, educated women selling kisses to strangers on the sidewalk to make a buck and a guy with a Napoleon complex crawling on the floor like a dog to get the job. The cameras captured their shameless, naked displays of hunger and desperation.
It was like the Mothership was finally contacting me.
Although I hate the very idea of reality shows, I'm now convinced that familiarity with tacky flotsam is the key to my success. In that spirit, I picked up my first ever issue of the Enquirer at the grocery checkout tonight.
So far all it's done is shown me that Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin are in a really ugly custody battle and ruined the last episode of Friends for me, but I'm staying tuned.
January 16, 2004
Jerry Seinfeld says that men know they want women, they just don't know how to get them. "This is why you see men honking car horns, yelling from construction sites--these are the best ideas we've had so far."
I want dates, but I refuse to ask anyone out and the thought of doing online dating is as appealing as a python casually increasing the pressure as it's wrapped around my neck. The best idea I've had so far is to walk around.
I went down to Pike Market around lunch time. I didn't get any dates (although one guy gave me an orange), but I did realize a few things... like that cats can be trained.
As I tried to shake all thoughts of Siegfried and Roy out of my head, a man with two housecats in sweaters was showing a small crowd how cats can be trained -- with movements, but not words, apparently, as although cats can hear, they often refuse to listen. His white Persian held her paw aloft to shake as he fed her wet cat food with his hands. Every time he gestured to make a point, little speckles of it would land on someone's jacket or in their mouth.
A European tourist asked me where Starbucks is and I realized that Pike Market is really the only place in the world where Starbucks doesn't mean gentrification, since it's the tiny, rustic, original one that's there. I'm sure somewhere at some time, it has been suggested that they tear down the Starbucks to put in a Starbucks.
I realized that at $2 for a chicken kabob with homemade tzatziki, it's cheaper to eat at the food stalls at the market than it is to stay home, which is good news, as I can count on one hand the times a friend has delivered a man to my door.
I realized, to my horror, that Seattle magazine did an issue on the city's hottest singles -- they only found 10 -- and that I was not in it. It lends even more credence to my theory that I'm being purposely shut out by the Seattle media. I mean, who is more single than me? Clearly it's some sort of plot. It's almost as if you say a few damaging, exaggerated things about local television or newspapers and suddenly people aren't returning your calls or doing flattering stories about you.
Snow in Seattle: Rarer than a truly great first date
January 6, 2004
There are rare times in the life of a single woman when it's raining men. Even rarer are those times in Seattle when it's drifting snow. Today it was, so I went out to play.
There was almost no traffic but a few people were milling around. A lone cross-country skier shushed down the middle of the street. Everyone was in high spirits. The city was taking a snow day.
I'm unfaithful to my alma mater the University of Minnesota. I flaunt it by wearing a Princeton Tigers baseball cap and I don't care who sees me. Their colors are black and orange and I look good in black. Maroon and gold… not with my complexion.
A cute guy on the street asked me if I went to Princeton and as usual I didn't know what the hell that was supposed to mean. Once I caught on I asked if he went there. He said he did and graduated in 2001. "Good God you're young!" I said too loudly as he recoiled slightly. I'm not great at math, but anyone having a rite of passage in 2001, other than death, retirement or making their first million, is too young for me.
My second encounter of the day was with a guy who, as I was just about to agree to a date, told me he hoped I wasn't like his last girlfriend. She told him -- too late -- that she had a sexually transmitted disease.
One guy and one ex-wife-who-hadn't-quite-moved-out-yet later, I headed home.
The flakes were falling harder.
Disclosing age, messy relationship details and the status of your sexual diseases at first meet? While naked, quivering honesty is certainly the bedrock of an intimate relationship, I'm thinking it should come sometime after "I'm Kevin, would you like to have a drink sometime?"
When I got home I returned the call of a guy I've been trading messages with since before the holidays. He was cozy at home roasting a turkey. My heart was warmed by his sweet domestic ways until his questions about Washington D.C. and my job as a financial advisor indicated he didn't remember who I was. He admitted he talked to a lot of people at the party where we met.
Honesty rears its unwelcome face again. At least when I don't remember someone who's calling me I have the decency to make fake general comments that could apply to anyone.
Doesn't everyone realize that in dating, honesty and disclosure have no business appearing until both parties are so deeply entrenched sexually and otherwise that they are basically stuck with each other? Novices.<<< home >>>
