Gotta love on-line "dating"

Especially when you open your inbox to find:

Sleazy-D is checking you out right now!

Um, really? Thanks for letting me know that. I will get right on it.

You Know It's Time to Change your Dating Profile When...

You receive this greeting in your in-box from a potential suitor:

Cowboy looking for saddlemate
For Riesling cattle and selling guns to indigenous people.
long trail rides and campfire smoked beets.
Email me.

And don't get me wrong.... I LOOOOOOOOOOOVE beets. I am just sayin'.

Leaving Behind the Captain and Tenille

Well, it is once again time to retire the Slow Cooker's apron on to a No Cooker peg deep in the back of the closet and go back to eating cereal. Or perhaps just love.


Just to be extra safe, I should probably find some Courtney Love version of Do That to Me One More Time (or en espanol!) as a ring tone and add it to the No Cooker's caller ID entry. I am hopeful that renaming him Heart Break (This is So Not Worth It was a bit wordy, even for me) and updating his caller ID photo to the completely unattractive one will suffice. But perhaps I would be best served if I could successfully associate this whole made-for-TV mini-series with DC2's Portland sidewalk?

True to form, my yearly theme starts in October

In keeping with my omnipresent ability to chug on forward, 2009 has already moved to 2010 in my mind. Which makes me almost half-way through the year! Yeay! My enthusiasm for being done with this year is tempered only by my intense level of fatigue. Working Title 2010: Year of Imbalance (not to be confused with In Balance, of course)... j'arrive.

For a lesson plan I was doing, I remade my Medicine Wheel. And it served its purpose in deflating me completely. Because My Medicine Wheel? Only not TOTALLY out of balance because I was basically nurturing none of the four areas -- Heart, Mind, Spirit, Body. And I do mean none. Zip. Zero. Everything that I need to do to be in my best place, I was not doing. Don't get to chill with the friends I adore nearly enough (meaning: at all), don't get to read or write on this blog, don't avoid bread and dairy like I should, haven't played soccer since September, don't get to be not working on the sunny days in order to soak up my Vitamin D... The list goes on. So the only one remotely getting attention was a spoke on my Heart area. And that was only because I made the hopeful leap (read: mistake) of putting The Boiler (a.k.a. The Turtle, Salty Dog, My Piece of Mat) on it.

So I come back from my camping trip to the very lovely but cold Hendy Woods and voilá, The Turtle pokes his emotional head out enough to call it quits. Why? He finds things to be out of balance between us -- i.e. he sees me as being more into it than he is. Which I think is true, but perhaps not in the way he perceives this. But then again, he must profoundly not be into it, because, as many of you know, I have spent a tremendous amount of time on the fence about the concept of a relationship and my very mixed feelings about him and me in particular. I only moved to calling him boyfriiiiiiiiiend this fall when things seemed solid enough to say to myself,

Giiiiiiiiiiirl, you gotta either open it up and really attempt this or be done.

[My Inner Jew Editor responds: Whatdja think, your patience, tranquility, positivity, and generosity alone were gonna make something like a relationship actually work out for YOU?! Ha!"]

And more to the point, I have to now remake my stupid medicine wheel and notice how almost entirely absent the entire wheel's contents are now. And I have got to stop settling for the imbalance of putting myself out there and sticking with folks who either cannot or are not interested in giving back. As Animal says in The Muppet Movie:

Irritated!

So I am taking a vote. Preferences?

A. 2010: Year of Imbalance
B. 2010: Absence of Zen
C: 2010: Like a Pebble in My Shoe
D. 2010: _______________________

Sometimes OK Cupid is Not So OK...

I think OK Cupid is a little drunk on his own misguided power.

So I checked my datin' profile after many a month just to sweep out the cobwebs and found four messages that ALL started with references to Burning Man. I always read profiles before reading notes and found each profile alluded to wanting to find life partners with whom they could grow old at Burning Man. (I can imagine Burning Man rapidly aging me within a week, actually. But I digress.) Seems strange to receive so many Burner messages but I just figure that post B-M, the Burners are out to replenish themselves and fulfill their intentions and manifestations and all that. So I come to the last messenger's note. I notice that on his profile he has gone out of his way to write that he wonders why everyone OkCupid thinks he'd be a match with Burners since he has never been. Curious.

Then I read his message title: Burning Man

And the message:

I said I'm confused about why OkC thinks I'd be a match for everyone who goes to Burning Man.

So, what does the new "Icebreaker" thing do? It matches me to you because you "like Burning Man". Hilarious.

Under his message is this little double-decker marshmallow-esque ice cube-ish icon with a little heart on its chest. Next to it is the italicized sentence:

I think you both like burning man.

And I wonder: Were OK Cupid and I in the same room?! Because in my profile, when prompted to disclose "the most private thing I am willing to admit here" I wrote:

I have a tic: when I hear the term Burning Man, my eyes roll... all by themselves. Strange.

Suitor #4 is right. That is hilarious.

9,000 Signs That I Should Start Blogging Again

Here's three:

1. I can tell an insanity producing year when I see one, even if I am kinda slow.

2. Today I barked at my principal. Literally.

I was standing in front of the master schedule, trying to figure something out. In walks BB Lizardo (my attempt to call my principal by their initials has succeeded in making them only marginally more tolerable in my eyes). BB looks around in a quintessentially lizardo way, and licks hir lips nervously, as I am the only one there. And then faces me and states: Who let the dogs out?

Me: Arf. (Seriously)

BB Lizzy: (Smiles while eyes rivet to escape door)

Not enough to convince you this is going to be a weird year? Fine. Read on:

3. So I go to an organizing meeting. At which, despite the racing around of children, we are very organized. Weird in and of itself. And I get out to the world to find a voice mail from some guy whose name is ... let's say Pedro. And he launches into this whole thing in medio-spanglish about some health clinic near my work and can I call him back at whatever number blah blah blah. His number isn't in my phone and I cannot imagine who the guy is. Sure, his voice sounds vaguely familiar. I know like three guys named Pedro; some of whom I think more highly of than others, but I am still surprised any of them are leaving me messages with such familiar tones. So I call him back. He asks how I am - I reply quickly and ask him to basically get on to whatever he needs from me. We talk a while and maybe 15 minutes after we hang up it occurs to me that perhaps this? This is perhaps an ex-bf of mine... from probably four years ago max? For like a year or so? And I have to LOOK up his name to recall if his first name had been Pedro.

Can we say: Sarah knows how to MOVE ON.

Come on... now let's all say it together.

Arf.

We All Have Our Types

Some people are leg people.
Some are guitar player people.
Some appreciate kick ass cooks.
Some like crooked teeth.
Some swoon over accents or ease in multiple languages.
Some fawn over individualistic anarchist bike messengers who all dress the same.
Some magnetize with beer pong almost-champions who never give up.

It is good to know your type. And far be it from me to yuck another's yum.

Especially because me? I am coming to realize my type, at least when it comes to the Y chromosome:

Turns out, I'm a sucker for stuck men. More specifically, I melt for men with tools who are having a hard time moving forward. And even more specifically than that, men whose inability to get real has translated into throwing themselves into "home "improvement." Which I think makes me a 'men who bury their grief in mountains of unmoving lumber and sawdust covered in time-dust' person.

Show me a man who has suffered traumatizing familial and/or social loss and who has, in his inability to communicate about and/or deal with his grief, taken to dreaming up countless home-change projects and started to tear apart his house rather than ripping out his own guts, all to keep his mind occupied and his hands busy and his muscles too tired to think. Show me a man who can even get through the stage of wrenching apart his house's innards and maybe even buying the lumber and nails and unearthed the power circular saws from the basement only to get stuck, in the same way he is stuck in his grief, and thus leaves his unfinished business as is all over his house perhaps forever. Because, for a long time, that has been my people.

I say that since, as I write this, I realize that might be the old me. Because as I see this pattern, I find I am moving forward myself.

So now: Show me a man who faces change by rebuilding his home one slab and tile and dust mask donning at a time. With turtle-like velocity. But he's doing it. Because that is my people.

Unless he is a she. In which case, show me a woman with her condo in order, a file-don't-pile system in place and utilized, a woman who is barreling through the universe. And she's my girl.

It's good to know your type.

Some People? They Love Love.

It is possible I am not one of them. I prefer to call this "The Day After February's Friday the 13th." Now it doesn't roll off the tongue like "Valentine's Day" or anything, but really that is just long for V.D, which is so old fashioned, and so Mr. V.D. Valentino can just take back his day if it is all the same to him. While I am a sharer, some things just don't need to be shared. Like people whose feelings give you emotional whiplash. Like those chalky heart candies. I pulled one at D's that says: In a Fog.

WTF.

The Day After February's Friday the 13th turned out ridiculously fun despite. Got profoundly ass kicked in soccer, got the "gift" of silence from some of those who love me, got to clean some of my own dirty laundry, got to swoon over all manner of crush-worthy musicians busy unrequiting love after pulling a distinctly boy-stereotype-dismissive invite, got Rite Spotted and belted and bruised and also ear pierced by a Bette Boopesque voice... it just kept going.

But, as there is always good even in the not so much, I really want to thank CoCo for turning me on to my current favorite seasonal poem, which somehow reminds me of so much all at once:

LIFE STORY, by Tennessee Williams

After you've been to bed together for the first time,
without the advantage or disadvantage of any prior acquaintance,
the other party very often says to you,
Tell me about yourself, I want to know all about you,
what's your story? And you think maybe they really and truly do

sincerely want to know your life story, and so you light up
a cigarette and begin to tell it to them, the two of you
lying together in completely relaxed positions
like a pair of rag dolls a bored child dropped on a bed.

You tell them your story, or as much of your story
as time or a fair degree of prudence allows, and they say,

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

each time a little more faintly, until the oh
is just an audible breath, and then of course

there's some interruption. Slow room service comes up
with a bowl of melting ice cubes, or one of you rises to pee
and gaze at himself with the mild astonishment in the bathroom mirror.
And then, the first thing you know, before you've had time
to pick up where you left off with your enthralling life story,
they're telling you their life story, exactly as they'd intended to all along,

and you're saying, Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
each time a little more faintly, the vowel at last becoming
no more than an audible sigh,
as the elevator, halfway down the corridor and a turn to the left,
draws one last, long, deep breath of exhaustion
and stops breathing forever. Then?

Well, one of you falls asleep
and the other one does likewise with a lighted cigarette in his mouth,
and that's how people burn to death in hotel rooms.

What would you do...

...if you found proof that you were secretly on the inside the most cheesy romantic ever in the form the most romantic sentiment you had seen ever and yet had no one to send it to? Well, if you were me, you'd share it with all y'all.


(from xkcd.com)

It's around this time that dating takes a nose-dive

If that were further possible in my life, which I am pretty positive it is not. Or rather, I was pretty positive, until I was confronted with the likes my interaction with a certain Mister Yawny Potato-Head (is that a hyphenated name?). But first, I must take some responsibility.

Point A. I am apparently hella pissed off at dating situations and all those related to dating... to the point of being uncharacteristically unself-aware and more uncharacteristically flat out grumpy. And mean to complete strangers to boot.

Point B. My on-line profile? Sounds exactly, and I mean exactly, like me. Which means that it includes the following information: 1. I always have a song going on in my head -- sometimes recorded, sometimes made up on the spot and 2. I like oh so many things in the world (some of which I list), but I do not like the word MOIST. Are we all clear here? I dislike, as in don't like, as in using-this-word-will-make-me-squirm-and-potentially-dislike-you, the word moist. Are we all crystal clear so far?

So Mr. P.H. saw my rather extensive and informative (i.e. wordy) profile and decided to write. He decided, perhaps not his finest hour, to start with the following title:

MOIST

Greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeat.

Followed by the following "first impression" note:

MOISTure! MOISTness! MOISTer! MOISTest! BWAH HA HA HA HA HA!
Actually, though I don't *hate* the word, exactly, I get what you mean. It's the sound. Something about the lispy "st" coming after the whiny "oi."

Which cut of your internal soundtrack is playing right now?

Hmm. Now, can we assume that he doesn't really get what I mean? But before you read my response, please recall my aforementioned "Point A" as well as Point B, and how much I truly dislike both this word and anyone who would use something I dislike against me.

Ok? Lastly, take a deep breath and try to remember I have a lot of good qualities:

My Title: So, lessee what I currently know about you

My return note: You hide your profile, have neither picture nor age and all that, and you open conversations with strangers by using ad nauseum one of the few words they say they dislike.

So right now my soundtrack is playing, "If you don't know me by now, you will never ever ever know me..."

Happy searching, Mister Yawny Potato-Head.

There was a mutual mea culpa exchange after that one, but let's just say it was not a match. And finally my screaming subconscious has gotten it through my thick head that I should take a break from dating and just talk to a certain whomever about a certain whatever I am hella pissed off about. So nose-dives aren't all bad.

In Keeping With My Love of All Whisperers

I did appreciate the v-day post to Craig's List by the self-titled Dude Whisperer, who wrote in that he deeply understood "men," w(eva)tf that means. Judge for yourself:
The Dear Abby of Dude Whispering "explains" all here.

On being a Pig

Well, well... Welcome, 2008.

"Daily Chinese: January 19, 2008

This could be a positive day for initiating a necessary change in your life. A domestic crisis may occur, but with your patient and obliging nature you should have no problem diffusing it. You might want to seek medical guidance on ways to improve your overall lifestyle and fitness." Brought to you by the same folks who predicted surgery, travelling mayhem, etc. Hmmmmmmm.

So... 'positive'? Does that mean standing (puffy eyed and despondent again, post-domestic crisis) on the sidewalk shaking my pro-choice fist and chanting alongside just 200 local other pro-choicers at the THOUSANDS of bussed-in Anti-Choicers marching through the Embarcadero to Pier 39 (presumably so they could do some sight seeing)?

Or does it mean catching the farewell lip syncing tour at Balazo's?

Because I found all parts of my day equally disturbing.

So I'm just checking. I guess that's the power of the word, 'could' eh?

2008: A Spaced Oddity

Up until Aprilish, I was steeling for one of my 2008 themes to evolve into: 2008 – Year of Relationships, Gulp. But now circumstances have led to an alternate plan, one that is less novel and more wordy. 2008: Year of Speed ‘Nating’ (non-dating) for Potential Therapists. A little more awkward to say, but I don’t exactly control these things. And true to form, I am of course engaging in a preview run of the year’s theme a month early. My screening process is quite simple. I even skip the Craig’s Listings, going straight (or gayly forward, whatever) to recommendations. Me: Talk to potential therapists by phone. Say things like, “I am sure four sessions will cure whatever is wrong with me.” If they noncommittally “hmmm, that is interesting and something we can explore” me? Rejected. If they laugh, they win a face-to-face Nate with me. What with the Hollywood writers’ strike, I sense 2008: A Reality Nating Show in my near future.

Let's Make First Dates Final

In the same vein as “never take different lovers to the same vacation location within one month of each other,” I would like to add a “never do the exact same activity on two first dates.” Even if the activity is fun. Even if the activity has ‘80s music crooning in the background. It is just too weird and we don’t live in a one-Denny’s kinda town for that to have to happen. That is all I am gonna say about that.

Oh Red Vic, Shield My Eyes: Witness to “Cornibalism”

Accompanied by Gabby PM ("Egg") and the patrons of the Red Vic Movie House, I saw two Kings in November on Haight Street. One, King of Kong, was mos def my pick for Best Documentary I Saw in a Theater this Year. And the Egg and I even won a poster. Oooooooooo.

But despite my love of all things choclo and my name in Quechua meaning 'corn,' the Disappointing Documentary of the Year "Award" is hereby handed to the film King of Corn for being both somehow weirdly non-political and just downright mediocre for all 100+ minutes. The highlight turned out to be the pre-game entertainment, which consisted of the following:

Down the aisles strolled a lovely damsel squishing a concertina accompanied by a tweed-vested fella strumming through a folk guitar. They parked next to the Red Vic's movie screen to teach us the chorus of an important sing-along song: Everybody Grab a Hoe (Get a Hoe? Have a Hoe? Take a Hoe? Whatever, I blocked out the lyrics, but you get the point). Yep, I and 60ish other people sang 'Imperative Verb a Hoe' with gusto and confused facial expressions for at least the following five minutes. They led us lurching into singing alongside a frightening ‘70s farming-americana video, complete with a bouncing ball icon above each word to focus our warbling.

As if that weren’t torture enough, halfway through the song appeared in the theatre a human-sized ear of corn with green tights who came to shimmy around in front of us. What? You point out you are from San Francisco and therefore not easily spooked? Fine, fine, I feel ya. Because most disturbing of all, the dancing corn cob carried in and then ate a bowl of Red Vic popcorn. Now, I know that Red Vic popcorn is all Brewster's Yeasty hippy and all, but you will allow that things have taken a marked turn for the worse when a rather tall Corn Cob can eat the popped, dried remains of its own kind in public, right?

Love Cynics on the Web

So cute. So twisted. So geeky. Check it out.

Love, "The Mandrake" Style, Exhibit 1

So cute. So twisted. So geeky. Check it out.

What Do All the Ex-Pat Swissies Do to Celebrate Indie Day?

I know you have all been asking yourselves just this question when you find yourself unexpectedly awake at 3:49 a.m.

Answer: They apparently stuff their trim, fit, muscle-only selves carb-silly at the nearest Swiss bakery.

On August 1st I had yet to learn this. So when I walked out of Avon's Columbine Bakery and into my bro that day, I remarked:

"There's a shitload of very festive Swiss people in that random little bakery. You'd think not so many Swiss people would hang around Vail, since it is like some creepy "Disneyland Swiss Chalet" set. But I swear they are all in there. Weird."
Really, I am guessing every Swiss in the region was there. The place was packed.

Now, as some of you know, in addition to my usual attracting of hovering hummingbirds, I am currently attracting all things Swiss and have consequently become the most recent convert to the League of How Do the French-Swiss Do It? Appreciaters, even if it does irk me that people like Smiley Smiles-a-lot and his countryfolx somehow manage to appear clean and well pressed even when their white clothing has been worn for days, even in the saunas of Colombian jungles. [Note: This is yet another sign demonstrating my non-Swiss origins, as I have a genetic tendency to appear dirty and recently Cuisineart blended/chopped even when I am recently showered and wearing fresh clothing. If you'd like to test yourself, use the ending picture to identify which one's the unshowered suiss wearing a three day old trekked in shirt who looks like they got off an industrial ironing board/steam clean versus who's a recently blended looking double-showered estadounidense? Bet you can't tell.] Oh, tangent, tangent. Where was I? Oh yes, talking to the bro.

And my bro, who is only vaguely listening to my pronouncements and opinions anyways, looks at me and says, "What ARE you yabbling about?" But then the next day he points out this picture and caption in the Vail Daily Newspaper and all is revealed.

Well, happy jour d'indépendance, ya neatniks.

Another picture worth a thousand very telling words:

Least Favorite Thing My Friend Dimple Has Heard Me Say

to people I might date but have never met (and surprisingly, she's had a lot to choose from):

Scene: S and D are chillin at Dolores Park Cafe. The ever-squinting S semi-recognizes a passing fella (formerly known as M, now known as ScruffyMan) from ... well.... the Onion... who has contacted her and with whom she will perhaps go on a date with sometime in the next decade should they ever be in the same town for over a minute.

S (yells and squints): Hey! Are you M?

M (looks scared. Approaches cautiously)

S: Hey this is M, whom I have never met!

D (rolls eyes and prepares for coming disaster)

S: M, this is my friend D. She's visiting from Houston [NOTE: This is definitely winner for the Least Favorite Thing D has ever heard me say about her... since she lives in AUSTIN. Whoops. I knew that. I blame Tourettic-Dyslexic tendencies. Besides, they really do sound similar to the untrained CA-centric ear.)

D: Austin.

S: Whatever. M, you look just like your pictures. How fun!

M: (looking increasingly uncomfortable, eyes look for escape route) I am normally not this scruffy and unshaven.

S: Oh, me too. Haven't even showered recently. (grin)

D (faint groan)

M (blink. more uncomfortable lookingness, eyes dart faster)

S (missing the whole uncomfortable thing): So, I'll see you sometime in August when we are both in SF.

M (emits nervous laughter. shuffles off, making mental note to avoid Dolores Park Cafe for remainder of evening just in case)

Post-Script: It is important to D that the world, particularly the world of people who perhaps have thought to ask me on a date, know that I bathe regularly, even if I don't brag about it. To which I would like to point out that at least I didn't actually think to put my unshaven, um, parts next to his chin and do some kinda scruffy comparison, ya know? I got filters.

But regardless, do us both a favor and spread the word on my bathing cleanliness, k?

Let's face it

It's just really hard to concentrate on class when....

1. Your thesis is due in 14 days and you have not even remotely written Chapter 4,

2. You have two recurrent nightmares and in both the same thing happens,

3. You have had a mysterious infection that could put the persistence of L. Ron Hubbard brethren to shame,

4. You have been surviving off two hours a sleep per night, at most, for the past several nights,

5. Which you are pretty sure is directly related to how you recently heard a whispering woman's voice, even though you were quite alone in the room,

6. The best night sleep you've had was the night you broke your own heart,

7. And now everyone has written a love poem,

8. And you hold back all shallowed breathing leaking only by knowing that in your life all will occur like physics, once and forever, and

9. This holds your soul up until someone remarks that it is also a law of physics that on the deepest atomic level, nothing ever really touches, and meanwhile

10. Behind your professor's head, on the board, is a huge chalk-drawn wedge of large-holed swiss cheese with bulging eyeballs and an open mouth of sharp teeth under a glowering halo of flames, and from where you are sitting,

11. The cheese mouth is clearly about to devour his unsuspecting head.