In the midst of all this angst is a pure gold mine of comic relief.

Late one night a couple of weeks ago I was alone with my second glass of wine and my play list of I'm so lonely baby ballads when I threw out my common sense and the last bit o pride that I've been saving for a monsoon, and I signed myself up on Match.com. OK, now if you've been around awhile (god bless and save you ) this might sound vaguely familiar. I tried this once before with e-harmony with what would have been devastating had I not found the result so damn funny. I know myself well enough to understand that I've the emotional strength of a dust mote and I've spent good part of the last year making myself ever available to a man whom I will can the Brute, and from who I should have walked away after the first date. I know that I am not to need a distraction, I know that I am supposed to be strong in myself, blah, blah, blah.... nevertheless, I don't have that mojo. I get the state of my need, I don't embrace it, but I have yet to shake it....

Enough about my Co-Dependency...I digress.

So, I write up a rather pity profile, throw that last bit o caution and self-respect to the wind, post a picture, take the damned survey and hit submit.

A week later I have 48 pages of men who have viewed my profile, 50 something e-mails and some 60 winks.

I don't wish to be unkind, I cannot hold myself superior to anyone at this point in my life, but I would like to share some things that have made me chuckle.

One man who e-mailed had this jewel on his Profile page:
my ethnicity:
I am more of a giver. I give more than receive from others. I think people take advantage of that part of me. I guess it is the giving nature from my parents. I come from a rural country/farm background. I have a good values and morals

Bless his heart. Ethic and Ethnic are only one nasal consonant apart. We must forgive, as he may have misplaced his reading glasses.

There was the man with the easy prose, and self-effacing confidence who I decided to meet after several witty e-mails and a phone call. In person he was trembling and at every new topic pointed out how I would not be interested in him.

There are the e-mails that seem to be going places, there is banter and fun and then.... nothing. I wonder which of my many red flag fired.

Oh there are enough odd, bland, shirtless, hey babeisms to start a never ending blob of a blog, but here is one of my favorite encounters. I agreed meet a man ten years younger. He is more adorable than his profile picture, a successful hard working kid who owns his own home, makes good money... We meet, we talk about him, his skill with the excel spread sheet, how corn rules the universe, the television series The Bachelor, which I find deplorable, but he has it saved on TVo, so I just smile an nod. It's clear fifteen minutes into the conversation that he drowns in the slightest depth of my responses and I'm beached in the shallows of his; Different depths for different fish.
I'm certain I won't hear from him again and I'm proud that I don't take offense.

The next morning I was surprised to receive a text from him. Throughout the day we banter about the weather, and the tone of our days. I am flattered. I decide to keep an open mind and let the flattery keep me from dwelling on my fixation with the brute. I'm determined not to build any expectation only the possibility of a new dinner companion starts to develop, I start to imagine a friendship and the idea that I'm regenerating the buds of the old social flower I was i my former life. I expect an invitation for coffee, dinner, a walk...

He shared with me that he was taking in a friend who is going through a rough patch as a housemate; setting him up in the basement until he gets on his feet. Nice guy. I joked with him the night before this was to happen that he didn't have much time to do his Risky Business dance set before he has an audience.

Pandora's box flew open

Boy: Risky Business, are you up for some? ;)
Me: Ha!, so I sense there is another side to "the boy,"
The frisky, boy.
Boy: You never Know.
Me: True that.
Boy: Are you up for some Risky Business...?

...and it digressed from there, "what was I wearing..."

Now, people with self-esteem say good bye, block the contact and take a cleansing shower.

I turned it over and twisted it, let it be, redirect the conversation hoping to re-write the whole scenario into something less icky. There was more innocent banter, a more direct text discussion about what he was after. I get it, he wants sex, phone sex, text sex, any kind of sex. Quite possibly I'm the cougar on his bucket list or his buddies gather round the screen and laugh at how he ropes women into stupidness.

And then I smiled. Funny & frightening how quickly a smirk and the giddy anticipation of fucking with someone can elevate one's mood.


Boy: I'm taking a nap... in my boxers and a T shirt.

Me: Oh, well, sweet dreams.

Boy: What do you wear, when you nap?

Me: Me, oh, I'm all for naked napping.

Boy: Naked napping!? How often do you do this naked napping ?

Me: Um, the answer to that question requires top secret clearance.

Boy: That sounds like a challenge

Me: Oh yes, it requires very delicate skill; intense endurance and probing perception...

Boy: Naked Lu! nice, I like that.

Me: You do? Yeah, you would like me naked... You can hardly see the scar.

(pregnant pause in rapid fire texting)

Me: The unicorn tattoo almost covers the length of it.

(pause)

Boy: What?

Me: Didn't I tell you about the accident?

Boy: No. I didn't know about the tattoo either.

Me: Oh... well, I was practicing my pole routine with my partner barbie, I had just learned how to hook the spike of my heel at the top of the pole while barbie snaked around the bottom when eddie busted down the door. The force of the blow shook the double wide so hard that...
I'll take a break now, so you can bring your buddies up to speed.

(another pregnant pause)

Boy: Is this you making a joke?

Me: Oh, dear. You just lost major points in perception.

Of course I didn't hear from him

until the next day. He sends a text about once a day, talking about the weather.

Dreamer's never die.

If you try some times...

V C G January 28 at 11:21pm

ms. b
! i tried to email you at one point like a year ago, and then about 2 months ago i figured out i got the address wrong. i meant to stay in touch..
i just wanna let you know you're the coolest and by far most creative teacher i've had. you helped me a lot and expanded my horizons creatively; i may have failed your class, but a lot of the things you taught me inspired the way that i do things now. thank you for being so awesome! :]

...you get what you need.

The two lane highway was familiar, we could anticipate the curves, the crooked trees, the mailbox made of gears and a plow. Our moods followed the same course. We would start dreaming, thinking of things we wanted to do. My mind drifted to having babies, building the home, his mind on races and bicycles. Eventually he'd grow weary and tired of my dreams of family, tired from the weight of it all. My dreams were dead weight, a cinderblock pulling him under. By the time we hit the Flint Hills silence and thousand yard stares took hold.

I chose to do what he wanted, but not without a fight. I thought I was strong, because I would argue, gnash and thrash through the push and pull me of wants and desires, but my words always gave way and the action followed his need.

It's a comfortable place for me, to let someone else make decisions, set rules. A voice only carries so far, and action requires too much risk.

I fall back into that comfortable habit.
I beg for scraps of affection and hang on to the most frayed life lines for a kind word.

It's a burden to carry. A burden I need to let drop.

There is movement of sorts, a shift of soul, the opening and closing of doors.
I understand the moment, the movement, the running in and out of here and there.

Searching is happening everywhere. The squirrels went searching for food and found my tulip bulbs.
If I go back to the moment I planted them and try to connect it to the moment they hauled them off to a nest at the top of the tree, I lose. So I smile instead, laugh and call him a fat bastard.

just get in the fucking car and drive

forgive and forget are not one and the same

I forgive this ,
I forgive that,
him, her, them, that, what is, what is not
I let it go and out into the vastness outside of me.

I am however guarded and will protect myself from further situations in which I will be in the position to need to forgive once again, in which I will fall back into crippling bouts of  victimitus.