Stalkers Are So Tedious

I've been facing a bit of a quandary the last few days.

First off, my internet has been down more than it's been up and I'm not sure what's going on with THAT.

But more importantly, I've been trying to decide if I should cut my losses with this blog and start posting elsewhere, under a different name. My reason for leaving this blog behind would be solely because it would appear that somehow, my Ex-Husband, the Mad Scientist, seems to have nothing better to do than spend his time stalking me on the internet.

I find it sadly ironic that the man who I once considered my white knight, the very same man who saved me from a stalker, has now himself become my stalker.

Here's the story.

So a person posting under the name "Anton Round" left a rather nasty comment to my post "The Bitch Is Back". When I first read the comment, I was rather surprised, but didn't think much of it, truth be told. I figured that it was just one of those rather pathetic individuals who have no life and try to validate themselves by running around and posting nasty comments on strangers blogs. And I decided to leave the comment up as I figure that it really says more about the kind of a person "Anton Round" is, than it does about me!

But since most of the people who drop by here and leave comments are women, I was rather curious about what could have drawn an "Anton Round" to my blog. So I did what any reasonably savvy internet user does, and Googled him.

Much to my surprise I got a hit that went beyond the realm of coincidence.

Turns out that "Anton Round" is an alias that an old friend of mine, whom I shall call the Puppet Master, had used back in the 60's or 70's.

My first reaction to this information was complete shock. I always thought that the Puppet Master LIKED me and "skanky beach whore" doesn't strike me as a nickname created with affection!

And then I thought - wait a minute! For one thing, posting a basically anonymous comment on a blog is NOT his style. The Puppet Master doesn't much censor what he says, and can piss off people faster than anyone I know, but here is no way he would do something so cowardly and underhanded. He'd just insult me to my face! Ya gotta respect that!

And secondly, The Puppet Master is in prison and isn't allowed internet access! So he COULDN'T have posted the comment. (And no I don't consort with criminals. It was one of those white collar crimes and he didn't really do it, but its a REALLY long and complicated story.)

So the question then became, who would post a comment using that name?

For various reasons that I won't go into, the answer was obvious. My Ex, the Mad Scientist has obviously tracked down my blog somehow. And he loathed The Puppet Master. He once told me in a fit of what I can only assume was paranoid delusion that he thought that the PuppetM was going to hire a hit man to kill me and set him (the Mad Scientist) up to take the fall!

When I increduously asked him why on earth the PuppetM would want to kill me, the MadS replied that people would do anything for money and that there were millions of dollars involved. When I logically pointed out that killing me would not allow the PM access to millions of dollars, the MadS stubbornly insisted that the PuppetM was insane. Now THAT's the pot calling the kettle black, if you ask me!

Anyway, the MadS has obviously decided that he's going to take time out of his busy social schedule of getting high and looking at free internet porn to stalk me electronically. So I may end up ditching this blog. I hate to do it, but I don't want him to start to harass any of the nice people who stop by here, or quite frankly to know what I'm doing. And I'm pretty sure that he tracked me here, through Dagny, or BWB. Two wonderful ladies who followed me over from the first blog. Sorry ladies!

If I do ditch this blog, I'll let y'all know! I hate being chased away, but . . .

You know what the one fun thing about this whole situation is? The Mad Scientist can't respond to this or refute it without admitting that he's a cowardly nutjob, who's obsessed with his ex-wife! Ha! Is that mean?

Butterflies, Bees and Worms

I'm afraid of butterflies.

What can I say - it's a quirk. Every so often, when someone is staring after me with consternation as I shriek and run away from one of these winged creatures, I am forced to explain that the awful little things totally creep me out. This is usually met with dropped jaw amazement mixed with more than a little disbelief.

I'm not sure why people are so amazed by this anxiety of mine. People are afraid of lots of odd things. Clowns are such a well-known phobia that it has become something of a joke. They even made a movie about that one, “Killer Klowns From Outer Space”. A cult classic must see – If you’re not afraid of clowns! I once watched Killer Klowns with a friend who was trying to overcome her extreme reaction to clowns. In a misguided attempt to cure her of her irrational fear, her therapist had urged her to rent the movie. Didn’t work. But I got a good laugh out of watching her!

Strange fears seem to abound these days. Some of them I can kind of understand. Anyone who has ever had their 40th birthday looming in front of them can understand Chronomentrophobia - the fear of clocks. I even get Arachibutyrophobia - fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth. I think they did a “Got Milk” commercial on that one. And any schoolchild will understand Didaskaleinophobia - fear of school.

Fear of cats, or Ailurophobia, is one that I think is rather more common than some people might think. I’ve met an awful lot of people, men in particular, who claim to be “allergic” to cats, and yet I haven’t seen hide nor hair of any sneezes or itches from them. And I personally think there is a link between men who fear cats and misogyny, but that’s a topic for another day.

And first thing each morning when I stumble into the bathroom I exhibit classic symptoms of Catoptrophobia - fear of mirrors.

But what about the fear of mustard? This seems to be a popular one, right up there with fear of pickles, although I haven’t found a name for either one yet. Or my personal favorite, Geniophobia – fear of chins. Chins! For some reason this amuses me. Maybe it's the word "chin".

I can’t help but wonder how many people have to be afraid of something before it is officially given a name? Is there a standard? Ten documented cases and it a quirk, 11 and it becomes a named phobia? Does there have to be an article in Psychology Today?

I hate to admit it, but I think that I may be developing Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia - fear of long words.

So I don’t think that being afraid of butterflies is so weird. I don’t care how pretty they are. They’re just creepy little bugs with wings and they always seem to want to land on me! Actually, I think I’m feeling a screenplay coming on . . . think Alfred Hitchcock’s “Birds”, but replace the birds with Butterflies . . .

That’ll give you nightmares.

Compromise

After an exhausting fight, The Midget decided that if she couldn't play with the yarn, she'd just take a nap with it.

The Midget

Did I REALLY think that it would be fun to have a kitten in the house again?!?!

Sitting here at 2 o'clock in the morning, with a spray bottle in one hand and a cup of Sleepy Time tea cradled in the other, it is hard to figure out why in gods name I felt the need to adopt a kitten.

For the uninitiated the spray bottle is for squirting the afore mentioned beast in a rather futile attempt to try to tame it into submission. Say for instance that the little darling has decided to climb the living room curtains. As soon as the monster begins to scale the fabric you bellow "No" while hitting the offending feline with a stream of water. Cats loathe water with a passion that people usually reserve for cable repairmen. The only problem with this approach is that when water hits cat, cat goes berserk, breaking anything in it's way to get out of the path of the offending water. Several knick-knacks have met their demise since the arrival of the Midget.

I brought the wild-ass-midget-kitten into our quiet little household a couple of weeks ago. I have another cat, we'll call him Bubba. He's a fat handsome lad of 10 years and has the sweetest laid back disposition you could possibly imagine. Only problem is . . . well . . . . god love him, he's just not that bright! Anyway, since my little Bubba and I had moved, it had become increasingly obvious that we needed a kitten. We had lost custody of his big sister in the divorce, so he was lonely when I wasn't home and he really needed someone to play with, other than me!

Now, it's been ten years since I last adopted a kitten and things have changed dramatically in that time. Used to be you could walk into a shelter and you'd have a plethora of cats and kittens to choose from. But like everything else in our increasingly complex society, nowadays, it ain't that easy.

I had to go on a list. I kid you not. I have been on a kitten wish list since last December. They INTERVIEWED me. Then I filled out an eleventeen page questionaire about my lifestyle, my moral values and my general views on pet care and rearing. I signed a contract in blood, that I would never allow my new kitten out of the house. I was told that before I could take my new kitten home, that it would be spayed or neutered. When I queried the adviseability of ripping a kittens organs out at the tender age of six weeks, I was given a 45-minute lecture about how many animals are abandoned each year. And while I don't mean to make light of the desperate plight of so many animals, I can't quite figure out why I needed to have my poor dear tramatized by a surgery so early in her little life when I have just signed a contract stating that she will never go outside. Maybe cats are self replicating these days.

Anyway, when kitten season came around, I started to hunt for my new baby. Once again the process seems to have changed. You don't just walk in, point to one of the little darlings and say I'll take that one. I had to make an appointment and was only allowed to see certain of the kittens. People were shuttled in and out, with eyes averted and there seemed to be an unspoken rule that none of the potential new families were to talk to one another. Picking a kitten is serious business people.

But when all was said and done, I did finally find my girl. The wild midget is a real beauty queen and knows it. She's a walking photo op just waiting to happen. She's also very bright and stubborn as a mule!

There are many things about kittens that I had forgotten about. Like the fact that they have absolutely no manners. I keep pointing out to her that I don't put my feet in her food, and I expect the same courtesy in return. This is a rule that she seems to find very vexing.

Bringing the new kitten into the house was of course a bit touch and go for a while. Bubba was fascinated by the little monster but didn't seem exactly sure if he should play with her, or beat the bejeezus out of her! Ultimately her completely ingenuous nature disarmed him, and they worked out their differences in remarkably short order.

So tonight the Midget has a wild hair (it isn't a full moon by any chance is it?) and is racing around like a crazed beast. How something so small can make so much noise is entirely beyond my comprehension.

But its worth it. When she finally tires herself out she'll come and plop her pint sized self down by Bubba and I and her little purr is as loud as a mac truck. And they are so adorable curled up together.

Life is good.

A Worthy Task

Today, I will attempt to perform one of the most challenging tasks that a dedicated knitter ever faces.

Teaching a kitten that Mommy's yarn is NOT a cat toy. (And yes, I am one of those childless women - or men for that matter - who treat their pets like babies and call themselves "Mommy". Deal with it.)

I made one disaterous attempt to knit with the Midget in the room and it wasn't a pretty sight. Quicker than you could blink she was in the knitting bag with yarn completely how wrapped around her little body. How she managed to accomplish this in feat in a matter of seconds, will always remain a mystery. She of course thought that my trying to untangle her and get the yarn out of her mouth was a fabulous game! Sadly, it's difficult assert your authority over a determined kitten when you can't stop laughing.

Since then I have found myself frantically searching through my day planner, looking for doctors appointments or any tedious task that would require waiting in line so that I could knit. A junky looking for a fix, I began to invent reasons to visit the craft store, telling myself that I wasn't there to smell the yarn. I cursed the DMV for not requiring me renew my drivers license in person. Yesterday, when I found myself waiting in line at the Post Office during lunch hour to buy stamps that I didn't need, gleefully knitting a cable, I realized that something had to be done.

So today is the day. I'm pulling out a skein of black Cascade 220 to start a helmet liner. I have two cousins who were recently deployed to Iraq, so it seems like a good time to put my needles back to work on a worthy cause.

Wish me luck. I think I'm going to need it!

The Bitch Is Back

A little over a year ago, I hopped in line with so many others in this increasingly cyber oriented world, and started a blog.

I've had a "blog" of sorts my entire life. We used to call it a diary, or a journal, or a book of thoughts. I wonder how long it will be before a journal composed of paper and pen is as foreign a concept as the old time ice-box that used actual ice to keep things cold, as opposed to the appliance we now use to make the ice itself.

But I digress.

I'm not entirely sure why it is that I started my online journal. Although I suppose that the purpose of any diary is not just so that those thoughts no longer plague ones waking hours, but the idea that you - your life - won't get lost. That somehow, in some small measure, that we will live on through our words and our lives will not have passed in complete obscurity. Which is the appeal of the blog as opposed to paper and pen. Once it's out there, it can never be totally erased and unlike paper and pen, it can't be burned, or crumpled or eventually turn to dust. The internet brought us - or our words at any rate - as close to immortality as we can hope to get.

There were blogs that I had been stalking for months, that inspired me to commit my own ideas to binary code. Blogs where I posted a comment here and there and before long my stalkees had begun to stalk me in return. The give and take of being by turn exhibitionist and voyeur, seems to be an almost irresistible lure for some of us. And somehow, the anonymity created an intimacy and immediacy that was as seductive as a sirens call.

It was an iddyIic affair until my husband of one short year, found my blog. And in one quick swipe of the mouse, both my marriage and my blog died a quick, although not entirely painless, death.

Somehow, while there was nothing - or very little - in my online journal about him that I hadn't said directly TO him, he found the act of my putting my thoughts out into the world for perfect strangers to see, unforgivable. An act of treason, if you will, against our marriage.

Not that it had been that good of a marriage to begin with. I suppose that I should be ashamed to admit this, but it was a marriage of convenience. For me anyway. I had hoped that loving without being IN Love would be enough. I was wrong.

So the marriage that probably never had a chance to begin with, ended with even less fanfare than the Las Vegas ceremony that had started it.

In one vain attempt to make amends for the heineous crimes that I had committed against him by publicially blogging my life, I wrote an apology and pulled the offending entries. Suffice to say, his decision had been made and there was very little, if anything, that I could have done that would have swayed him. And as I was unwilling to spend the rest of my life as a martyr to his anger, I quickly gave up the idea that I might be able to salvage my marriage through any act of contrition.

I moved to another city. Began trying to put the pieces together of a life that truth be told, had been torn apart long before my esteemed husband had turned up on the scene. Started this entirely new blog. Stealthily let my stalkers know, where I could be found.

I declared to the world that I had learned my lesson! When blog world and real world collide, disasters can happen. I was entering the age of a kinder and gentler blog. I wouldn't commit to words the thoughts and ideas that might hurt the people in my life if they came across them! I had grown and learned from my mistakes!

HA!

Sadly, the sterlized words seemed pointless to me. The whole purpose of a journal for me is a purging. A forum where I can say what is sometimes left unsaid in daily life. That trying to edit my life made the whole effort meaningless and simply didn't supply the outlet that I seem to need.

So I'm back . . . again. Apparently none the wiser!

I know that there will always be the possiblity of my blog world and my daily world colliding. But I guess that I'm just willing to take that chance. I always have lived a life that seems to wander perilously close to the edge . . .

Welcome to my unedited life.

A View Of Clouds

I was out at Shoreline Park this evening for sunset. There were dark heavy clouds, pieces of blue sky and some of those fluffy white clouds that look like you should be able to bounce on them like a feather bed.

As I was driving along Cliff Drive towards the park, I spotted a rainbow hanging out over the ocean. When I pulled into the parking lot, it was faint, fading in and out, virtually unnoticed by the people jogging with their iPods and or huddling inside their coats urging their dogs to "hurry up".

Walking alone along the concrete path that wound up the cliffs, it struck me what an allegory for my life this cold blustery evening was. Wandering in solitude, searching the skies for a rainbow that keeps appearing and fading, hoping for a silver lining in the clouds to materialize.

It would be nice to have a soft place to fall, like one those fluffy clouds that hung low on the horizon. I can’t remember the last time I really felt that I had anyone to depend on other than myself. Maybe I never have.

And I wondered, if I were to vanish in a puff of smoke, without a whimper or a warning, how long would it be before anyone noticed?

How long would it take before someone started to worry? And who in this world knows me well enough to even know where to begin to look, or if there even was a me, out there somewhere left to be found?

I wondered, if I were to walk out on my life, leaving my house with the TV tuned to HGTV , my laptop sitting open on the bed, a cup of tea brewing on the counter in the kitchen – left it all like some kind of modern day Pompeii with everything frozen in a moment of time – would it even matter?

As I turned away from what was left of the sunset, I suddenly saw that the sky behind me had become a beautiful deep rose smeared with dark thunderclouds. If I hadn’t turned around, I would have missed it.

Maybe that’s all I need. Maybe I just need to turn around.

Pebbles and Me

Have I mentioned that I have a new job?

This is in large part why I have not posted in my little blog recently. I'm exhausted. It's only part-time, between 4 and 6 hours a day, but for me physically, thats a LOT!

But on to my job. I am now the Personal Assistant to a rich widow with twelve year old daughter. Her hubby died about five years ago and she took over the running of his many business holdings, many of which are in real estate. Something about which I know nothing, I might add. My duties are wide and varied, and my office is in the back of her guest house, in a very beautiful area.

My new boss, who for the sake of anonymity (not to mention the confidentiality agreement that I signed) we shall call Pebbles, is a beautiful woman in her early 50's who flys airplanes and races cars. Not your typical widow to be sure.

Pebbles is maybe a bit scattered, definately over-extended and everything is always an emergency. Everything. Always. But I am a person who takes care of people. It's what I do. And if ever I knew anyone who needed taking care of, it's Pebbles. So I have charged in with my post-it-notes and my calendars, determined to put her office, if not her to life, back in order.

Which is not an easy task. Take a recent day.

The second or third day that I worked for Pebbles, I recieved a call from her at 7:15 a.m. with an emergency. An event that is proving to be a rather common occurance. So the other day, desperately needing extra sleep, I turned off my phone, so that I couldn't be reached. When I finally turned my phone on at 10:20 there were several messages from Pebbles asking me to take one of her appointments at 10:30, as she was running behind schedule. What a surprise.

So I was off and running. In her message she had asked me to meet a contractor at a condo that we shall call Blue Bonnet, which is scheduled to close escrow this Friday. After finally finding the Blue Bonnet property, which I had not heard of until that morning, I charmed the closet man into doing what I wanted (have I ever mention how much clevage and a pretty smile helps in these situations?). Likewise the man who came to install the appliances and started to have a hissy fit because the plumber hadn't been in to do his job. While at same time dealing with the buyers who showed up unexpectedly and were upset by the fact that escrow was not actually going to close on Friday, were freaked out that the refrigerator was going to dent the new hardwood floors, the tiles that had just been installed in the kitchen were the wrong color and the pipes in the linen closet had suddenly sprung a mysterious leak. Mind you, I knew NOTHING about any of this. NOTHING. Bluffed my way through the whole mess. I somehow managed to soothe all ruffled feathers and put out all the fires, leaving everyone reasonably happy two hours later.

The day continued in like fashion with the icing on the cake being when the (new) Housekeeper came to the office, announced that she was leaving, and literally dropping her cleaning supplies in front of my befuddled face, dashed out the door without once looking behind her. Shaking free from my shock, and praying that when she said "I'm leaving" that she actually meant that she was going out for ice-cream rather than that she was quitting, I raced after her, only to see her peal out of the driveway in her car, yelling out the window "I'm sorry!"

Have I mentioned the high turnover rate of people in Pebbles employ? This is apparently the eighth or ninth Housekeeper to abruptly quit in the last 16 months. And I won't even tell you how many people have run away screaming from the job that I am currently holding.

I think I need a nap. I also need a new Housekeeper . . .

A Scarlett Letter

Okay, I'm feeling very conflicted about this whole dating thing.

So I go out with Paul the Virtuous on a real date. You know the kind with dinner and everything. It's a Friday night, which apparently for Paul the Virtuous means pizza and beer night. Which sounds fine by my. Who doesn't like pizza?

We order a pitcher of beer and a large pizza, cheese only on one side and pepperoni and mushroom on the other. As we start munching away, I notice that Paul the Virtuous is only eating the cheese side of the pizza. Turns out that every Friday since he can remember - ever! - he has eaten cheese pizza. His family had one of those religious types of things going on, so cheese pizza was the food of choice on Fridays.

This of course did bring up the question of religion, and as he is still doing the whole meatless Fridays thing, I figure he is somewhat devout. Not a problem, but not really my thing.

But he's not. Devout, I mean. He hasn't been to church in years. He's just a creature of habit, says he.

47 YEARS of cheese pizza every Friday? No tossin' in a pepperoni or slice of canadian bacon in there every once in a while? No. Never.

Well, okay then.

I'm thinkin' that this might be indicative of a slightly more rigid character than I had originally assumed, but hey. We've all got our quirks. But as the meal progresses, I begin to sense a theme emerging here. So I decide to throw a little curve ball into the conversation and see what he does with it.

He mentions that there is a pool at his building and I say oh, you should have told me, I would have brought a suit. Of course, says I, we could always shock the neighbors and go for a little skinny dip!

Now, I'm obviously just joking, this is a first date after all! Paul the Virtuous however, is not amused.

His face suddenly goes perfectly still and strained and he says with great dignity "There are only 3 reasons to ever be naked. Showering. Going to the bathroom. And The Having Of The Sex."

The Having Of The Sex?

And I don't even want to know why he feels the need to be naked when he goes to the bathroom! I'm not EVEN going there!

But I am rather astounded and feel compelled to ask, what you mean you never just dance around your apartment in the buff? Are you afraid of offending your cat? Three reasons he says, holding up the appropriate number of fingers, and looking appalled at the very idea of being naked in front of the cat.

What do you wear to bed, I ask? A t-shirt and sweat pants, says he. What do YOU wear to bed, he asks. A question to which I give the old Marilyn Monroe standard - Channel #5.

I swear to you on my mothers grave, that Paul the Virtuous looked like he was going to faint.

Needless to say, the date went rapidly down hill from there.

And when we parted ways, I'm not entirely sure, but I think that I heard him muttering something about a woman named Jezebel . . .

Neighbors

I collect grandparents.

While most people collect THINGS, like art, or birdhouses or silver train whistles, I seem to collect interesting PEOPLE. Elderly people in particular.

I've done this all of my life. From as far back as I can remember, while the other kids only visited the old lady down the street because she gave us candy and lemonade, I visited because I loved her stories.

So naturally, when I moved into my new apartment, I was drawn to the elderly woman who lives across the street, Giovanna Franca.

Giovanna Franca is an energetic 72 years old and is originally from Palermo, Italy. She immigrated to the United States with her husband when her three oldest children were still young, and her youngest daughter, who was apparently a surprise, was born here in the States.

Her English is, at best, broken and understanding her takes rather intense concentration, seeing as she speaks with a very heavy accent and uses mostly Italian! Fortunately she throws in enough English words here and there, that combined with her grand gesticulations, are enough to allow me to follow her train of thought. Mostly.

So when Giovanna Franca invited me over for breakfast this morning, I of course accepted. And quite frankly, I don't think that she would have allowed me NOT to accept! I believe that this tiny Italian woman has a spine made of tempered steel.

We talked of many things, her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Of her husband, she didn't say much. When I inquired about him, she threw her eyes heavenward, started waving her hands around and speaking very rapidly in Italian. When she finally slowed down, she said with a roll of her eyes, "Much trouble." I decided that her husband was not such a good conversational gambit!

We looked at pictures of her family while she fed me pancakes. Five pancakes to be precise. Five! With enough syrup to float a small armada and my butter quota for the next ten months. No matter how much I protested that I was full, she just stood there spatula in hand saying "Mangia, mangia!"

After eating pancakes until I literally thought that I was going to explode, Giovanna Franca brought out the cookies! Yes, indeed I was now expected to eat cookies with my tea. Apparently she feels that I need fattening up.

Now there was no way on earth that I could possibly force anything else down my throat without my stomach vehemently rejecting it! So when she turned her back on me to wash the breakfast dishes, I quickly stuffed two cookies into my sock. Yes, I did!

I hobbled home stuffed to the gills with pancakes and trailing cookie crumbs behind me from my sock.

It was much nicer time than the date that I had the next day . . .

Mystery Date

First Dates are a bitch.

You never know what's going to happen, or what to say, and invariably it's a bad hair day. Now with this Internet Dating thing, it's like that game "Mystery Date" that my cousin Dana had when I was pre-pubescent and innocent. It was a really stupid game. All you did was roll the dice and open a little door to find out if your date was Mr. Wonderful (dressed in a tuxedo and carrying flowers, I believe) or Mr. What-Were-You-Thinking (a kinda Johnny Depp Seattle Grunge reject), or any number of different types in between. I have no idea why, but I wanted that game really really bad.

Ha! Be careful what you wish for . . .

After weeding out a bunch of the internet date prospects and conducting the obligatory telephone screening process, I set up a few coffee dates. The coffee date is our societies currently accepted way of meeting a blind date. With the coffee date you can always say Aw Gee I already made dinner plans, gotta-run-see-ya -bye. This way you haven't tied yourself into an excrusiating evening of dining with someone who keeps talking incessantly about their ex who left him at the alter or all the ugly, fat women who are pretending to be Jessica Alba, and how could they do that to him, never mind that HIS photo was taken his senior year of high school and that quarterback physique has long since turned to fat and there is more hair on his back then there is on his head.

So, anyway, I arrange to met this man, Bobby the Bearded, at a coffee shop. I get there before him and seat myself at a table and soon enough a man approaches me with that oh-thank-god-she's-not-a-dog kind of smile on his face. I look around somewhat frantically, hoping that there is actually some other woman that this man is smiling at.

Because this is not Bobby the Bearded.

And it was indeed yours truly that he was smiling at. Now, I have no clue who this man is, but he knows my name so obviously I must have set a date up with him.

My mind is racing and I'm wondering if I somehow set up dates with two men at the same time, and oh my god what if Bobby the Bearded shows up too and how in gods name did I get myself into this mess and who is this man?

People, you can't make this shit up!

Now, at this point it probably would have been a good idea for me to fess up to my mistake, apologize and say gee I'm really sorry but who the hell are you? But nooooo. I stand there dumbstruck with this idiotic smile on my face and quickly usher him to a table behind a palm tree where I am hidden but can see if Bobby the Bearded shows up.

Conversation is rocky at first, and I'm certainly not helping matters by having my attention divided. But as the minutes pass and Bobby didn't show up I began to relax and concentrate on my date. Now, by this point I have totally missed my opportunity to gracefully explain that I don't know this man's name without looking like a total moron. So I just stay quiet and hope that something he says will jog my memory and I'll be able to figure out who he is.

Before I know it a couple of hours have passed with some light and lively conversation, and when we are about to part ways, he asks if he could see me again and I say sure I'd enjoy that.

Of course I suddenly realize that I still don't know his name, and I'm thinking that this would probably be good information to have at this point, and I suspect that just calling him Bubba won't go over so well.

Thinking quickly (why I couldn't have thought as quickly earlier will forever remain a mystery) I ask him to call me the day before our date to confirm, cause you know how flaky people can be ha ha ha (oh if he only knew). See I figure if he calls then he'll have to say "Hi this is so-and-so". This way I will actually know his name when he picks me up and if that didn't work I figure I can always rummage through his glove compartment when he's not looking and find his car registration or something.

As we are walking to our respective cars, at long last, Mr. Mystery mentions his cat who has this unusual name and the light bulb, dim tho it may be, finally clicks on!

Sure enough, when I got home and grabbed my date cheat sheet, there he was, just below Bobby the Bearded. Paul the Virtuous with the cat of the unusual name. I must have written the date down under the wrong name.

I still don't know what happened to Bobby the Bearded. And quite frankly, I'm a little afraid to find out!

Internet Dating Part One

Okay, don't laugh, but I signed up for Match.com.

I KNOW!

I'm not even legally divorced yet, and quite frankly I'm not even entirely sure that I really want to be dating again. It seems like an awful lot of work. But everyone seems to expect it, so I guess I just kinda wanna see what's out there. You know kinda cast out a line and see what's biting.

And man-o-man are they biting!

I put a decent photo of myself on my profile. It's nothing special, just a couple of shots that I snapped with the camera built into my Mac. Certainly not the best photos of myself, but not the worst either. I guess that if I do decide to meet anyone, I'd much rather have them say "Wow! You're much prettier than your photo!" as opposed to "Gee. You didn't mention that you were an expert with Photoshop."

Now, this is not the first time that I've done the Internet dating thing. But the whole thing seems to have gotten completely out of hand. And I know that this is going to sound totally egotistical and like I'm one of those awful former cheerleader types that we all hate so much BUT . . . There are a whole lotta guys out there who if they saw you in public, wouldn't even DREAM of approaching you, who seem to feel that it's perfectly acceptable to approach you on the Internet.

And you KNOW the men of which I speak! Don't you turn your pretty little nose up at me and pretend that you don't know what I'm talking about! You know EXACTLY what I'm talking about.

These are the homely, if not downright ugly, men with room temperature IQ's, no job, no money, who will need to take the bus to go on a date with you. Now, I'm not trying to be snotty or mean, it's just . . . . really. Do they HONESTLY think that you'll go out with them?

Some of the men who have responded to my profile are truly astonishing. And I swear to you on my Mother's life that I even received an email from a man recently released from prison. Or maybe he's still in prison. I'm not entirely sure.

And then if you take the time to send out a polite little No Thank You Wish You The Best Of Luck email to them they actually GET MAD AT YOU. They send back hateful email telling you how shallow and awful you are and just because they are 5'2" tall, live in another hemisphere with 57 dogs, and have a perspiration problem does not mean that you should automatically discount them.

But of course if you don't respond to them, they sic Miss Manners on you for not replying. Or they sent a multitude of emails to you saying simply Well? as if you should have jumped to attention the minute you received their email . . . or . . .Are you ever going to answer you snotty b#@$#? (Okay so I just made that one up. No one has really called me any names. Yet.)

But you know what worries me the most? It's not that I could end up going out on a date with a man who put a 30 year old picture up, or that he'll turn out to be a perv or stalker. I worry that I could somehow end up being someone ELSE'S Internet Dating Horror Story. How awful would that be? I can just imagine being at a party somewhere and everybody's laughing about this story about a crazed woman who spilled soup in her lap and then talked about the way the logs were stacked up in the fireplace and then realize that it's ME that they are talking about. It's kinda like that dream where you out in public in your underwear. Only worse.

Because it really COULD happen . . .

Drivers Ed

Driving habits of people seem to be different everywhere you go, each place having its own quirks that must be learned through experience.

And in my travels I've encountered some driving habits that are at best somewhat bizarre, and at worst downright terrifying!

In Egypt my taxi driver entered the freeway from THE EXIT RAMP, did a quick pirouette and headed towards my hotel. Granted it was 2 o'clock in the morning, but still! AND these maneuvers were all executed without his headlights! Driving at night without using your headlights on was apparently a common practice in Cairo at that time. Upon sensing another car approaching in the opposite direction, the drivers would flash their lights at each other and continue past at breakneck speeds. I found this a mite unsettling.

Now in Kyoto, they drove at night with their headlights on, but for some reason they turned them off when at a stoplight. Which I found curious, but something of a relief after India where I was quite startled to find myself sharing the roads with cows.

In Bangkok, rush hour has you dreaming wistfully about traffic on the 405 (for those of you unfamiliar Southern California and the 405 freeway, this is a place you do not want to ever be without reading material and a couple hundred sudoku puzzles) and half the population seems to have scars on their legs from injuries they sustained riding on the backs of two stroke motorcycles. Being woefully uninformed on my first trip to Thailand, I personally experienced rush hour in Bangkok from the back of a tuk-tuk, a three wheeled, open air vehicle. Tuk-tuks look really adorable and seem like a really good idea to tourists.



In Nepal, on the way back from the Chitwan jungle, my car blew not one, but ALL FOUR tires. All four! At different times. And while we weren't searching for tires we were flying around blind corners on the wrong side of the road on what was affectionately known as the Cowboy Highway. On the rafting trip down the river to the jungle we had passed many wrecked cars along the banks of the river below the Cowboy Highway. And on one particularly memorable stop, I saw people stumbling from a bus that had been driven off into a ditch.

Back in America, as a pedestrian in New York City, its every man for him or herself. People stand poised on curbs with cars whizzing past and . . . . wait for it . . . . wait for the break . . . here it comes . . . Now! Run! I was always grateful to have reached the other side of the street without getting trampled on by the swarming horde.

Conversely, back in Los Angeles, whenever a pedestrian steps one foot into the street all traffic screeches to a grinding halt all over the city. One presumes this is because seeing a person walking in LA is such a mesmerizing site that no one knows quite what to do.

But never, ever, in my life have I experienced parking lot etiquette like they have in my new town. In fact I'm not entirely sure that the inhabitants actually know what a parking lot is, let alone have an understanding about how it is generally used.

At first I was puzzled. Was it my imagination, or had I just been forced to leap out of the way of three different speeding vehicles? In the parking lot? But having studied driving behavior in several different parking lots over the last few weeks, I have been forced to come to the conclusion that the drivers in this town consider parking lots to be alternate thoroughfare with an obstacle course thrown in for fun.

People drive thru the parking lots in this town with the intensity of a NASCAR race driver on their last lap. I know Hollywood stunt drivers who could take lessons from some of these ladies.

So if I suddenly vanish from view for a few days, don't worry. I probably just got clipped by a Mercedes in the parking lot at Michael's Crafts.

Just sayin'.

What a Handsome Lad

Oh lord, not the camera again.



Why won't she just let me sleep?



Maybe if I ignore her, she'll go away.

Paint And Purpose

I love paint.

The smell, the texture, the color. Everything. But especially the color. It can cause me problems, this love affair with color that I have. I'll start painting - a room, a piece of furniture, the cat, whatever - and become simply entranced. I'll stand stock still, brush or roller in hand staring at this marvel of color and texture, watching the light play across the surface and see within it's depths endless possibilities.

I watch paint dry. Literally.

For me, seeing the subtle change of color, the reflection of light and shadow across the surface of wet paint as it slowly dries is endlessly fascinating. Of course, watching paint dry can drastically slow my productivity, as I'm sure you can imagine.

But eventually I'll get to the second coat, because contrary to claims made by certain parties, I do not believe that there really is such a thing as a "One Coat Paint". I personally believe that this is a ploy that was created by the paint manufacturers so that they can charge lazy people more money. The manufacturers know that George is never going to paint a second coat anyway, so they dump a little extra pigment into the mix, tack a couple of bucks on to the price and good ole George goes home happy. So when Emily says, "Honey, do you think it needs a second coat?", George can say to Emily with a clear conscience "Naw! It's a One Coat Paint, Sweety! It's supposed to look like that".

A few pictures of my humble kitchen in the midst of it's transformational paint job.




Charming, isn't it?



See that black thing in the background? Therein you see the main problem with my kitchen. It has virtually no shelving, so I'm using an old bookcase for my dishes. I believe that this is what one calls "re-purposing". Re-purposing is what happens after one goes "dumpster diving".




I took the $50 ladder and left the $1200 sofa behind when I left Himself. My priorities are maybe a bit skewd.

It Could Be Worse

Wednesday is shot day.

I have this thing called Ankylosing Spondylitis. A really big name for a disease that basically means Ouch Dammit!

Since I have no desire to conduct a Health Ed class, I'll just say that diseases like AS and RA (Rheumatoid Arthritis) are autoimmune diseases that essentially cause your body to mistakenly attack itself. They are diseases that think they are being helpful. And like the guest who tries to be helpful by putting your dishes away after dinner, it causes no end of problems in spite of its good intentions.

So the doctors have put me on a drug called Enbrel, which I jab into my leg on a weekly basis. And it hurts. Now I know that with any luck this drug will help me in the long run, reducing the pain and fatigue that I experience on a daily basis, but still - that shot Hurts!

I suppose that it’s not really just those couple of minutes of actual pain when that needle pierces the skin that makes me dread shot day. I think that it’s also what the shot represents. This battle in my body that I’ve been fighting since I was a child. I guess that sometimes, I’m just very weary of the struggle and I resent the hell out of that shot because sometimes, it just doesn’t seem fair.

And heaven forbid that I should complain about it! Because then I get an earful about how lucky I am that it's only once a week, that I could be diabetic and need shots all the time, that I could be dying of cancer, that I could need dialysis, that I could - that I could - that I could.

Why is it that we feel the need to belittle our own experiences?

From the time that we are small children we are taught that our experiences, our feelings, the perceived reality of our OWN lives, has no value. Shut up and eat your food, no one cares if you hate brussel sprouts because there are starving children in Ethiopia who are suffering. And by all that’s good you better stop crying or you'll get something to really cry about!

As we struggle through life and encounter the pitfalls and stumbling blocks that happen to all of us, we are told that things could be worse. Why just look at that person who lost their job, or leg or home or child. Our troubles are nothing compared to that.

So we go through life negating our own suffering.

And I can't help but wonder, if we never allow ourselves to experience our own pain, how can we then understand the pain of another and learn compassion? Maybe it is only by standing in our own pain that we can finally move beyond ourselves and into the realm of kindness and understanding. Maybe pain, both mental and physical, exists to help us learn acceptance and tolerance of the frailty that is within us all. Maybe as pain carves itself into our own souls, it creates within us the desire and the need to ease the suffering of others.

Wednesday is shot day. So I’m going to feel sorry for myself. Just for a minute or two. For the sake of mankind, you understand.