My date last night

Julia said my outfit looked like a alterna-chick. Black and white striped sweater, black skirt, black heeled boots, and my black (of course) glasses. I don’t know; Paul the bartender liked it. Got there early, walked in and saw the guy from “12 gay, 1 straight, straight wasn’t my date”—typical because out of all the guys in Baltimore I’ve ever gone out with, he’s the one I always run into.

So I’m TMing Cassie & Becca and talking to Paul, the Irish bartender who looked like Andy Kaufman. Then, I get a message…Right Next 2 U. It was him.

So, we start talking. I learn he doesn’t like baseball (something about the strike) – this could be a deal-breaker. He learns I don’t like/understand football – this could also be a deal-breaker. However, we spent almost 3 hours talking, and it was so easy.

He walked me to my garage, and we hugged.

All in all a good date. :)

Welcome to Holland

Though I'm not currently in this situation (I don't even have kids!), I have always loved this piece about raising a child with special needs. Courtesy of Q100 Atlanta's The Bert Show and Bert's Big Adventure.

Welcome to Holland
By Emily Perl Kingsley ©1987

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability...to imagine how it would feel. It's like this...

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip to Italy...

After months of anticipation, the day finally arrives...

The plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!" you say. "What do you mean, Holland? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy!"

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So now you must go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for awhile and you catch your breath, you look around and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills, Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there, and for the rest of your life you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss. But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.

What the well-dressed pregnant lady is wearing these days...

So I'm watching All My Children (what can I say, guilty pleasure), and am I the only one that is completely bothered by what Kendall Hart is wearing this week? Here's a woman who's pregnant, has already been told "no sex for baby's sake" after a few near-miscarriages, and has just been dragged out from the wreckage of an explosion. She's lost her ex-fiancé and broken up with her new fiancé (her ex's father). Now, she's got her ex-best friend's, soon-to-be-ex-husband (who's also Kendall's ex-fiancé) and the father of her baby moving in with her. Needless to say, girl has a lot to think about.

So you'd think that she'd be a little more careful about what she's wearing. But no, girl is walking around in a spaghetti-strapped cocktail sundress...in Pennsylvania...in February. Sure she's got a coat on, but while everyone else is bundled up, the writers have left the pregnant woman to wander around town...in a spaghetti-strapped sundress...in Pennsylvania...in February. It's not like she doesn't know she's pregnant, she's got a bump, talking to it, making plans to move in with the father of her baby, and she's walking around IN A SPAGHETTI STRAPPED SUNDRESS...IN PENNSYLVANIA...IN FEBRUARY!!!

I realize that it's just a TV show, but come on people, this is almost as unrealistic as an aborted baby ending up alive in someone elses uterus...oh wait....

Holy Cow

Blame Bloglines and the New York Times. I had been avoiding the news all day so that I could be suprised by the results of the Ladies' Figure Skating tonight. I was expecting a shock (like my girl Kimmie), though still hoping for Rory Gilmore to pull it off.

Thanks to the New York Times (All the news that's fit to print apparently really does extend to Figure Skating), I just found out the results. Holy cow....

I get it now...

"The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on" ~ Joseph Heller

Oh! So that's why Dick shot Harry!

If I paid $30, I would be pissed

So last night, B, C, and I went back to HurryDate. For those not familiar with the concept, you sit at a table and drink heavily while every six minutes, a man positions himself in front of you. If he's someone you can relate to in the first 30 seconds, you have an original conversation; if he's not, you go through the basics..."What do you do?" "Where do you live?" "How long have you lived there?" "Do you like it?" Really, if you have that conversation with me, you're in trouble.

Thank God it was free. It was like the Special Olympics of dating.

Now, I know awkward, but this was a new level beyond that. That level, if you're not familiar, is called "Painful." There was the guy who looked like a cross between Eddie Munster and Uncle Fester (short, bald, bird-like features), the guy who took 3 months off to go sailing, but stuttered and never made eye contact (he said he was going to finish his story via email...yipes!), the guy whose entire upper body rotated when he talked (close, right, back, left, close), the guy who asked me if I was good in bed (I told him that he'd never find out), and Carlos.

C liked Carlos for a one night stand -- for B or me. I can't remember how B felt about him, but I was far from impressed. He was nervous and that came through in the first 6 seconds. Then, it was like being on a date with Barbara Walters. Probing questions, rapid-fire, but no good answers when I asked the same questions of him. He demanded I tell him a secret (I don't tell secrets), but then took 3 minutes trying to come up with a secret himself. Not that I really minded, because it saved me from making conversation, but he did that whole gesturing and squirming thing and I couldn't tell if he was trying to think of a secret or have a bowel movement. We were saved by the buzzer, and all was well with the world.

Carlos's friend, Brian, (though I didn't know it at the time) was one of two normal men at the entire event. Of course, C thought he was gay, so I'm not sure how that's going to work out. We talked work, but mostly about the government contractors we work for. His do less than mine...They're GSA (the land of the $600 stapler). He made me laugh, and he made me end the evening glad I didn't stay in and clean the fridge.

After the event, we were doing the recap when Carlos walked up. "Oh no, ladies, you're talking about us. Would anyone like a drink?" B & I still needed to drink heavily, so we agreed. That's when we found out that he was with Brian and this other, delectable, boy that B & I were instantly attracted to. We talked for a while, I called Brian's friends and coworkers for references (his gay boss said he'd go out with him if he had the chance), and C got the skinny on the new kid. This guy, Jeremy, was adorable. I'm going out with him on Friday.

I may still go out with Brian too...Though the coworkers dating the same person thing is flashbacks of Walker's WVEC adventure. However, Carlos doesn't have a chance with any of us. C changed her opinion after hanging out with him. Sad how things go downhill in the 7th minute....

Mail Merge Nightmares

So think back 10 or so years ago. You’re a High School Senior, and you’re applying to colleges. You check the mail diligently every day, waiting to see if the mailman will bring the lovely and exciting big envelope or that puny and depressing skinny envelope. Remember kids, as we all know in the game of college acceptances, size matters.

Imagine then, that you’ve applied to the University of Georgia, and it’s your first choice school. The mailman comes, and he hands you a thick envelope. You’re pumped. You kiss the pet bulldog that you’ve had since you were a Kindergartner. You jump up and down like a little kid. You make like Sherman and triumphantly burn the safety school application you were still working on. You race to the mall and buy up all the black and red gear you can get your hands on. The next morning, you sail to your guidance counselor’s office and write your name and “UGA” on the “acceptance board” in big black and red letters. You’re done, you’re happy; you’re going to your first choice school. Now, it’s time to kick back, slack off, and focus on the all-important task of Prom Night event coordination.

And then…you find out that it was all a mistake.

That’s exactly what happened to the UGA Class (or Not) of 2010. Thanks to the efforts of a (hopefully now fired) secretary, the letters all went out, but they went to the wrong people. Now, the kids who were pumped and ready to go to UGA are sweating it out and wondering if they’re going to get a second letter that confirms the acceptance or the one that tells them, “Sorry, just kidding.”

Ugh.

Starbucks

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the movie Groundhog Day – that film where Bill Murray’s character, Phil Connors, is forced to live the same day over and over again. Though I know that it’s a movie, it’s pretty much the story of my life right now. Monday through Friday, I get up at the same time, I do the same things, and I watch helplessly as the days blend together. It’s getting so bad that the guy at Einstein Bros. starts putting my bagel and shmear together as soon as he sees my car in the parking lot (not an everyday occurrence, but I do order the same thing every time I’m there). Phil’s problem was, clearly, more drastic than this, but he took advantage of the monotony to right wrongs, save lives, and make changes within himself. The town and day may remain the same, but Phil himself changes in ways that no one could ever imagine.

Realizing that I’ve found myself in the same rut, I’ve decided to make a conscious effort to do things just a little bit differently each day. Whether it’s going to a different gym in the network (incidentally, the Bare Hills Merritt is a Mecca for anyone wanting to learn about all things “Brangelina.”), taking a back-road home, or getting my news from MSNBC.com instead of CNN, these little changes are designed to break me out of the rut that I’m in and get me thinking again.

This morning, it was the coffee.

As you may know, ordering Starbucks coffee is something of an art form. Tom Hanks’ character in You’ve Got Mail said:
The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino.

Now I can make six decisions at once, and I’m comfortable with them. For me, it was always “Grande Skim, Sugar-free Hazelnut (sometimes Vanilla, but always sugar-free) Latte.” It’s comfortable, it rolls off the tongue, and it’s made life pretty easy. Because of the whole vanilla/hazelnut thing, I don’t have the luxury of walking into Starbucks and having my coffee ready for me as soon as I hit the door, but it’s pretty darn close. This morning, however, I decided to break the habit. This morning, I decided to order a different type of syrup in my grade skim latte. I was confident, I was ready. Sadly though, I was COMPLETELY CLUELESS ABOUT THE WHOLE ORDERING PROCESS. I had become so comfortable with the process that trying to shake it up, even a little, threw the entire thing off. When the cashier asked me what I wanted, I stared blankly at him. I didn’t know what size I wanted or the type of milk – and these decisions weren’t changing, only the syrup was. The ironic thing is that I’m convinced that if I had been fully awake and caffeinated (remember, folks, this was 5:45 AM), this wouldn’t have been an issue. However, considering that the only thing standing between caffination and me was my inability to order, I assure you that it was plenty frustrating. I could have returned to my “usual” order, and the barista (who, incidentally, was already holding a Grande cup and standing with her hand poised between Sugar-Free Hazelnut and Sugar-Free Vanilla) was clearly expecting me to do just that. Just in time, I recovered and stuck to my resolution.

And now, I sit here sipping my Grande Skim Almond Latte. It’s not the best cup of coffee in the world (My second choice was Raspberry, so I’ll try that next time), and it was a little harder to order than I would have liked. However, it’s made just the slightest, indescribable, difference in my day. As cheesy as it sounds, I’m proud of this little victory. This morning, at 5:45 AM, I broke out of autopilot and took the road less traveled by (for me anyway). And that has made all the difference.