I Had This Really Great Idea Today...

Since:

• I didn't like dating even when I was young and it was supposed to be fun; and
• I have a very full and busy life and no room to really add anything; and
• I've been separated from my husband for 5.5 years and haven't gotten around to getting divorced; and
• I'm thinking seriously about moving out of town in six months; and
• I'm really not all that interested in starting a relationship; and
• I think planned dating is artificial and doomed to fail; and
• I think online dating is creepy,
  

I decided to join an online dating service.

Since I...you know...don't want to date, I definitely didn't bring my marketing A-game to profile creation. In fact, I broke the cardinal rules of online dating by posting realistic pictures and telling the truth about my weight.

Have no fear, though. I got exactly what I deserved. On the first night, I received four messages. One of them had a strange emoticon in the subject line and nothing but "got curves??" in the body of the message. (How does one respond to that, even if one were so inclined?) Another said only "Sooooooooooo pretty!!" in the subject line and HAD no text in the body of the message. (How does one respond to that, even if one were so inclined?)

To top it off, it's apparently considered bad form not to respond when someone sends you a message, even if you're "not interested".

It's been approximately six hours, and I'm ready to bail, but I have learned some very interesting things:

• Although the average American man is 5'9.4", nearly all men on dating sites are 6' or taller;
• A surprising number of men have photographs of themselves with horses;
• The world would be a better place if the phrase "and take it from there" were stricken from the English language;
  
• Many, many innocent men have accidentally stumbled into the clutches of women who want to do unseemly things with them, and thus through no fault of their own had their messaging privileges restricted;
• Most men consider having coffee or a meal with someone with whom they lack chemistry a "waste of time" for both parties;
• Most men aren't even aware of what it says about them when they announce in a public forum that they think human interactions are only worthwhile if they're likely to lead to sex;
• A large percentage of men say they're different from other men for the same reasons; and
  
• Spelling is not a priority.

Any doubts I might have had about bypassing the whole dating scene and carrying on with my life as-is have been laid to rest, but I'm wondering whether I should hang around just for the sake of my art. There could be a whole new blog in this. Or, you know, a new career as a stand-up comedienne.

Magical Cereal - Day 5

I'm a creature of habit,and one of those habits is that I eat Quaker Oat Bran every morning, with 2% milk and fresh berries. Every morning. You got the habit thing, right? Occasionally, if I'm feeling adventurous, I'll vary the mix of berries.

One day not long ago, I went to the grocery store and they didn't have oat bran. I didn't panic. Okay, I panicked a little, because it seems like the selection of foods in the grocery store gets smaller every week, while the shelf-space dedicated to a single variety of a single brand mushrooms. But I took a few deep breaths and decided to try Kellogg's All Bran. Just until I could find Quaker Oat Bran somewhere else, mind you. This was an interim measure, not a life change.

You're probably thinking that this little cereal crisis isn't really worth mentioning, and I would agree with you if I hadn't, just yesterday, read the back of the box.

Kellogg's All Bran is going to make me HAPPIER.

I kid you not; it's guaranteed. In just ten days.

Although ten days seemed ambitious, I didn't take issue with the assertion that their cereal was going to make me feel lighter and healthier. It has a boatload of fiber in it, and I'm a big fan of fiber. "Happier" gave me pause. The kind of pause that makes a person wonder whether the FDA or the Department of Agriculture is aware of these claims.

My daughter, of course, is the princess of positive spin. When I first pointed this out to her she said, "Maybe it works. Maybe it's like exercise."

This morning, on day 5, I said to her, "Well, my cereal hasn't made me any happier, but I lost two pounds overnight," and she said, "And that makes you happy, right?"

SHE makes me happy. I'm thinking that maybe I should label her with a 10-day promise, since there is apparently no regulation of that kind of thing.

But I'm still skeptical about the implication of the quote at the bottom of the box, which seems to suggest that Kellogg's All Bran is going to be good for my SOUL. I'll let you know how that works out.

There's an Adolescent in My House

I knew it was coming. I mean, my daughter is going to be 12 in less than two weeks, and she's been in middle school since August. It isn't as if I woke up one morning and she was suddenly a pre-teen. Well, okay, it was kind of like that, but that morning wasn't this week.

This week, though, I got my first taste of that phase of pre-teen angst that all parents want to believe we're somehow magically going to avoid.

For the past two years, I've been working and commuting very long hours and my daughter hasn't been thrilled about it. On the weekends, since we've had to little time together, we've generally tried to do fun things and relax if I didn't have to work. Now that I'm working from home, though, things are changing a little bit. I'm asking awkward questions like "Is your homework done?" and "Why is there a string cheese wrapper on the living room floor?" And she's not taking it well.

The other night, I told her that I was disappointed by all the conflict, that I'd really been looking forward to being home with her more and we needed to figure out how to get past this right away.

She said, in all apparent sincerity, "Well...you could be less annoying."

The hardest thing about parenting is having the discipline not to laugh out loud when your kid says something that you REALLY CAN'T SANCTION, but that is...well...outrageously funny. I couldn't really continue the conversation right then, but a couple of hours later I asked her to explain in exactly what way I was annoying.

"Well," she said, "you say 'yada yada yada', and then...."

"Wait," I interrupted. "I DON'T say 'yada yada yada'. I need to know some actual things I'm saying that are annoying.

And she threw up her hands and said, "SEE? This is a perfect example!"