Yikes!

June 12th is derby D-day.  The day we get tested for our WFTDA Minimum Skills Requirements.  Double yikes.

Done like dinner

OK, really.  I tried.  I've done it all and more for the sake of what -   My relentless quest for the perfect (or at least acceptable) man?  My friends' entertainment?  Something to do while the kids were away?


I've been out with men who make you feel greatand you think there's great chemistry but it mysteriously evaporates (drywall dude), men who make you feel like crap but you adore them anyway for some stupid fucked up reason (douchebag),  men who are so easy to talk to you overlook the fact that they have a personality like wallpaper (Phil).  Men who talk incessantly about themselves (old dude).  Men who bitch about their ex the entire time and how they never got laid and hey, let's go parking! (that would be clicky, the parking dude).  Men who look nothing like their pictures and eat off your plate without asking (can't remember his name - that was a while ago) oh, and then expect you to ask them to come in!  Flicky, the dope fiend with the earlobe issue.  The old fat limpy lawyer who took me to a loud band where he talked incessantly, couldn't hear a word I said when I tried, and then repeatedly tried to stick his tongue down my throat.  Oh, and had a fetish about women with fake limbs... ew.  Well endowed, poorly endowed, good in the sack, USELESS in the sack.  I've done it all.

There were more.  I'm sure I'm forgetting some particularly heinous examples. 

Hey, it's not all bad.  I've had my horizons expanded, my interests changed, my musical taste improved (or at least diversified).  I lost 50 pounds (and lots of my hair - douchebag) .  I've been to therapy for stupid reasons (douchebag) but which ultimately turned out to be helpful.

Post-douchebag we've had:
1:  Toothy - guy who was there with his friend the whole time.
2: Crazy Bill - set up a date and then bailed by email 2 seconds later.  I'm counting him.
3. Drywall dude - total attraction first time, then nothing.  So weird.
4. Lawyer dude with the derby fetish.
5. Bancroft dude.  I'm still counting him since he'd bone me given a chance.
6. Wallpaper dude.  AKA cunnilingus master.
7. Wattle.

Only three to go but I don't think I can do it without a break.

Derby tally

We're in week 13 of 16 of fresh meat.  Three more weeks to go.  It seem like an appropriate time to look back and see how it's been going...

At the beginning I literally couldn't carry on a conversation while on my skates without falling over. Now you can hit me, bump skates with me, I can skate on one foot while turning to look behind me (well, one leg anyway), I can jump and turn in a circle, I can jump over three obstacles in a row (!) and almost almost almost do 25 laps in 5 minutes.  I wouldn't call myself good by any stretch but when I saw the Hamilton team play on Saturday I thought maybe we were almost as good as them (OK, they got their asses kicked deservedly, but still...).

I do hurt myself fairly regularly.  I don't know if everyone else does this.  I think I'm just old and heal slowly.

• Week one I tore my medial cruciate ligament (MCL).  That was bad.  It still hurts but it's getting better.  
• The week I had the flu I fell on my ass several times in the same place but didn't do any serious injury, however I did something to my rib cage which lasted several weeks.  When I ran my ribs would go into spasm so I couldn't breathe.  That was fun.  
• The week we did whips I strained my tricept on the arm I broke since it apparently has no strength at all.  
• The week we had Aston Martini and her gang my leg slipped while plow stopping and I did something somewhat major to the muscles at the back of my *other* knee, the right one.  This hurts and cramps up when I run which is a total pain in the arse, but if I stop to stretch it it seems to go away.  I thought this was minor but it's been a month or so and it's still bugging me.  
• This week I strained something in my upper thigh - not my regular quad, but something higher up so I can't lift my leg higher than parallel to the floor. It doesn't hurt to run though.

I gotta tell you, none of these has caused me to miss a week of practice.  Call me stupid, but I figure if it doesn't actually hurt, I can work through it.  I don't want to miss a minute of track time.

Three weeks to go.  The sun is shining.  Time to master the stuff I can't do:

• Plow stops.
• Skating on one leg.
• Weaving through cones on one leg.
• Fast starts

Get on with it.  There's lots of time to be in a wheelchair when you flunk out of derby.

Mine

I love Etsy.  These were custom made for me by Derbyvixen.

And hey, it's my dad's birthday today.  He would have been 81!  Yikes.

Retrospective

I love this blog.  It puts my life into perspective and makes things crystal clear that might otherwise be allowed to pass by relatively unnoticed.

Lets take the douchebag dude.  I believe I made some crack about him being "too busy" last post.  I have officially labelled him done since he seems incapable of returning my emails in a timely manner, or at all now.  Douche.  I can see now that it took me a full two weeks of BS to come to that conclusion.  Actually, that's not bad for me.  But still... I'll do better next time.  Dude had weird taste in music and was a weird kisser anyway.
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Anyone want a Wii?  I'm taking mine away from the kids today, calmly and politely.  For at least a month, until the sass and disrespect and trashtalking is over.  I cannot believe I let things get so out of hand.  I am a bad parent.  The kind that lets their kids play Wii even when they talk to her like a piece of dirt on the bottom of their shoe.  The kind of kids who wake up using that tone with their mama.  This is NOT the way my house is going to be.  It's making me angry and crazy and undermining the minimal parenting selfconfidence I do have.  Get the fuck outside and play with your friends.
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Raging PMS last week.  So bad I ate all the accumulated stash of chocolate, 6 Joe Louis in less than 12 hours, bread and butter to feed a boarding school.  I did run twice towards the end of the week, but that didn't really make up for it.  Today I'm back on the wagon with only a few transgressions into pretzels.  Let's hope the worst has passed.

I'm sewing a new dress.  I didn't like the shape of the cream one with black trees or whatever they were so  switched to the grey dress pattern (really, no one notices the difference except me).  Went out on a limb and made size 16 (the original grey one was 22!) so I don't know if it will fit.  It's sort of limey green with pink flowers on it.  If this one works (and isn't too short - I think I cut it off about 5" too short) I'm going to make a black one from that pattern.  Depending on the fit/feel, I'll either make it one layer or I'll make it with a striped lining.  That striped Egyptian cotton from the Fabric Store of Amazement is too good not to have next to your skin.  Then I'm going to make one with the curtain material Barb gave me.  And then... and then... and then.... I could make them forever.  I also need to improvise a sundress pattern for the cowboy fabric.  And don't forget the magenta stuff I bought last week!  You never know when I'll need a fancy-ass party dress. Yeah.  Like never.

Oh, and practiced off-skates derby with two of the M's and third-person Rosa in Michelle's parking garage..  So. Much. fun.  I sort of though it would be lame but it was AWESOME and so helpful.  I think I'll take up skateless roller derby :D

Rating the week.

Fridays should be for looking back on your week and seeing how you are (mis)spending your time.   I should do it every week.

Work:  Wasted about 80% of my time.  Gotta work on that.  Had some quality naps, though.  Work my douchebag teeshirt today, which pretty much sums up the depths to which I've fallen.

Kids:  Used the F-bomb in direct relation to my eldest child.  Not as in "jesus fucking christ" like I usually do, but more like "you wretched fucking child".  Yeah, excellent parenting skills there.   And it happened twice in the same evening.  Some days their nonsense just washes over me and some days... maybe not drinking is the wrong approach.  Maybe more drinking is the key.  Something to contemplate.

Drugs:  Really, how much pain medication do I really need to ingest?  For the migraines, two high-dose rounds of aspirin; for the knee, enough advil that I ran out;   for the back, enough robaxacet that I ran out (though that seems to be nicely fixed); and my nightly dose of perc to make me sleep like a warm and fuzzy baby. Mmmmmm sleep.  Not to mention a day of agony because I forgot to take my hernia stuff for a few days and it takes a while to kick back in.  Cue the daily pill box,  I am becoming an old lady!!!

Derby:  Wrenched back on Friday night, skated Sat anyway.  That made it feel better.  Then skated Monday night with Michelle and that was good too.  It's the sitting on my ass that makes things hurt.  Played on the street with Calvin on Wed night, which was fun.  That kids rocks his roller blades.  I have to get him to come and practice with the girls - I bet he's make a great obstacle for us.  I should probably invest in some proper padding for him though.  Nothing after that though, except I ran yesterday which made my knee hurt.  Feh.

Boy:  What boy?  I know you're busy and all but really?  Is it always the same stupid story?  He did wish me a happy birthday but that's the last I heard from him.  Feh.


Food:  I have become a compulsive chocolate buyer - no, scratch that.  I am *still* a compulsive chocolate buyer.  This seems to work for me if I leave it at home since I don't have much desire to eat it there, go figure.  So I still buy it compulsively and it accumulates and occasionally I will eat some.  If I bring it to work I'm so bored I will eat. it. all.  Like I want to now.  Chocolate?  Anyone have any chocolate???

Overall rating?  Last Friday it stated around a C, peaked on Sunday night at A+ and declined steadily every since to today's low of D.  Nowhere to go but up, right???

Call *me* crankypants

Feh.  Kids are back and foul.  Why can't they be sweet loving little creatures when they come back, like they missed me or something?  I am a model of patience and tolerance and they are... evil.

My back hurts.  Physio helped some but I bet some Percocet tonight will help more. 

Had a massage and it was OK, but not great.  For the cost of them they'd better be great.  I think I'll have to do all Wanda, all the time.  Cheating disagrees with me.

Stupid motherfucking PoF keeps taking down my pictures.  First the sort of legitimate one.  OK, whatever.  But this time it was the one of me on the bed and all it is is a head shot.  What part about HEAD does their computer-generated moronic picture-screener not understand?  Someone must have it out for me cuz I'm sure they don't yank pictures on their own. 

And dude won't have more than a three word convo woth me.  (I only mention this because I'm cranky, not because I think it's an issue.)  We gotta get the communication pathways nailed down, though.  I can't go through this again. 

Bancroft dude seems to be over his knickerbunching about me screwing someone else.  Move along, dude  You're here for conversational purposes only.

Anything else?  I'm sure a million things, but nothing for now... I gotta go see a girl about a purse.

Wow

Now we know why the dorky guy always ends up getting the girl.  It's because he's freaking fabulo in bed, and packing to boot.  Holy Hannah. 

Frankly, I think that was a masterful piece of stage-directing on my part.  In retrospect I don't think it would have taken him too long to get there but I really didn't want to have to worry about that.  Not that I'm a worrier, or a control freak.  Who me?  Oh no.

So although it was a beautiful evening,. I drove down to the Roy solely so I could have the excuse of getting him in my car.  Bwah ha ha!  Now you are at my mercy!!  No, we came back to my place ostentiably to drop the car and go for a walk.  I asked if he wanted to come in.  Yes.  D'ya want to sit down?  Yes.  D'ya want a drink?  Yep.  OK, so now we know where this is heading.  So we sat and chitchatted and I showed him my skates (my version of my etchings) and then eventually he leaned over and smooched me.  And the rest is history. 

Blah, blah, blah.  Stop me when it gets boring.

Todays sponsor: Robaxacet

Awesome practice!  I was involved in my first high-speed pileup last night!  We were doing endurance (25 laps in 5 minutes) and someone wiped out right in front of me.  I couldn't have avoided her if I tried so I sort of threw myself over her, landing on... my hands and right shoulder, I think.  I executed a very sloppy sort-of monkey roll over her.  Something went crunch but it was surprisingly unpainful.  And I still managed to do 23 laps!  There is hope. I was actually more relaxed after the wipeout and made better time, I think.  I get all wiggy about the endurance test and totally forget how to skate.

I spent a significant amount of time in the tub last night, armed with a big glass of wine and a bowl of chips.  That was about all I could find to eat.  Doesn't seem to have helped much as my back is KILLING me.  Going to skate with Michelle anyway, maybe it will loosen me up a bit.  Turns out we *do* have to know how to weave though pylons on one foot, so that will be today's focus.  I totally can't do it.

Incurred another knuckle injury, surprise, surprise.  I think I might have to go with Bloody Knuckles as my Derby name after all.  I dunno.  I change my mind all the time.  The frontrunners are:

Bloody Knuckles
Lotter Bruises
Blood Sweat and Beers

Thoughts?

Of MRIs and Men

I finally went and sought professional help on the results of my MRI.  Not the doctor, oh no.  Doctors are for drugs and referrals.  Physiotherapists are for getting stuff done.

It turns out I have a high grade tear in my MCL.  No ACL at all, which is good, minimal meniscal involvement, lots of old arthritis and bursitis.  Jen the wonder physio says the end of the bone was bleeding (!) into a very small space causing inflammation and pain.  Nothing radical to be done except ultrasound and acupuncture to reduce the goop and thus the pain.  I love her - she doesn't suggest I stay off it or limit my activities in any way except for trying to avoid falling on my left knee so it won't bleed anymore.  Nice.  She did hook me up with a seriously medieval-looking knee brace to protect, of all things, my kneecap which seems to be more fragile than one would like.  Kneecaps apparently are the kind of things that lead to arthritis in old age and at my increasingly advanced age these are things am starting to worry about.  I don't want to be one of these old ladies that whinges about climbing stairs or stepping up curb or having a handicap-accessible washroom. 

We also talked a bit about the possible neuroma on my left foot which is aggravated by too-tight shoes and running long distances.  She seemed to think it might be something else but suggested some stretching and stuff to loosen up my calves, since apparently the thigh bone is connected to the hip bone, the hip bone's connected....  But when I said I couldn't see myself ever running more than 10K, she said that's a good thing since our bodies are not really designed to run much further than that.  Long-distance is when things start to fall apart, especially as we age.  So,  great - no half-marathons for me!

And let me just jinx my life entirely by saying how much I like the new dude.  He seems so... normal.  Yeah, I've said that before but I don't think I'm deluding myself this time.  Tall.  Not fat but not perfect.  The worst thing I can say about him is that he has a gluten intolerance, but we could all use a little less bread in our lives, couldn't we?  He ate hamburger bun so it can't be all that bad. 

Great conversationalist, but not by magic - because he is good at asking questions that lead to conversation, he listens, he acts interested in what you have to say.  We have lots in common in our outlook on politics, social issues, Adam Giambrone.  He likes his job.  He like his 9-5 lifestyle rather than disparaging it (not to make comparisons or anything, douchbag).  He's a bit dorky in an undefinable but not off-putting way - sort of like the dork in the movies that still manages to get the girl?  It's hard to explain.  Maybe it will become clearer (for better or worse) with more exposure.  Here's hoping he'll expose himself soon :D

Equipment improvement

When you start derby, the first thing they teach you to do is fall, and that seems to be what you spend a majority of your time doing.  Ideally, you fall forward, and naturally the toes of your skates take the brunt of the damage as they are constantly hitting the ground at speed.  One knee falls are killer on your toes as you slide, slide, slide on the poor toes of your precious leather skates.

As a result, one gets toe guards.  It's much cheaper to periodically replace these that the whole skate.  My first ones were very basic - a strip of leather that wraps over the toebox and is secured by the laces.

This is somewhat unsatisfactory as they shift around a lot and don't really provide protection when you need it.  Can you call it protection if it fails in the heat of the moment?  I think not.  Look at my poor violated toe:

 So I discovered you can get ones that wrap over the toe box.  I got mine from www.skatesnouts.etsy.com since I think everything should come from Etsy.  Cool jammer stripes in red.

While unscrewing my toestops, it occurred to me that I should check and see how far out they really should be.  I've just been guessing.  Badly, it turns out.  The starting rule seems to be that when your skates are tipped up on the toestop, there shouldn't be more than 4 finger widths between the ground and the back wheel.  Having only two hands I could not get a picture of this, but when you compare the unadjusted one to the adjusted one, you can really see a difference.  Mine were way to far in, making me tip way too far forward to use them to stop:

I sort of thought the leather was a bit thin but when I discovered I pretty much had to turn them inside out to get the toestop tight, I reconsidered.

Now they're on, my skates are smiling and so am I.  One of the grommets popped out as I was lacing back up but that's just cosmetic.  I wonder how long they'll last, though?  I have a pair from another Etsy shop on order - should take a while.  They have red skulls and crossbones on them.  (No, not everything derby has skull and crossbones on it but lots of stuff does - it's a dog-eat-dog sport) I can't wait!  I just hope these ones last until the next ones arrive.  Gotta love cool stuff that wears out regularly :)

New vs old:

I put them on just to tighten the laces and all I want to do is skate.  They're like magical things that turn you into a different, more coordinated, cool, kickass person.  Man, but I love to skate.  It just feels like weeks ago I was stumbling around the house when I tried to skate her but I felt GOOD today.  I can turn, I can stop, I don't trip over the floor joins.  I AM DERBY.

It's really hard to take a picture of your own foot.
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I'm de-douched.  I unfriended him on facebook.  Miko & Barb will be so proud.  Movin' on, my friends.  Movin' on.

Reality check

If your name is Plank, how can you ever be anything but a douchebag??

I will be forever grateful for the 50 pounds I've lost. Not so much for the hair I lost, the nights I spent weeping on the couch, for the time I spent boring my friends as they tried to get me to see the obvious. I'm sorry for that, my friends. I'm a bit slow sometimes and you were very patient and kind.

I will hate you forever for making me feel substandard. Stupid. Boring. And for making me feel like it was all my fault.

YOU are a douchbag. D'ya think there's a reason you go out with girls who are 20 something? Women get BETTER as they get older. The smart men have figured this out. Guess where this leaves you?

I am woman, see me hipcheck. And you never will.

A whole new chapter...

Ya, I knw.  Things were getting a bit stale, eh?  So now I'm introducing a whole new level of fascinating posts - DERBY !

Today's post involves the badly designed grommets in my skate boots.  I've been skating for about 8 weeks and I noticed the other day that one of my laces was almost severed in half:

I couldn't figure out why until I looked carefully at the gromments and on my right boot the grommets were really hsarp.  Also, the right hand ones had cracked.  Recipe for disaster if you're a skate lace.

This one doesn't look so bad but you can see how the top is much narrower - and sharper! - than the bottom.

So I got out my hand dandy chisel and proceeded to shave them down.  They're plastic, not metal, so it was an easy job.

I have new laces now!













...and my boots are relaced and ready to go for tomorrows practice!

Too bad the stupid laces are still too short.  Who designs this stuff????

Nothing says I love you like booze.

My dear friend Jennifer:

Those cans of drink you left at my house the other day?  The Palm Bay Ruby Grapefruit Sunrise?  The devil's work.  Indeed, they do taste like something totally non-alcoholic.  I sucked haf of one back just now in the space of about 10 seconds before I remembered that they DO have booze in them.

Then I drank another.

It's Jack's birthday today.  Got Lego Batman for the Wii so I am the best mother ever, for now anyway.  And I made a candy cake, again, best idea ever for the kids who's totally sick of cake.  Easy easy birthday, though I did have to reach into my superpower stash and come up with plan B when my child declared his favourite food chicken legs.  What?  I was counting on pizza.  Shit - how do you pull that out of your arse at 5 pm?  Two words: Chalet Suisse.

Now I have a date - yes, on my child's birthday - and I'm already half cut.  Thank you Jenn C.  I blame you totally for whatever transpires.  And no, it's completely unrelated to douchbag.

Weakness

Roller derby.  So fun, yet such a timesucker.  I don't have time to get laid now even if I had the opportunity.  Though doing a good block on Bren Bren was almost as satisfying.  I think I'm born to block.  Jam, not so much.

So I say to myself, at the risk of provoking an aneurysm in those near and dear to me, why not go hang out with a douchbag?  Fun, entertaining, always available (strange how that is now, eh?).  I have resisted the temptation to fill my 14 seconds of free time with a little douchbaggery.  So far.  But I am weak.  I do realize, dear reader, the futility of going down that road again.  I hold out hope, but I know its futile.

Bancroft dude wants to come and visit.  So much for a purely email relationship.  I doubt this will go anywhere but I am not prepared to have a long distance, subsidized by me relationship.  Unless he's really worth it :D  I got low standards, what can I say?

Or not.

I guess I should publicly admit to what a disaster that was.

No chemistry.  None.  So weird.  We did it anyway but it was lame and he had no creativity and a small penis.  I wonder what happened?  Weirdest thing ever.

Maybe I should take this as a lesson - either sleep with the dude when you get the urge or wait until you know him well enough to know if you really want to. 

Back into the trenches.

Four is the luckiest number

Oh.  My.  God.  I have become the drywall commercial.  It's sickening.  Nauseating.  And pretty damn awesome.

After a few days of really good email exchange, we decided we couldn't wait until Tuesday and I got a babysitter for Sunday night.  This way, I thought, if it's good we can do someting fun on Tuesday and if it sucks I haven't wasted a quality evening on some innernet dude.  I was completely prepared to find him disappointing - email is usually a bad predictor of future behaviour. 

Not this time.

Dude shows up and he is WAY cuter than his pics.  Looks young and adorable and has dimples for god's sake.  And all his hair, not grey at all!  Very smiley, excellent personality, funny, charming and totally into me.  But not in the creepy way of #3.  Not at all.  Maybe because I was the same.

I've never experience anything like that - it was weird.  I had absolutely no problem making conversation with him, but now and then we'd just stop and stare at each other.  Then we started holding hands.  Pretty much doing as much physical contact as you can do seated across the table from someone in a public place.  If hands could have sex, our would have.  So here we are gazing across the table into each others eyes.  If I had been watching I would have barfed.  I may indeed have sicked a little up in my own mouth.  It wasn;t just the physics, though.  It was totally a mental thing as well.

I think it was the fact that he was so obviously into me.  Very good for the confidence level.  He thought I was "cute as a button" which he said was the most socially acceptable thing he could think of to say in public.  Har.  He didn't seem to have any sense that it might have been a disaster.  He's mildly suggestive in a very hot yet inoffensive way.  Confident but not arrogant.  Talkative but not a bore.  Good listener.  Funny.  Perfect.

We met at 7:30.  Left at 11:30 despite the fact that I told the sitter I'd be home at 11.  Oops.  We barely made it out the door before we were making out in the vestibule (what a great word) and we got some serious necking in before someone else left and made us stop..  Walked to the subway, made out some more and then went our respective directions.  Absolutely no doubt in anyone's mind that we'll be getting busy on Tuesday.

Oh yeah.  I'm such a classy broad.  It was snowing like crazy and I was quite wet when I arrived.  Little did I know that my mascara had smudged onto my upper eyelids.  When I finally went to pee and noticed, I was horrified.  I looked like a crazy person.  He was too polite to say anything, either before or after the repair for which I am eternally grateful.  It was sort of hidden by the tops of my glasses, but I don't think he could have failed to see.

And he still likes me.

Number 4

Yes, I'm getting ahead of myself.  #4 only counts if we go out, but we've made plans.

#4 is mid-40s sort of dude who lives in the west end. Am I doomed to find myself forever commuting to and from the west end?  NO.  Unlike your previous relationship, dude is obligated to come to your end of town at least 50% of the time.  That's my new rule. (Rules, as always, evolve from the stupid situations one gets into and thus must make rules to avoid in future.  Of course we all know how good I am with rules...)

Dude has a way with words, a penchant for profanity which I quite enjoy, and finds me fabulously funny.  How's that for alliteration?  He doesn't run away from jokes about drinking at work or getting shitfaced - important things as I embrace my inner alcoholic.

We're supposed to be going out Tuesday.  That's a week from now and give everyone plenty of time to bail. 
Hey, if he doesn't kiss like a fish maybe I'll sleep with him.

As for the previous #4 (3?), I have decided after the events of last weekend and him texting me yesterday with ultra-solicitous concern about my mental health that I need to dial back my Facebook presence severely, at least for now.  I am weak and stalker-like and can't make myself un-friend him which is what a normal person would do.  So instead I will make no updates worthy of comment, I will not respond to anything he says (which should be nothing if I adhere to the previous point) and I will not post on his stuff, whatever it is.  Radio silence is what we're aiming for.  I need about a month more I think before I'm somewhat functional again.  (Slight hiccup in the recover process may happen on Thursday, but that's my own fault and I'll deal with that if it arises.)  M thinks I'm a crackpot and should cut him off completely but I cannae do tha.

Sleeping with #4 would help.

One step forward...

So I was recently informed that I had that expression wrong.  In an uncharacteristic show of optimism, I was convinced it was two steps forward, one step back.  Because then at least you're moving in the right direction, right?

Apparently I have it all wrong and it's one step forward, two steps back.  Figures.  Welcome to my life.

Dude and I broke up.  OK, we we never really "going out" but I ended the illusion in my mind that we were, ending months of teeth gnashing, wailing, chest beating, and rending of garments.  Slept like a baby for the first time in months.  Step forward, definitely.  I am woman, hear me dump.

Started this wretched process of innernet dating again.  Is there a more demoralizing, soul-destrying enterprise?  Getting judged, initially, by a couple of crappy photos and some ill-chosen words.  Then in person by someone who may or may not be to your liking.  Bleah.

# - Toothy - 1 had some teeth issues and a serious inability to stand up for himself.  Really?  You come on a date with a friend who overstays his welcome and then you can't ask him to leave, explain the situation, ANYTHING?  Sheesh.  I have more balls than that.

#2 - Crazy Bill - bailed out at the last minute, via email.  Don't blame him as we had the most horrifyingly boring phone conversation, but he could have just said no.  Whatever.  Do they castrate men in this city before they let them date?

#3 - Lawyer dude - short, dumpy, ancient glasses, some weird walking problem.  Fine, all superficialities.  Took me to the Dominion where the music was too loud for any conversation, but insisted on talking anyway.  Every time I spoke, he said he couldn't hear.  Hmph.  And people wonder why i don't talk about myself  With supremely bad manners, I started texting for a diversion (In the bathroom, I might add.  Not to his face.)  I tried J: hanging with toothless.  I tried M:  baked.  So in a fit of desperation and (and longing) I texted dude.

Yeah yeah, bad girl.  I knew he'd be out, I knew he'd be happy to see me.  And he was.  Hung out with him and his friends and it was fun.  Really fun.  I was myself, caustic and un-doormatty, and it was nice to be like that instead of the mousy bitch I was.  Two steps back, but it was worth the serious disapproval of everyone I know.  It's true - he's my crack.  I need a new drug to get over it.

And #3 kissed like a dying fish.  It was G.R.O.S.S.  I actually wiped my mouth in disgust.  Like Cathy says - it's kissing!  If you can't master that, what hope is there for the rest??? 

 I'm though 3 out of 10 and I might have to off myself if things don't improve soon.

I loves me some tutu