A fish who actually needs a bicycle.

You guys I'm a bad blogger.  I know this.  And yet you keep coming back.  I love you for that.

I've been blocked.  Wait that makes me sound constipated.  I haven't been able to figure out what to write about.  Yaknow, the old fear of oversharing.  I'm not one to just yammer on (stop laughing and let me finish my sentence) about things that mean nothing to me.   But it is not always appropriate to yammer on about the things that do.

You guys have been with me through this whole manhunt dating adventure in more ways than you probably know.  I enjoy filling you in to the extent that I am able without offending anyone or violating restraining orders.  It's a nice outlet for my frustrations. And oy have there been frustrations!  And you have all been kind enough to refrain from calling me a wackadoodle (to my face anyway) even on the days when I am sure I came off as one.  But also I have this running monologue going on in the back of my head.  It sort of evaluates how, if I were to write about the adventure of the day, I would do so.  Maybe this is typical of everyone who is a writer at heart but not always in practice, in the same way that the actress who is waiting tables thinks of each encounter as a potential "scene".  Most experiences are sorted in my head into one of two categories.  Something I can write about or something I can not.  And the "can's" are then sorted into subcategories of 'blogworthy' or 'file it away for the book'.

Cheeyah right, like I could focus for that long.

Where was I?

Oh yeah....I love you guys.

So this whole dating thing is definitely an adventure.  Inside the span of three months I've gone from "I'm never dating again!" to "Let's just take a looksee at who's out there" to "Well it can't hurt to put my profile out there" to "Well I suppose I should probably at least participate and contact someone" to "GodDAMMIT I know there has to be at least one sane, responsible, employed, independent, articulate man within a 50 mile radius".

I've dealt with the weirdos who contact me (and probably every other woman) with such engaging lines as "I make good man for you". I've dealt with the guys who LITERALLY live in their mother's basement.  I've gone out with the nice, sweet, sexy, guy with a job who has no time (so he says, but I'm oh-so-aware of the possibility that he actually just has no desire) to return a text message much less go out on a date.  I've met the guy whose profile picture was taken ten years and 30 pounds ago.   I've spent time with the perfectly nice, respectable, responsible guy with whom I have about as much chemistry as I do with my push mower.  I've passed up the foot fetishists, the guys with the profile pictures that looked like they just rolled out of bed and stumbled to their toothpaste encrusted bathroom mirror to snap a pic.  I've passed up the guys who didn't BOTHER getting out of bed for their picture.

I figure once I've weeded all of that out there are about four guys left.  Two of them are married and one has a boyfriend.  But at this point it's a matter of principal. He's out there and by gosh I'm gonna find him.

I'm either unreasonably optimistic or a little delusional.  Or both.

And lest you think I actually have TIME for this search, throughout the entire adventure I have managed to work The Day Job a bit more than full time, The Night Job not as much as I should, kept The Boy fed, clothed, sheltered and (thus far) un-incarcerated.  I've dealt with the unceremonious and hasty resignation of my assistant, begun the process of interviewing a replacement, visited The Boy's school where I met with the Vice Principal AND a very nice police officer, kept my house just clean enough that the health department remains uninterested, mowed my lawn twice (in MARCH for crap sake), worked out roughly 4 times a week (I'm a bad, bad coach) and still managed to shower and brush my teeth.

So it will not come as a surprise that more than once during this process I stopped and looked in the mirror and asked myself why I am doing this.  Obviously there is very little about my relationship history that would lead a sane person (let's not point out the obvious here, we're better than that) to believe that Happily Ever After is at the end of this line.  Why not just be happy with The Boy and The Jobs and The Dogs and The Friends?  A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle...or something.

But here's the thing....I truly believe, if you boil down the whole 'why am I here?' issue....I think it all comes down to relationships.  The work and the art and the things and the stuff and all of that is ancillary. We are here to connect with other human beings.  And only those who are deeply connected to their higher power (I'm thinking monks here) or those who have been deeply wounded by another human being are able to go long periods happily without that connection.  There have been times when I thought I fit into the latter category...but now we're back to 'unreasonably optimistic or a little delusional'.

I'm tired of feeling that I have somehow failed as a modern woman or as a mother because I want to be in a relationship with a man.  Do I respect the single, working mothers who take care of their homes and go to work and come home and make dinner and get up the next day and do it again and again until they end up living alone in stoic abstinence, looking forward to a future of waiting for their children and grandchildren to visit?  Sure.  I respect them for, presumably, doing what they want to do, and for their independence.  But I don't especially enjoy being alone and I'm not enough of a martyr to insist that I need to continue to do it because I've been hurt.  I don't dislike my own company enough to want to be with the wrong person, but get just bored enough with the sound of my own voice to want to find the right one.

Yet here I sit.  Just me and the dogs.  The boy is with his dad.  It's been a wonderful weekend.  It started with a very nice date with a very nice gentleman who I really do hope to see again.  After that I did some exercising, some cleaning, some working, some playing, some relaxing.  I went to a movie with one of my favorite people, I walked my dogs, and now I'm going to pay my bills (I know...the exciting life of a single woman).

This is, after all, an adventure. Any adventure will be wrought with a certain amount of peril at some point.  But I have hope for a happy ending.

Today's lunch....popcorn.  At the movies.  Yes, I'm a bad bad coach.  Didn't we already cover that?