Now I'm bulletproof

Have I mentioned I am going to Africa? Well, a funny thing happened on the way to the forum...

I work at a fairly (read this as very) affluent school district. We invite "gurus" of the industry to come speak to our staff and to work with us as we improve what we do. Turns out one of these gurus said that a problem with American students is that they have no empathy for the rest of the world. Go figure.

In an effort to build relationships and forge bonds with our brethren around the world, a position was created within the district, let's call it "global guru." So, GG starts working on finding places via the internet also interested in forging relationships. Lo and behold, if a district in Ghana didn't say, Helllloooo there.

Long story short, yours truly is on the short list of 3 people going, GG, a middle school teacher and yours truly.

Yesterday, MST and I go to get a yellow fever shot which we know we must have to be able to go to Africa. We had been told we had to pay for our own shots, but we figured what the heck.

The very nice lady at the "so you want to leave the country, here's what you have to do to stay alive" office went through a very long list of diseases we could get etc. Disturbing to say the least. Yellow fever, my ass.

In addition, it seems that rabid animals are a bit of a problem too, but there is nothing you can do about that. The instructions? "If you are scratched or bitten BY ANY ANIMAL, you should EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY." Sweet Christmas, great. fantastic. can't wait.

She then goes through exactly how much it would cost and how many shots would be required. Let me tell you, had I known in advance, not sure that there would be a plane ticket with my name on it... Not. Kidding.

I left the office and immediately went to get a drink because my ARM REALLY HURT.

Then I concocted the note I was going to write to the superintendent in my head (and the principal and the head of curriculum and my friend PR because, well, that's the kind of girl I am). Which I did. See below.

To whom it may concern,

Yesterday I went to Passport Health in preparation for the trip to Africa. I was expecting one lone yellow fever shot. I received EIGHT shots inoculating me against every major disease on the planet. I return in a month for TWO more. The total cost...wait for it...$1150.

That being said, I would like to officially offer myself up for any and all trips to scary places that require shots. Because I have my shots, and they were expensive, and the only way to get my money's worth is to go EVERYWHERE.

So, with total dedication and a lot of pain in both arms right now, I say, I'm ready to serve.

Your devoted employee,

The Diva

I haven't heard back from anyone. What's up with that? At any rate, as the BFF said, with all those shots in me, I am practically bulletproof! Hence, my desire to travel the world while I am fully immune to all diseases. Except for rabies. Which is unfortunate because I am a tasty morsel to the dog population of the world. Other than that, I am bulletproof. Oh, and the flu. I hate flu shots, so I don't ever get those. I could get the flu still. Other than that, I am bulletproof. Well, and the common cold. There's no defense against that, and let's be honest, I work with wealthy kids, but they still get sick, a lot if you ask me. Aw screw it, I am only bullet proof against the following illnesses: yellow fever, polio, mumps, measles, rubela?, typhoid, Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, Malaria, Dengue and cholera.

Happy Birthday!!

Tuesday was my BIRTHDAY. I love my birthday. I don't care if I am feeling older and more blind and deaf. I have taken a page from my father's book. He is always happy about his birthday. He says it is because he'd seen his life flash before his eyes so many times by the time he was 22, that each birthday after that is pretty much a miracle.

Anyone who has been in a car with me knows I could say the same thing. Let's face it, there's a lot going on out there and it is all interesting. Staying focused on just one thing is tricky.

So, I am happy about my birthday. In addition, my students rock because they always get together to get me a pair of shoes. This year's? Beautiful...

Oh, and those amazing flowers in the background? From my BFF.

It was a good day. Yes, it helps that I wear a tiara on my head all day. I think it reminds people to not mess with me, and quite frankly, it is difficult to not smile while wearing a tiara.

I guess I am teaching something

During the snow storm, I discovered that I had trolls. Sounds like some sort of disease, I know. I was talking with my big sister about her blogs (actually she has two blogs, but only one was under attack so to speak.) She had trolls. Someone had come to her site and started going back through the posts writing basically mean stuff. My sister is a researcher at heart. So, she began trying to figure out from where the trolls came. Lo and behold, they came from the last blog post on my old blog that said "Gone."

Four women (I swear they might have made up names) posted. ALL posted mean stuff about me. In fact, one had started her own blog and the only post was a picture of me saying how I tried to steal her husband away...Yeah, cause in addition to every OTHER reason that would never happen, some time during the crapfest 2010 of Sabrina's life, I was out looking for a MAN. sigh.

At any rate, I deleted my one post. My sister then did a post on "Trolls." It was awesome. Part of the awesomeness was due to the fact that the troll is really an idiot. Sis's blog is clearly about developing self awareness and thinking about how she has messed up parenting in the past, and she's learning from it. Perhaps she uses too many big words cause it is obvious the troll, she didn't understand a bit.

Under comments, my sister had given me a shout out because some newspaper had done a poll, and I was runner-up for best teacher in the district. Sure it is a really small district, and sure, I was runner-up to a 1st year 4th grade teacher at one of 5 elementary schools in the district, and yes, it is very likely only 5 people voted. But it was sweet of my sister. The troll wrote a mean comment to the effect, I shouldn't be allowed to teach. That is A LOT of venom to have inside.

A week ago, one of the women sent me a facebook message "Hi." That's it. Nothing else. I ignored it, but it seems like a lot of energy to put into someone when I don't recognize ANY of their names or anything. Who are they???? I was starting to feel a little down. But THEN, one of my editors-in-chief let me see her college essay. It made me cry. She let me attach it. (Mostly because she knows only 5 people read the blog. Hooray for censorship and fear of the machine.) Any way - here you go.

An Unforgettable Character

Perkins: Like you’re mom but worse. She stands 5’4” in her pink sparkly designer Christian Louboutin stiletto heels—a gift from our journalism class last year as a token of our appreciation. Everything about her is asymmetrical; it is no surprise when she stands with her left hand extended, her right hip cocked, with a semi-fisted hand saying, “This is Perkins,” circling that fist with her right hand through at least three revolutions, she continues, “and this is the world…!” All the things my mom tried to teach me are acted out on the journalism stage every day of high school. The starring role is played by Ms. Elizabeth Perkins, my journalism advisor.

Lesson #1: Dress to impress. “Don’t dress like you are going to work on a street corner.” When dealing with inappropriate dress choices, most teachers avoid confrontation by passing the student on to the administration. Not Perkins. She deals directly with each of us, and we are quick to learn what is and is not appropriate attire for school. Because of Perkins, I am increasingly aware of the small range of appropriate clothing in dress—especially when I am relating to teachers or students as yearbook editor-in-chief. She takes her position seriously and demonstrates her self-respect with a flair for fashion by playing the “Diva” role with confidence and aplomb.

Lesson #2: “Do as I say, not as I do.” Perkins never sets herself up as a perfect example—quite the opposite. She always admits when she is at fault and actually wants us to do a better job in respecting authority. Last week, during the school mandatory lockdown drill, Perkins opted to send students out to take pictures of the event. Once again yearbook “is more important than pseudo student safety.” Unfortunately our school resource officer did not agree. He captured Perkins and Company and officiated at our in-class criminal lockdown lasting three days. By letting us in on her escapades, we become comrades in crime with a worthy cause of surviving the school day and publishing our annual yearbook, The Highlander.

Lesson #3: Be good humans. “If there is one thing I want to teach you in this class, it’s how to be good humans.” Last month we had an incident with stolen money from the yearbook fund. Perkins appealed to our sense of humanity and justice by asking for our help. Because she believed and trusted in us, we were successful to use our student web of contacts to find the thief. As she teaches us to be good humans, she models it by standing up for the staff. Recently, an anonymous group of girls created a Twitter account to slander several of us on the staff. Not only was she determined to find these “mean girls”, she was “out for blood.” Her lasting advice about our emerging humanity always mentions the necessity to, “bring each other up with your words, not tear each other down.”

Whether Perkins is delivering a light message on fashion, or a serious message on what it means to be human, the thing that I’m going to remember forever is the delivery itself. She preaches her message with the humorous characterization of a Diva mixed with the high drama of a philosopher. Her obvious lessons are represented by the quotations above, but it is the subliminal undercurrents that I will take with me to college. I want to define my own character by taking risks for the people I lead; laugh not only at others but myself; and most importantly, create a character for my life story who makes people want to be better. Underneath all the bravado, Perkins lets herself be vulnerable so that her students rise up and help her. Her leadership style allows us to feel valuable and needed as we develop mutual empathy. Whether it’s dealing with my college roommate, my professors, or future boyfriends, I know on some level, I will be modeling Perkins, or as she is otherwise known, “The Dallas Diva.”

One of THOSE days

Ok, actually I've been having one of those weeks. Between the time change and the whole "I did absolutely nothing over spring break" thing, I am exhausted to be back at work. Getting up at the crack of dawn. Working all day long. Meeting after meeting. It's killing me. And I'm not alone. I'm telling you this building is full of zombie teachers.
We are all wandering around lifeless, cursing the 64 days until the end of the school year.

This week has been particularly onerous because I've had soooo many meetings. Literally, every time I turn around, another meeting. AND, I've had stuff after school almost every day. AND Mr. Potential had his boss in town, so I haven't seen him all week, and I'm CRANKY about it.

Really cranky. If I'm lucky, I'll see him tomorrow, but then not Saturday or Sunday. Aaannnddddd

he texted me that he has to be out of town most of next week. GRRRRRRRRR. I know that I don't actually get to be cranky about him having to do his job, but I don't care. I'm annoyed. And displeased.

Oh, and when I went googling for pictures, these are what I found AND they were all snagged from other places too, so I can't even give legit credit to the original takers of said photos. Sorry.

Stalkers have game; and creepy can be helpful.

So, recently I have mocked and belittled my dear sister for her desire to search shit out on the internet. Now, as it turns out, I'm pretty sure she didn't know that I had mocked or belittled her regarding this issue until just now. I now reveal this information because, as always, God has chosen to smite me with my own words. I hate it when He does that.

Recently, I received a note in my mailbox from disgruntled neighbor DogHater regarding, of all things, my dogs and their love of a good bark.

I called DogHater and left a message that I was terribly sorry, but I am working long hours, it really won't be for much longer and there will be no more problems, so sorry, goodbye.

Then I received a second note from DogHater's Roommate. She didn't leave a lot of room for conversation. She said she worked odd hours (I'm going with stripper myself) and she required naps during the day which were being made difficult courtesy of my bad dogs. In fact, it wasn't so much my dogs as my dogs starting shit and going inside to let all the other dogs in the neighborhood bark. Yeah, that sounds like them.

I responded with a I am so sorry. As I said "Blah, blah, blah" I will keep them in until 3 in the afternoon at which point I'm letting 'em out cause we all gotta pee sometime lady.

Last night, DogHater left a message on the school phone (cause I sure as shit am not giving them my cell number). I called back - no answer, so I hung up.

But then, I thought, I'm gonna do a little Googling research on these girls. So, channeling my sister, I got busy. Actually spent a pretty good amount of time looking these girls up. Time, I might add, that really needed to be spent doing things like finishing yearbook pages, proofing the pages that arrived today and determining the freaking yearbook staff for next year. Anywho boy, oh, boy, is there a lot of info on the internet people. Try looking yourself up. I know when DogHater was born, where she went to school, her dad's name, what her jobs have been, where she lives exactly, etc. etc.

That, of course, got me thinking about my own info. Let me tell you, thank the dear Lord there is an actress with my name. Cause you can try to find the Diva, but you'll have to go through 40 or 50 pages of listing and still in the end find very little about me. HA.

So, sure, this is probably information that will do me almost no good. But can you imagine how badly I can freak her out if when we finally talk, I throw out where she went to school, or quote something she wrote in her blog 4 years ago???? Heeby. Jeebys.

Happy Bday to Me!!

I admit it. I love my birthday. As I've said before, as much as I hate turning 40, it beats the hell out of the alternative. And for being such a beating of a bday. It actually has been very delightful. It started with my BFF arriving in town on Friday.

Back up, actually it started with 3 doctors appointments on Friday all further bringing home that I am now old and old people have lots of doctors appointments and things falling apart. Sad, really.

But AFTER that then the BFF arrived. We went to dinner with our parents and then headed down to my house. We went to see Valentines Day on Saturday, and she met Mr. Potential. That made me very happy because I most definitely wanted them to meet. In the meantime, every time I turned around she had another little gift for me. It was a non-stop bonanza of cute stuff.

Saturday night we ordered out, watched a movie and did a whole lot of nothing. Pure. Greatness. She headed out Sunday to return to her familla, and I was taken to dinner. He gave me my present which was a very nice gift card to a local spa Exhale. I have heard many fabulous things about it so I am totally excited. I like that he knows what I like : )

Monday morning, I got up put on my"It's my birthday tiara" and headed to school. I actually have two tiaras because I think it is good to have choices, and I have to admit I usually get a headache by the end of the day because the thing is a little tight on my head, but I am telling you it is virtually impossible to have a bad day with a tiara on your head. You should try it.

By 6th period, I have to admit I was vibrating with excitement to see what the kids had gotten me. I knew they had something up their sleeve. I was dying to know what.
Yup. Shoes. Very tall. Very pink. Very glittery. Oh. My. Soooo Beautiful. 5 inch heels. I actually couldn't walk in them. Craziness.
Tttthhheeennn as if that wasn't enough, my sweet big sister sent me a flower bday cake. As she pointed out, it is the perfect cake for me since actual cake makes my stomach cramp up like a bad case of food poisoning (thank you very much don't I love not having a gall bladder) this cake is very pretty but it won't pain me!
In addition, she sent the CUTEST bear ever. He now sits in my office and makes me very, very happy. I thought about taking him home, but since we all know the damn dogs will gnaw on him if I take him home, he will keep me company at school. He is sooo soft and cuddly. That is good, since weirdness at school which will have to be another post is going to have me clutching my teddy bear a lot!

So, as much as I adored the shoes, I couldn't actually walk in them. My ankle actually had NO bend from my leg because the heel was so high. The editors very sweetly took me to the store to exchange for shoes I could actually wear. A little more toned down, but I will wear them A LOT. And I will think of how sweet my kids are to get them for me! I made it home in time to take care of the dogs and then go to dinner with Mr. Potential.

I got all sorts of Facebook love all day (SO MUCH FUN). And I would like to add festivities continue through the week! I'll post more later!

I'm sorry, how much football will I be watching???

I have managed, quite adeptly I might add, through the years to not date guys that are in to sports. It helps that I haven't dated most of them more than twice, so although they might have loved sports, they did not enter my sphere of consciousness. It has worked out nicely.

It seems, as they say, the tide has turned. Cause Mr. Potential, he loves him some football. Really. A. Lot. In the two weeks I have known him, I have watched 4 football games. FOUR.

On the upside, I have totally impressed the BFF with my stunning array of football knowledge and trivia in the last two weeks. She has informed me that I may be Biscuits (young son's) pole position favorite aunt with my new found ability to discuss all things football.

Mr. Potential looked at me sweetly last night and said, "You only have four more games this season, well, maybe a couple more, but we're almost done." It's nice that he recognizes this is not my usual MO. And, it gives me time to get some reading in.

All I really have to do is look up occasionally and say, "Oh, my" or "Good grief" or "Wow, look at that" the key is to make the right comment at the right time. And it turns out, if I manage to time it just right with the right look of enthusiasm, he gives me a proud smile and a kiss. (Who says we don't all operate on the treat system?!)

Someone suggested making a game out of it, you know, when your team scores, the other person has to kiss you, that kind of thing . . . please, God, let the Cowboys game Saturday night be high scoring . . ; )

Randomness is my life.

So, Tuesday morning I woke up and walked into the TV room (behind Cat, the blur at the bottom of the picture to discover that my shelves had fallen during the night. Books everywhere. Quite the mess. That was the beginning of my crappyass day.
On the other hand, at least I'm not this poor woman. I went over to the parentals for Mother's Day. As I was getting out of my car, I saw this woman getting her FOUR children out of the car. I'm pretty sure they were born in one fell swoop. That woman must be very tired. Of course, she probably doesn't have the mother of all head wounds because while it was pouring down raining she ran to her car, flung the door open and wacked the Sheot out of her head.

Luckily the head wound was gone by the time I got to go to Jim's dinner party. His dining room looked fantastic, and the food was fabulous.
He didn't have cosmos but luckily I live near Kirby's which truly has the best cosmos in all of Dallas. Trust me. I've been doing A LOT of research into this to be certain. Speaking of restaurants in Dallas, if you go to Sevy's on Preston road (the place where I have been meeting the real estate boys once a week for freaking forever) you will see their copy of the real estate book on the wall, with a plaque with our names. Cause I'm a BAMF like that. In fact, my futures so bright, I gotta wear shades. Conveniently I have a lot of pairs of shades. Some might even suggest I have too many since currently, I can only comfortably wear one pair at a time. Is this some kind of weird obsessive compulsive thing? What is wrong with me that I have so many pairs of sunglasses? I should not need to ever buy sunglasses again. Please remind me of this should I be in your company and shopping for shades. Stop me. Please.

Dating and shooting craps

So, I haven’t been blogging much lately because I’ve had a lot on my mind, but also because I couldn’t quite figure out how to blog about the things that have preoccupied me .

Dating is certainly a hot topic for the blog and for the twitter fans of the Diva. Ironically, the topic that provides such fodder for the fans is actually an activity that can be quite full of angst for the Diva herself. However long ago many of you dated, it’s changed, and not necessarily for the best. In addition, dating in your 40^th year is a lot different than dating when you are in your 20’s or really even in your 30’s.

I’ve been in a bit of a dating funk because for the first time in a long time I liked a guy who didn’t like me back. What a bummer I say. In addition to that there have been some, how shall I put this, audience issues.

The best metaphor I have come up with so far is that dating, in so far as audience participation is a part of it, is like shooting craps. First, shooting craps is complicated, so it doesn’t easily explain itself, but dating is freaking complicated too. Second, a lot of the fun of shooting craps involves audience participation which, as it so happens, can also totally ruin a good evening of shooting craps.

Please, allow me to explain. Craps starts with a roll of the dice. Sometimes you “crap out” immediately with a 7 or 11. Dating is like that.

Craps is the most fun when everyone is standing behind the players cheering them on. Dating is a lot of fun when everyone is cheering you on too.

There are some craps players who bet with the House. The truth is betting with the House (or the no come line – no jokes please) is the safer bet. The odds of someone rolling a 7 or 11 BEFORE hitting the number he/she wants is much greater than the odds of hitting the number first. Quite frankly, dating is similar. There are a lot of people out there and every date is a crap shoot. Odds are any given date isn’t going to work out, but there is a lot of fun in the game especially if there are people cheering you on.

The game stops being fun when it seems like everyone around you is betting on the House. “Well, have you heard from the OLD one again,” (said in a highly derogatory tone) “Oh, he’s a loser,” “That one has a bad look about him,” “I told you there was something wrong with that guy.”

Really? Must the audience take something that is almost totally a game of chance but has the potential to at least be a little fun and sap that little bit of fun out of it? Must people make it more stressful than betting $100 that the next roll will be a 3? It makes me not want to say a word to anyone. No convo, no twitters, no blog posts. So, I have to ask people who want to know what is going on in the dating world of the Diva to please keep your negative comments to yourselves. I don’t need to hear them. I don’t want to hear them. I want to roll the dice and be able to laugh along the way and try to enjoy something that has huge potential to be an utter misery.

Date #8 and our little friend Mr. Opportunity

Not the first one, or the second, but the third one. March turned out to be a long dry month for me. I missed a couple of opportunities, stood up by one guy (total loser, but did still suck), spoke to another and realized immediately that he was a no go. So, admittedly the identity of date 8 has changed several times as opportunities have arisen and crashed and burned.

So, spoke to 8 for maybe ten minutes on Saturday and made plans for coffee Sunday afternoon. Coffee got canceled because we both had stuff running over, so we pushed our meeting time back to 5pm last night and a quick dinner. It wasn't the best because I'd been in Plano all afternoon and the dogs would have to be fed, but I figured what the heck, I could have blown him off but then I might not get another opportunity any time soon because I'm pretty damn busy right now. We met at a pub in old Plano that I'd been to before with friends. I admit, I didn't really think that it would work out for various reasons, but what the heck, at least I could say that I made the effort.

So, 8 is a great guy. We talked for ages. In fact, I called my neighbors to see if they could feed the hellion and her companion so that I could stay and talk a little longer. Unfortunately, I also took the opportunity to drink 4 cosmos. Trust me, I paid dearly for that mistake, especially since earlier in the day Buddy took the opportunity to pee on my bed. I have NO idea of why he did that. (Maybe my handy man scared him? Don't know.) So, by the time I got home at 10:30 at night, I had no clean sheets, comforter, duvet etc. I slept with a blanket wrapped around me and no sheets on the bed. Oh, and I woke with a delightful little reminder of the previous evenings indiscretions that required several advil.

Tonight I have bookclub, so I will not have the opportunity to go to the laundrymat and clean the comforter which is too big for the washing machine. In addition, I have to buy a new mattress pad because the old one didn't come clean, and I'm just not sleeping on pee. Girls gotta have her standards, these are mine.

Back to the boy. He's an only child, nice looking, parents live in Plano, he works in Plano, divorced, two kids, easy going and a pretty good kisser. Yup. That sums up what I learned last night. Ok, well, more later.

Some days I have less to say than others

Ok, I admit it. I have lots to say, but I sometimes don't seem to get it on to paper or the blogsphere as it may be. I have ideas from my trip of things I would like to write about, but nothing is coming to mind, and I forgot my thumb drive with pictures on it.

I got back from spring break feeling pretty good. I worked on weeding the flower bed. (Looks good.) I pulled up the rest of the carpeting in the master bedroom. (The floors underneath look wretched, but I'm still glad that the carpeting is up.) I also did copious amounts of laundry. I met what is potentially date #8 at Kirby's Steakhouse last week. I think we are going out Sunday, but we'll see what happens.

All of this to say, that really nothing much is happening these days, so it is hard to come up with good stuff to write.

I have a friend being traumatized by, what is currently, a bad relationship. I keep telling her not to put too much stock in what I say because I keep having flashbacks to my own bad relationship: Guyana Punch. The one that I wanted to last forever. The guy that made my toes curl. I can't even begin to describe the millions of ways that I was crazy about him, or the 8 million ways that he was totally toxic. I am trying to support her, but I'm not sure that I always do a great job.

Her relationship has great potential. God knows, mine had potential at one point, but the travesty of relationships is that we can only control 50% of the participants at best. Hell, if we are honest with ourselves we don't even control 50%, quite frankly. We do all sorts of stuff that we don't mean to do, and we find ourselves saying things we may or may not mean to say. What a beating.

It's really hard to think of the right things to say. I know the most important thing is to just be there, but it is almost painful to hear what is happening. First, I hate that she is in pain and suffering. She is a really good person, she has a heart of gold, and she truly always tries to do the right thing.

Second, it is absolutely painful to hear her talking about something happening now, and know how utterly horrible it was for my bff to hear my stories and to not be able to wrap her fingers around GP's neck and slowly kill him. Because I so desperately want to shake the shit out of the stupid SOB that she has set her heart on.

(Did I mention that I actually like the stupid SOB? Known him a long time. He's funny, smart, interesting, etc etc, but sometimes people are broken. There are lots of amazing people out there, but because of trauma in their lives, too many things going wrong at the same time, or just because of how they have chosen to live their lives, they are broken. Right now, I think he is a little broken. I really hope he pulls through and figures stuff out for his sake and hers, but it is so hard. I am praying for them both that it all works out.

In the meantime, I follow my amiga in dating Cha Cha dealing with her ex's and the current drive-bys and I look at my own past with GP and current drive-bys. Why is dating so difficult? And it doesn't do anything but get harder as we get older. As time goes by, we are more set in our ways, and it is harder to be willing to tolerate other people's idiosyncracies especially when I can barely tolerate my own. (I'm saying 'we' hoping it really is 'we' and not just me.)

I am hoping for good things for my friend, but I am also hoping for good things for me, for Cha Cha and for all of us trapped in the Hell known as dating.

I can't afford being a girl, let alone, a Diva.

OK, so I had to have a visual aid. It hasn't been two weeks and look how far they have grown!! Seriously, they are way out from the nail bed, and they have grown so much that you see the white of my nail and then a space before the white of the solar nails. I've been promised that this is just because they are new. They will not grow at this meteoric rate for long. (Can we pause and appreciate the irony that I put the stupid things on because my nails were in such bad shape AND not growing at all?)

Yikes. I had convinced myself that at every 3 - 4 weeks it wouldn't be so bad, but this is NOT OK. And yet, here I am dating away. I can't have my hands look like crap. Hello, it is a package thing. Wrap me up and put a bow on top.

Oh, and I need to make an appointment to get my hair cut. Augghhhhhh

Speaking of which, I thought I would review my dating path in the last several months, I'm trying to keep my head on straight and be relaxed. I don't want to be cutting guys off immediately, but I don't want to hang on long after I know I need to be walking. Know what I mean? Let's check my progress.

We had
Date #1, met for brunch, my general response was that I could imagine he was still single because he was clearly ego-centric. Didn't hear from him again.

Date #2, the orthodontist. Let's see, chose Spaghetti Warehouse as his place to impress me. Told me that it was some kind of test to see if I was a gold digger. (Paaleezzeee) Started getting all freaky touchy on me immediately, tried to do me in the parking lot, asked if I wanted to get in the car and "make out" - uh, NOOO, put doggie bag on dashboard and allowed it to spill all over my car. Ok, so he was texting me madly before Thanksgiving, but then disappeared, let's assume he got the hint.

Date #3, Very nice on first meeting, but the second date let it all out, showed up late, had no plan whatsoever, told assinine stories that he thought would be cute???? blah, blah, blah I'd like to add that I kindly emailed him the morning after the second date and told him I didn't think we were a good fit. He was shocked, he thought we were perfect. I sent a response of why I though this, and he replied with uh, I guess you are right. Yes, yes I am.

Date #4 This is when the twittering began. Nice guy, but really no connection, and then he called 8 days later. I'm looking to inspire a little more interest than 8 days later, oh, I thought I'd say hi. Ok, well, this is me saying by.

Date #5 . . .To occur. New guy. Has 3 kids (Yikes) youngest is 16. We talked yesterday for almost an hour, got along pretty well. He seems very straight forward, which I have to tell you, I really like. He's funny, interesting. Sounds very country. More to come.