Discuss!

So I already asked my friend Bill this one today, but perhaps you, my blog readers, might also advise me how respond to the following 2 aspects of my date last evening:

(Which, by the way, was perfectly and relatively pleasant, so this is not a diss, rather a genuine inquiry on social norms. And if I should be reading into them specifically.)

1) If on a February evening in Southie you are out with a date for a beer, and you have told him several times that you have just left a political organizing meeting to come meet him for said beer, what would be your response if he were to tell you in so many words, after a couple hours of conversation in which you describe your keen interest in politics, "I hate politics. In fact I abhor it."

2) Also. If you and your date live in the same neighborhood and your house is 6 blocks farther away than his, what would be your accepted response when, walking together up I Street from the bar at 10:45 pm (you walking in heels) and upon reaching his block, he says, "OK, here's my turn. Good to see you again and goodnight."

Bill has suggested that perhaps I have learned all I need to know. I'm suggesting that perhaps my date is firstly, just straightforward and honest, and secondly, not romantically interested in me, and thirdly .... well, I actually am still a bit shocked he didn't offer to see me home safely.

But perhaps that follows along with the secondly?

Zen aspirations

Woke up this morning
before the alarm,
sweaty and aggravated,
still mentally in a dream
that felt so real and
still needing to be dealt with
(at a musical revue,
supposed to be in charge
but there was no program order and
no music to play from and
no one to tell me what any of it should be)
and
it took a couple minutes to realize that
indeed it was a dream and that
I'm usually smarter than my dreams
(and sometimes even more capable?)
and that dealing with
idiosyncracies at the office
and a
first stab at pilates
and a
friend's political campaign meeting
followed by
a beer out, again, with Southie Med
(this time at esteemable Quenchers Tavern on I Street)
are all going to be easier than
that dream
and that
it would probably behoove me to
just be
chill
about
them all.

A Tuesday

Yesterday was up and down.

Morning: Mixed performance review at work. Near-tears involved at key moments. Boss comment: "You've seemed a bit off the last month or so. Would you agree? Instead of giving your normal 110%, you're only at, like 90?"

Noon: First ever successful parking ticket appeal at City Hall, resulting in $100 that can now be earmarked instead for coffee. Followed shortly thereafter by acquisition of first ever (110% legal) resident parking sticker, despite my earlier assurances to the contrary, since the process was held up by said $100 parking ticket. As I wrote in text to a friend, "Shazam!"

Evening: Church council meeting. I'm the secretary. 3.5 hours on a folding chair in a Back Bay basement, taking minutes. Although my friend and council colleague, Chris, provided some excellent Flying Dog Ale to make the proceedings go down smoother. Sometimes church business does go better with beer. Although it does certainly go slower.

Late Evening: Ride home from said meeting on the #9. iPod listening choice: Indigo Girls, 1200 Curfews. In the way that sometimes, some nights, some songs just make you, listened harder than necessary to the dressing-room cover of Gerard McHugh's "Thin Line," to wit:

i thought the time was passed when i could
find beauty in the birds
i set the stage and the scenery
rehearsing every word

with my confidence on fire
i set to fixin' up my roles
my separation of desires
just left me deeper down the hole

now i'm tryin to get back
to what i know that i should be
hoping to God that i was just
a temporary absentee

yeah when i tried to make it more
well it was always less
it's a thin line between pleasing yourself
and pleasing somebody else

Very Late Evening. Fried up a $2 steak with onions, tried to pair it with seriously overaged and overchilled Sangiovese from the fridge. Realized with some heavy-handedness that I'm on that thin line a lot these days. Grateful for coffeehouse songs from 1994 that still have truth about the ears.

"VD" is for ....

.... Victory Dance?

Video Download?

Venereal Disease?

Vichyssoise Deluxe, perhaps?

I'm not trying to avoid Valentines Day. Really.

For a girl mired in some variation of is-it-or-isn't-it? relationship limbo about this time of year for the past 3, I have some awesome plans so far:

1) Mail card to Grandma.
2) Call Mom & Dad.
3) Wake up on February 15.
4) Buy half-priced bag of Necco hearts from CVS.

Other than that, I find it hard to get into.

When you're single on the Lovers Holiday, you are single on the Lovers Holiday. That means your friends either a) inundate you with well-wishes because they think you're feeling left out or b) ignore you because they know you write a blog about your dating life and aren't seeing anyone seriously, since you've told them as much, and they realize, based on the tone of your recent posts, you're acting a bit testily on the subject lately and maybe it would be both less painful and more PC just not to bring it up at all.

Folks, it's OK, really.

I give credit to Cousin J, who never seems to fear wading into the cesspool of my bad mood. She e-mailed from Nicaragua yesterday, asking me, rightly of course, to ease up and, well, just breathe.

" ..... get a date for next weekend with anyone to distract yourself and feel sexy so you can reduce the game we play of making med guy into someone before he has a chance to tell you who he is. and before you can decide whether you'd like him to like you."

It's good advice. Although I do need to share with her that, in fact, I had already brainstormed a potential great way to spend at least one evening .... Friday night at Noir in Harvard Square, attending the "Love Letters" party thrown by boston.com.

Love Letters is a blog moderated by columnist Meredith Goldstein, herself 30-something and single. It features a daily letter of woe, followed by some serious Meredith advice (usually pithy and wise), followed by about 450 pages of sometimes irreverant, sometimes scary reader comments. (I suspect many commenters will be at the party, making other attendees try to guess their on-line monikers and reminiscing over their favorite letters.)

Nonetheless, it sounds wacky. Curious. Fun. Like one of those things you always tell yourself you'll do, but never quite have the figurative balls to follow through on.

Besides, in the "FAQ" post linked to above, Meredith answers a question well worth asking:

Q: I'm a straight guy who's too cool to go to this type of thing. Any reason I should let my guard down and show up?

A: Not to sound shallow, but every straight, single woman I've met who reads Love Letters is quite pretty. That's not really important, of course, but it's just something worth mentioning. It's a hot bunch, and a social bunch. Just so you know.

I could be into this. Stay posted.

Getting out of town

Even when the wind blows 21 mph and it feels like 11 degrees and no one told you ahead of time that the town of Gardner, MA (The Chair City!) has a bunch of 60-degree uphills that demand to be run uphill, it's a lot easier to finish a 10K in a bitter February wind when one of your best girl friends comes along for the ride and, after the race, agrees to go back out to the 4-mile marker to pose, as if proof were necessary.

(Well, if not necessary, a fun road trip, indeed. Thanks, C.)

The lonely road, from the runner's view.

The runner, revisiting the road.

The one-gloved photographer, with iPhone.

Does it have to be a virtue?

It does feel good to blow my top from time to time.

The Rambling Uncensored Maunder is cathartic. And as a piece of writing, I surmise, it should be more palatable to readers who can choose to read or not read it than to listeners who can't turn me off when confronted with the same in person.

So, naturally ...

.... last night I got an e-mail from Southie Med. Benign, friendly. Telling me, of all things, he got his wisdom teeth taken out yesterday. But he enjoyed our Wednesday night at Tom English's and thinks we should try another.

Not exactly a burning love letter. But, indeed, a request for a second date. Even if it is beers in Southie on a Wednesday. It's a second date.

(Since I left our first date feeling apprehensive because I had been so talky ... so nervous, maybe?.... and thinking that I just wanted another chance to hang out with him without the nerves, I should be thrilled.)

Instead I'm feeling foolish for having no patience, or at least for showing a relative lack of class about it. If the second date goes swimmingly and afterwards he asks for this blog address and I give it to him, he's going to have to read that I called him a turd.

(Not that I couldn't go right now and change that word .... although if he's worth his salt, he'll have a sense of humor about it. If I'm so lucky.)

Then again, I'm feeling foolish for feeling foolish. Don't I deserve to be impatient? I'm 6 weeks from being 37, and have I not already exhibited years of patience? Should I have to wait 3 days after a date to hear if my date likes me enough to want to see me again?

There are only so many 3-day windows left in my life. I kind of want to know sooner than later if he thinks we could be mutually fascinating or is just happy for a weekly drinking buddy.

It's probably unfair to place this particular burden on Southie Med. We've had one date. We didn't use it getting into any lengthy or weighty discussions about expectations or desires; we talked like normal people about our jobs and our running and our families. He's not responsible for all facets of my future happiness or satisfying my impatience ....

.... yet.

This never gets easier, does it.

12-Minute Maunder

It's Friday.

Let's see. How much can I maunder about in 12 minutes, starting .....

.... if the pleasant, bespectacled, chisel-jawed med student from Southie with whom I share an 80% compatibility ranking on OKC takes me out for a couple beers at a respectable Southie dive bar but, 2 days later, has not found the time to respond to my thank you note or acknowledge that he both pursued me and is now ignoring me, should I just be glad that if he really feels that way or just is never going to have the time for me, he has shoved off and doesn't string me into anything more than disappointment that such a promising lead turned out to be such a turd?

.... Argh. Men. Or boys. 24-year-old from Brooklyn, who for the last 2 months has hit me 2x a week looking for a chat or wanting to talk about hooking up, and whom I good-natured indulge in banter because he is a political consultant with something to say and writes a blog about his favorite hamburgers .... finds it necessary to update his Facebook status update today with: "(24-y-o) was relentlessly pursued by a woman 12 years his senior this evening. Thankfully I shunned her advances." So I should keep talking with him ....... WHY?

.... why must men from central Illinois, central Pennsylvania, central Rhode Island, or Boulder, Colorado take up my time and space sending me pointless messages on OKC? Are there no women in central Illinois, central Pennsylvania or central Rhode Island? Or the Rocky Mountains?

Men of Boston (or Cambridge or Somerville or Medford or Brookline or anywhere in a 25-mile radius) ..... where the f#$% are YOU? Hitting up women from central Illinois?

Sigh.

Time for lunch.

Sweet talk

On the basis of this photo,

taken by my friend C
on a September afternoon

2 years ago,

on the Comm Ave Mall

between Berkeley and Clarendon streets,

reading a book

someone else left behind,

I should surely be married

by now

for the number of

online dating hits

it hath wrought.

(Thanks, C.)

Today

a 26-y-old man
from Schenectady NY,

couldn't help himself,

telling me that

"i like that picture with the skirt

my god so into your work :)
do u got id for those legs

if not i am going to have u thrown in jail"

Cookie Day Pledge

I, Karin,

having ordered

1 box Lemonades
+
1 box PB Patties
+
1 box PB Sandwiches

(who, even with co-workers who, now fully recovered from Christmas season treat gluttony overload, are more than willing to snack if you put them out on the counter, was able to consume roughly half of said cookies in a single afternoon of spreadsheet composing)

hereby decree to reassert in public

(my previously private) pledge

to complete

1 10K road race
for each of the
12 months of
2010.

January's done.

February will be represented by this one, this Sunday.

(Which means I'd better leave the office right now

and

go for a run.)

Emotionally undecided

I spent the weekend in Washington, D.C. (without boots, as you well know).

Alan, my college newspaper colleague from eons ago, a man I'll still call a good friend, is now president of the National Press Club.

Saturday night was his big inauguration party during a big snowstorm with some big names (like Bob Schieffer and the senior senator from Minnesota) and some small names (like mine) in attendance. He took the oath of office over a Brett Favre Vikings jersey. Alex Trebek & Meredith Vieira sent video. We ate Jell-O and bison steaks and devilled eggs with krumkake for dessert. We marvelled that for a very-D.C. event we got very-Minnesota weather.

I've been emotionally laid low by it.

I still haven't figured out how to articulate what it felt to witness an old friend reach a mountainous career pinnacle at the age of 36 -- watching him willingly shoulder the opportunity and the burden of being the face of journalism in the United States at a time when the very profession is in peril. Relieved that, despite all things, he still harbors the same stubbornness, inventiveness, and singular personality that he did when he was 20. Realizing how hard he has worked and how much he has sacrificed, and wondering on some level if this is really what he wants.

I need to think about it some more and get back to you.