The Day Before the Day

I was going to talk a little bit about that elusive prey, the single man in the DC-MD-VA area, and how unlike a single gal such as myself, he manages to go about his life probably un-self-medicated by the numbing blissfulness of the Twilight Saga and season two of the Gilmore Girls.  But I’m struck by the day or rather how this is the day before the 10^th anniversary of when everything changed. 

There are these moments that define generations, for better or for worse, and September 11^th certainly was that.  Such horrible acts of destruction and hate followed immediately with such selfless acts of courage and sacrifice do not occur frequently and when they do, the command our attention and sear their images into our collective memory.

Everyone of a certain age most certainly remembers where they were when they heard the news.  I was in a nondescript, windowless government building in a not-so-nice part of Washington D.C. and in the melee of orders to move to the first floor, then outside, then back in, I saw the smoke rising from the Pentagon.  And when we were finally released and the Metro was closed, as a very kind friend drove me home, I saw that sign of my country’s strength and power burning.  Watching the coverage numbly on television, I tried to get in touch with a roommate visiting her family in NY and my best friend from high school who lived in the city that had been so brutally shut down.  I dimly remember talking to my cousin in South Carolina who wanted to make sure I was ok and hearing tearfully of how my big strong brother had to be restrained from driving his truck through barriers over bridges to come rescue his baby sister from out of harm’s way. It felt surreal to me and I couldn’t even begin to imagine how it felt for those whose personal worlds were shattered, ended, or forever and inextricably altered.

And then I went back to work.  Grimly and fearfully and with the idea that what I was doing was supporting our nation, but so afraid that due to my inexperience and youth I would fail and people would be hurt.  It was a long couple of months and then suddenly and strangely things sort of went back to something approaching normal.  At least for me.  I knew that things would always be a little different than they had been– whatever feelings of safeness and sureness that had comforted me before, that was gone.  This new reality of different types of alerts, and searches and seizures, and wondering if when you flew, or rode the train, or worked in your office building, if that would be the last thing you did, that was hard to shake.  I tried very concertedly not to watch repeated coverage of the events or panic about what terrors lay in store for us next. 

But now, all the scenes are being replayed as we prepare for the 10^th anniversary.  New alerts, new terrors, new worries, old fears.  What stands out, though, are the stories of hope.  The man who on 10 September promised a man tickets for a sporting event for his son to see his first car race, and made sure that even after the planes went down and the father never returned home, that the son still got to have some type of adolescent joy amidst the grief.  How the man in charge of security for a financial firm evacuated his group from the South Tower and then went back in to make sure everyone was safe and sound.  The chaplain who ran into the building along with the firefighters he served and who some survivors picture as leading the angels to greet those that were lost and take them safely to their eternal rest. 

And the countless men and women who were moved the events of that fateful day to lead lives of service and duty and remind us that although there are people in the world who are capable of unthinkable acts of violence and hatred, there are those who see all that and yet choose to care, to love, and to work to make things better. 

That is what I will try to do in remembrance of 9/11 and in looking to the future.  For although I don’t think we can go back to the way things were 10 years ago today, I do think we can choose compassion and hope instead of fear and anger.

And on that note, I’m going to hop-along outside with this glorious walking boot that so firmly encases my left leg and take my faithful canine companion out into the glorious sunshine that has ended the deluge of the past several days.  And then I’ll be off with my wondrous sister for one of the best sing-alongs imaginable, the Sound of Music.  I apologize in advance to those sitting near us as I plan on singing my heart out in my own special, tone-deaf manner.  I promise to at least make it entertaining.

This Boot Ain’t Made for Runnin’

Before I get underway in this latest post, I have to ask, where are the pickup lines that I so humbly requested in my last post?  C’mon, friends, help me out here!  Do you really want to set me loose on unsuspecting dudes with such winning lines as “You look really sweaty?” Well, maybe you do, but I’d be a little more likely to try this if you give me some better advice in terms of opening lines I could try out. 

And now back to our regularly scheduled program.

It is with great sadness and no end of disappointment that I must announce that I am no longer training to run a half-marathon in November (see I Hate to Run for more details).  Turns out that I didn’t just twist my ankle as over-achiever that I am, I sprained my left ankle, tore my ligaments, and yes developed plantar fasciitis in my right foot.  I twisted my ankle that fateful Tuesday when confronted with a neighbor callously singing DW’s praises (see Love Hurts) and although I did stop running and wore a brace for a while after the initial injury, I didn’t take as good of care of it as I should.  So after a weekend in West Virginia where I only slightly modified my usual walks and hikes and a week of taking longer walks with Charlie than I should have, it is perhaps not surprising that I messed up the same ankle again so easily. 

The Friday before Hurricane Irene I was already scheduled to see a podiatrist for my right foot and I was a little behind schedule that morning so when I saw the guys come to pick up the recycling, I hurried out of the house with my blue container, stepping precariously in a new hole in the parking lot, and seriously rolling my ankle.  I’m proud to be environmentally conscious, but seriously this was a little ridiculous.  Hobbling back to the house nearly in tears I hopped upstairs to get my brace, iced my foot briefly, ran into work and then made my way to the doctor’s. 

The podiatrist’s office looked a little like someone’s older aunt’s sitting room.  It was jam packed with weird chachkas, art and furniture from the 1970’s, and all the other patients were older and teetering around on canes and walkers.   I shouldn’t have been surprised when her receptionist, whom I’m convinced was more than a little stoned, decided that he had to chat me up incessantly as I attempted to fill in all the required forms.  I heard pretty much his whole life story, including how he really hated office work and was getting ready to go on a massive hunting trip in Colorado and I figured out why such an unlikely sort was the receptionist at an older podiatrist’s office: he was her nephew.   

The doctor was perfectly nice, but I wasn’t too thrilled with her attitude toward all physical activity as she said not only would I not be running or walking distances for a while, but that she would advise against it period even after I had recovered.  She said I could swim a bit but that was it.  After taking an x-ray with a machine that was probably new sometime in the early 1960’s, she decided I had sprained my ankle and possibly had a small fracture, put me in an air cast and wanted to see me in a week and I hauled my increasingly unhappy self back to work.  I wasn’t too convinced though as she said she wasn’t used to treating acute injuries so thankfully I talked to a colleague a few aisles over who was recovering from some serious injuries and trying to get back into shape for a half-marathon and he recommended I try out the doctors he went to so I got an appointment for the following Monday.

In the meantime, all hell broke loose in the form of Hurricane Irene.  Along with almost everyone else in the region, I lost power Saturday night.  I don’t know how this happened, but I woke up a little before 3:30 in the morning, convinced I had to check out my sump pump.  It’s a good thing I did as it was nearly flowing over.  Now I recommend you sit down before you read this next part, as the picture I’m about to put in your head could have you rolling on the floor in laughter.  At that point, I was wearing a sleep shirt, air cast, crocs, my glasses, and a head lamp that I used both for light and to keep my hair back as I bailed out my sump pump hobbling back and forth from the pump to the sanitary tub.  I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror and I almost busted a gut laughing at how ridiculous I looked. 

I bailed pretty much non-stop until 11:30 in the morning.  A while before 10am, my neighbor took pity on me and sent her husband and father over to spell me for a while and then my sister came over to help and to walk Charlie.  I almost wept with joy when the power came back on at noon and the sump pump starting churning away. 

Monday morning I drive to Annapolis to meet my new BFF sport’s orthopedist who had the most awesome first name ever (hint: she also doesn’t like the movie Rocky) and unfortunately she discovered that I had badly sprained my ankle, torn ligaments, and would be in this ginormous fixed ankle boot for at least the next four weeks.  24/7 except for showers.  And then we’ll have more x-rays and see how I’m doing.  She said that the air cast the other doctor recommended would actually make me worse in the long run as my ligaments would heal improperly and I would be more likely to sprain it again.  And that I most definitely should not swim as the kicking motion would not do lovely things for my ankle.  The boot is not a lot of fun in the day and it becomes even less so when I attempt to sleep in it.  To add to the fun, my power went back out Monday night, just a little bit after when my sister had departed the house after putting her groceries in my fridge for safe keeping since she lost her power the day before.  I became seriously more dangerous in the dark. 

What I’ve noticed and what is a little disconcerting, is that quite a few men –upon seeing me in the boot—ask me if I hurt myself from kicking a man.  At least five men have asked me this so far – some ask how many guys I kicked, some ask if I kicked him in the head or in the shins, some ask if he learned his lesson.  I just talked with a friend who had to wear a similar boot for two months (!!) and she said men had also asked her the same thing and she thought it meant that sometimes, men admit that they deserve kicking.

And that brings me to the sad sight that just greeted my eyes, DW leaving his house with some Slutty McSluttrash (ok, she didn’t look slutty at all – she looked vaguely like a model from an L.L. Bean catalogue – they kind where she would be hiking through the woods or petting a golden retriever) and getting into their 4wd vehicle to go off and do fun summer activities in the lovely non-hurricane weather.  I think I would not have let this bother me as much if I wasn’t so couch-bound in my current hobbled state but as it was, he was lucky that I didn’t have a bag of dog poo handy as I would have nailed the car as they drove off.

So right now I have to admit that I’m feeling more than a little sorry for myself.  Natural disasters and injuries seem to suck a little more when you’re on your own.  Although a lot of husbands and partners probably let their wives/sig others do most of the work when cleaning up after a disaster, I’d like to think that they would at least help out in bailing out a sump pump for hours on end, especially if their wives were injured.  And it would be nice to have someone help me walk Charlie more.  I’m not supposed to walk more than ¼ mile at a time and Charlie is used to way more exercise than that, as am I.  He doesn’t look particularly thrilled with me now so I better take him out for one of those brief jaunts and then try to play a little fetch with him in the casa.  And then I promise, I’ll try to put a halt to all the whining and focus on some wining instead.  It would help if I had some good pickup lines to ponder whilst I recover and figure out what, if any, will be my next moves in the dating arena.

Before I go, two things I learned during the hurricane.  First of all, have a head lamp ready at all times.  It is pretty much the best accessory known to man.  I like mine more when I’m wearing it whilst outside in WV, drinking with my family and watching the dogs run around or geocaching, than I do while attempting to prevent my sump pump from overflowing.  But it is always one of my favorite things.  Secondly, never underappreciate your sump pump.  In my opinion it is one of the most underrated appliances as you never really think about it ‘til it’s gone.  And I’ll throw in a third as I try to shake off the pity party, no matter how bad you have it –whatever it is—someone else always has it worse, so try to keep some perspective.  I may have had no power, an overflowing sump pump, and an injured leg, but I know of people who lost much more and are still recovering. Thanks to good neighbors and as always to the best sister ever, things never became impossible.  I still have my faithful dog at my side and although I lost a lot of food with the power out, I did not lose anything from the bar J

What's your Sign?

I was at the cupcake shop this week with some friends (of course now that I’ve typed this up I just want more cupcakes…hmmm…) and one of them spotted a reasonably attractive guy at the front of the line.  At this point both of them started gesturing emphatically for me to approach said guy in some capacity and kept reiterating in not-so-indoor voices, “Go get him!”  The other maneuvered around to determine that the guy was not wearing a wedding ring, and once that was confirmed they became even more determined in their commands.  I almost started inching towards him, but I couldn’t think what the hell I would say to him.  This was definitely not an optimal situation in which to strike up a casual conversation.  First of all, the people between us in line would surely think I was trying to hop the queue and given the deliciousness of these particular cupcakes, would possibly beat me to death with their purses.  But let’s brush that aside and say I momentarily took leave of my senses.  What in the hell would I say to him when I got up there: “nice cupcakes!”, “what flavor did you get?”, “can I buy those for you or reimburse you as you have already paid?”  Or if I was feeling more brazen, “what kind of cupcakes did you buy me?” or even “those will taste really delicious after you take me out for a drink.”

Those all kinda fell flat but it made me think about the lack of general pick-up lines in my repertoire.  I haven’t been on the dating scene in a few months now and even when I was, it was mostly online and the guys tended to make all the cheesy moves.  I’ve never been really sure about how to approach a guy in real life.  Some people say women don’t need lines, that all they need to do is make it clear that they are interested and guys will be tripping over their feet to lavish them with attention.  I’ve found that line of reasoning to be a pile of crap so I think I need to develop some go to lines in case I find myself in a situation where there is a prospective gentleman that I want to woo. 

Years and years ago, I came up with lines for me and a few other friends but for the life of me now I can’t remember them.  Well, that’s not entirely true, I do remember the line I came up with for a friend that is blessed in the ta-ta department.  I said she should just sidle up to a guy, look him directly in the eyes and say, “So (dramatic pause), do you want to see the goods?” Strangely enough, we could never get those words out of our mouths without bursting into fits of hysterical laughter.  My line was one that I thought up applied only if I ever met a jockey, and although I really can’t remember it now, that is probably for the best as I think it was more than a little off-color. 

Earlier in the month, the same friend from the cupcake shop wanted to take a road trip to some town on the Eastern shore that contained the hot fisherman featured in a photograph in the newspaper.  We decided that as I approached said fisherman, I should try something like “I don’t know what type of bait you’re using, but you caught me!” But again, the likelihood that I could deliver that line without my ears turning bright red and basically sputtering in laughter are pretty slim.

So for realsies, I need some lines for actual situations that I could find myself in.  Like at the gym – what would I say to the cute guy on the treadmill next to me?  “Wow, you’re really sweaty!” or “Don’t worry, I’m not actually going to pass out.  It just looks like that when I run.” And what about the grocery store, if I see a guy I want to introduce myself to, what would be a good line to open up with?  Should I pretend I need something from a high shelf and ask him to help me reach it?  Should I pretend I don’t know how to cook and ask him what I should do with those parsnips? Or on the rare times when I actually go to a bar and see a guy who appears single and with whom I’d like to mingle, should I really use the old standby, “Come here often?” or  should I try to buy him a drink?  Help me out, people.  Who knows what the hell I’ll come up with on my own since I once went up to a guy I liked (granted this was in elementary school) and told him that for someone who was that short, he really had big feet.  Save me from myself, dear readers and help me come up with some viable lines that would have a guy actually interested in talking to me rather than running away at high speeds.

Love Hurts

Tuesday night I drove to Arlington to meet some friends as we said goodbye to a friend and his wife who were getting ready to move out of the country for a few years.  I had thought his wife, originally from Germany with most of her family still living there, would be excited to return to her homeland, but she really wasn’t that stoked.  She’s leaving the home she had built in that island paradise of Hawaii, a career that she enjoyed, and moving without knowing where or even if she was going to find a job, a place to live, or a plan for what happens next all because her husband had a great opportunity and really wanted to go.

With an intro like that, you’re probably thinking that this blog is going to be all about the things that people are willing to give up for love.  But since this is my blog, it’s actually about what happened before I made it to that dinner.  I have said in previous posts that I was so over DW it wasn’t funny.  Well, sadly I have proven that untrue as the mere mention of his name and wonderfulness by a neighbor riled me up so much that I twisted my ankle and busted my knee. 

Rewind to Tuesday post work.  I hauled butt home to walk my faithful canine before driving across town to say goodbye.  Just a block from my home I see a neighbor with a new dog.  I didn’t know her too well – she lives on the other side of DW and she and I had never really talked too much.  But she was nervous about her new dog, and seemed anxious to chat.  So we let our dogs meet each other and they got along really well, so well in fact that she felt she had to comment about how embarrassed she was as her dog had not liked DW’s dog and had in fact snapped at him, and wasn’t that horrible as DW is just the nicest guy ever, don’t I agree? GAH!!! She literally went on and on about what a great guy he is, and how fantastic his dog is, yadda yadda.  And I found myself agreeing with her and then getting a little melancholy about why he has now decided to seemingly ignore me and pretend that we never hung out or went on our was-it-a-date-or-was-it-not-a-date.

After leaving her, I was muttering somewhat angrily and not paying attention to where I was walking and I tripped on the curb, twisted my left ankle, heard a disturbing snap, and busted open my right knee.  Really not ideal for someone who was attempting to train for a half-marathon and had just found out that she probably has plantar fasciitis in her right foot.  So I hobbled around for the rest of the walk, trying not to bloody up my new dress, hurrying home to ice my ankle, and get out the door before I totally missed the going away dinner. 

But the dinner itself was pretty great.  A little bittersweet as the few of us that gathered together have known each other for a long while but haven’t really spent time with one another for many years and to get together to say goodbye when you’re not sure when you’ll see each other next, is a little sad.  The stories and times we share are wonderful, but in the past.  The memories caramelize and you start thinking of them as the “good ol’ days,” which is totally oversimplifying what happened and the decisions we made.  But it’s nice to stroll down memory lane, even if you’re hobbling a little from all your multiple foot injuries.

I drove home thinking about how our lives had diverged and how everyone had seemed to keep growing and changing, while I felt a little like I was stuck in a repeat episode of some of the less fun times of the Diary of Bridget Jones.   That all changed when I got home to the ecstatic waggingness of my four-legged soulmate.  He was ecstatic to see me even though I had been gone most of the day and was definitely not as mobile as he would have preferred.  When I bent down to hug him, he did that doggy sigh thing, like he was saying, “you are the bestest person ever and I couldn’t be happier.”  So yes, love hurts and crushes bruise, but love also heals and makes you happy to be you, realizing how lucky you are with the love and the life that you have, even if it’s different than what you had planned.

Adrienne, Unplugged

I have not been on a dating website for almost five months.  The signs of withdrawal are slowly subsiding.  No longer do I nervously check my inbox with hope/fear at what awaits.  Almost 150 days have gone by since I last went on an awkward first date with someone I had not seen in real life before that day (see Deal with the Devil for my last online date).  I feel like most of the emotional and mental scars from those horrible dates have started to heal.  Although DW still seems to have fallen into that single guy black hole in his near total avoidance of my gaze, when I occasionally see his car or house out of the corner of my eye, I’m no longer torn by the need to know why he stopped talking to me and the urge to hurl eggs, rocks, or bags of dog poo at him.

To further celebrate my unplugged nature, I recently took my own advice from Lonely Planet and decided to combine my love of travel with my love of family, dogs, hiking, and beverages by totally unplugging and joining my uncle and cousins in West Virginia for a long weekend.  Of course, it would turn out to be the hottest weekend of all time and I would be heading to the land of no central air.  But if you’re not going to go big, you might as well go home so I dove into the experience.

First of all, you know it’s a good time if you get to stand outside wearing a headlamp and drinking a beer while dogs run around you, gleeful in their abandon and lack of leash-wearing.  According to the book of Adrienne, it is nearly impossible to wear a headlamp and not have fun.  If you have found yourself in such a situation, you obviously were not with me for the mere act of putting on a headlamp makes me giddy.  Couple that with a slightly humid night with no noise other than the sounds of crickets and my cousins laughing, a few stars poking through the clouds, and a very cold beer and I think you have something close to perfection. 

Secondly, I got to swim with my dog.  Now normally when we go to the cabin, the dogs get to do all the swimming.  But as it was hotter than the hammered down hinges of hell, I broke my rule of letting no human eyes see me in a bathing suit and we all swam with the dogs.  Watching my dog swim is the best.  He loves it.  “Love” is not a strong enough word.  If you looked up the definition of “ecstatic,” it would be a picture of my dog in the water fetching a stick and wagging his soggy tail.  Swimming with him was even better.  I swam out to get the sticks that had gone beyond his reach and he looked almost like he would laugh to see me fetch.  It was also great as my cousin’s dog got to practice saving us whenever any of the humans made the mistake of putting our shoulders below the water.  Note to self, remember that waving your arms and saying “I’m fine, really, fine!” only spurs him on to greater acts of heroism.

Third, I get to be as goofy as I want around these people.  They’re family, so they’re a little nutty themselves and appreciate my special brand of lunacy.  I get to practice my loon calls, make up and sing songs at the top of my lungs about the cooking show I want my uncle to start so that I can meet and marry Paula Deen’s single son (trust me – there’s a well-developed plan there…ok probably not well-developed, but there is a plan), drink well before 5pm, geocache in the mountains and on the side of country roads, sing along to John Denver outside of the 7^th Inning Stretch, wear my hair in pigtails, get entirely too dirty and not care, see my dog chase his friends all throughout the woods, attempt to run myself (nowhere near as fun or pretty but I did it!), eat homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream my cousin made especially for me (even better when served for breakfast), and make blueberry pancakes the size of my face for all my family. 

Unfortunately it’s not the most restful of va-cays as every time the dogs hear something outside, they all start barking.  Plus they love to get up well before 6am.  But most days, it is totally relaxing just to chill.  Not to text or wait for a text.  To let all the news just happen without knowing how each pundit will sell their story.  Cell phones don’t work there.  The TV is mainly used for my cousin to watch John Wayne movies.  There’s even an outhouse from the days when the only running water was the pump outside.  Particularly helpful on the nights when the power goes out and you’ve made good friends with Mr. Daniels or Mr. Walker.

And when it rained, we all took naps.  Even the dogs managed to sleep a bit without getting amped up at all the sounds outside.  I’m pretty sure that the cabin is my dog’s favorite place on earth.  Although there is sometimes more family drama than I’d like, I wouldn’t trade those times for anything.  For there is something to be said about sitting on a porch with your family, laughing so hard about some silly joke that you’re almost afraid you’ll pee, hearing the thwap-thwap sound of your dog’s tail.  While it’s sometimes unbearably sad there as we miss my aunt and remember where she’d sit with her coffee and binoculars to watch the birds, and how she’d roll her eyes and say that my loon impression sounded more like the mating call of the bull moose, and how she is to this day the most organized woman I’ve ever known, being there together, even when there are tears and drama, I can hear her laugh and feel her love.

I’m going to try to make it back up there at least one more time this summer.  Again it will probably be the hottest weekend of all time and I doubt I’ll get much sleep.  But as long as I have my Charlie, the fam, plenty of beverages, and of course my trusty headlamp, the heat and the sleeplessness won’t be all that bad.  Air conditioning and restful nights are overrated when there’s the option of laughing yourself silly, praying for a breeze to come, and pressing a can of Bud Lite with Lime against your forehead. 

Fate or Fright?

A very quick post as I am running late as usual.  The incident that happened this week was just too strange not to share.  So do you remember from about a million years ago when I talked about the guy who was a little amorous of his Mercedes? Back in Beware the Ides of March, I told you of when I first joined Mismatch* in spring 2009.  The first guy that contacted me was a guy who let me know repeatedly that he had a very nice car.  In pretty much every email.  And most of his profile pictures.  And for the life of me, I can’t remember if we ever actually met.  This in itself is not that disturbing.  Well, okay, it’s disturbing that I can’t remember if we met but not the semi-obsession with his car is not really that troubling.  In fact, in the grand scheme of the horrible dates I’ve been on, this guy seems like a prince.

Fast forward to Personal Assistant Required, when I complained that I needed a personal assistant to keep track of my dating life.  I had joined another site – Physics* - and was chatted up by a guy who seemed like a great catch. 

His profile was funny and approachable and his pictures showed a cute guy with a variety of interests.  At that point, he seemed a little familiar but I couldn’t put my finger on how I knew him.  At some point though I realized that this guy was the same guy that approached me about a year and a half before and was still a little smitten with his car. 

 

Jump ahead to this past week when I’m innocuously checking my email and discover that this same guy from Mismatch* and from Physics* had sent me a note.  Not just any note, but he responded from the last time that we exchanged personal emails (as opposed to the bizarre conversing that takes place on Physics*) which was March 2009.  Is this fate that I’m actually supposed to meet this guy? Or is it just frightening that he is trying to contact me responding to an email that is 2 years and four months old?  Should I write him back or just pretend I never got the email?  Help me choose my own adventure here, dear readers.  I’m at a loss.

 

*Name has been changed

The Demise of the Dog Whisperer

No, the television show isn’t being cancelled.  I also thought of titling this post “Elvis Has Left the Building” or “I Give Up.”  For those of you who remember back 100 years ago when I first discussed the “Dog Whisperer” aka DW, you may we wondering what happened there.  I know some friends were torn as while they wanted things to work out for me, they also wanted to hear more exciting extreme dating stories.  I hadn’t provided any updates in a while as I didn’t want to jinx it, but from the title you can pretty much see that was all for naught.

For the full story on him, check out Stalking the DogWhisperer and Dorks Anonymous.  But basically, I developed a crazy crush on my neighbor.  Not just any neighbor but a neighbor whose house I can see from my own and so now I can torture myself by knowing if he’s home or not home or if someone is visiting him.  But yes, I developed this crush on DW, so named by my friend when we decided that I needed to ensnare him with my feminine wiles and that this would be known as “Mission: Dog Whisperer.” 

 

First on the agenda was training my dog not to hate his dog.  This took a little bit of work on my part as for some reason my faithful canine couldn’t stand the other dog.  It was insane – I gave mine treats and talked all sweet with him whenever we saw that damn dog and now, my dog thinks this dog is awesome and DW is like a paragon of men.

 

Then I started walking and talking with DW.  Nothing too exciting at first, despite the intrepid maneuvers of my friend who tried to assist me in my quest.  We would just walk around the block together and chat.  And it was great – we talked about everything.  Sometimes when we’d finished our walk we would just chat outside for a while, the dogs eventually laying down they were so tired or whining to go get fed. 

 

Wait, before the walks, there was the winter.  Yes, now I’m remembering correctly.  So in the fall and early winter we’d only chatted a few times but hadn’t really walked together.  Then we had one pretty crazy snow and DW helped me dig out my car and my neighbors.  I decided to thank him by delivering some home-baked chocolate chip cookies to his casa.  He was a little weird when I dropped them off but he later said he had fallen asleep on his couch and was a little out of it then.

 

Then we started walking together.  It was really…what’s the word? It was nice.  It was really nice to walk and chat with him.  And I started to like him even more.  He was in a band and played on a few different sports teams and he was close with his family.  I eventually determined that he didn’t seem to be dating anyone seriously and he talked about a few ex-girlfriends.  Around that point it was spring and I plucked up the courage to ask him if he wanted to sometime check out this restaurant we had been discussing and he said yes.  I was way too over-excited by this.  Especially because I was heading out of town pretty soon after our walk and we didn’t see each other again for a while. 

 

When we did see each other again on another walk, it came up that it had recently been my birthday.  We had been talking about work and I said I had been in training and while it was annoying, at least I got to see some of my old coworkers and friends and have dinner and drinks with them on my birthday.  He wished me a belated happy birthday and said we would have to figure out a time to go out.  Then a few days later, he showed up at my door with brownies.  Home-made crème de menthe brownies.  That he made.  For MY BIRTHDAY!!! I was sooooooo excited.  And they were really good brownies.  He came in and we talked for like two hours. It was awesome.  I was so super sure that he was into me.  Does that seem like a reasonable assumption?  I thought so then but now I don’t think it does.  Sigh.  Anyway, we talked for a long time and then he had to go as he was supposed to have dinner with his parents.  But we decided we would go out for dinner together the following Sunday.  And he even asked for my phone number in case we didn’t run into each other, so that we could figure out our plans.

 

As that Sunday approached, I have to say I became incredibly and insanely nervous.  I honestly don’t remember being as nervous for a date before – if it was a date.  When I hadn’t seen him by that Saturday, I texted him to see if we were still on and we made plans for dinner at 6pm.  I became even more anxious.  I must have tried on a dozen different outfits.  I called a friend and I was nearly hyperventilating I couldn’t figure out what to wear or how to act or anything.  This was highly odd as I have been on way too many dates to behave in this manner.  Usually I have a hard time working up any enthusiasm or sentiment other than certain dread. 

I managed to somehow dress myself and be ready by the time he knocked on my door.  That was when I realized I hadn’t warned him that in addition to my regular dog, I was dog-sitting – so he was a little ill-prepared for the sound of my dog and another very large dog hurtling themselves at the door and barking furiously at him.  I managed to pry them away from the door and fling myself out of it. 

He drove and the ride to the restaurant was a little awkward.  Normally we didn’t have a hard time talking but it was a little quiet.  When we got to the restaurant though, that all changed and it was more like it had been before.  The conversation just felt really easy and fun.  We talked for a while, had some drinks, and dinner and before I knew it, almost three hours had passed.  The bill came and when I reached for it, he brushed me aside and said he would take care of it.  We both said that we had fun and that we should go out again when we were both in town – he was going out of town the following weekend, and I was going on a mini-vacation with my sister and nephews after that.  Then he drove me back home and walked me to my door.

 

Here’s where I became less certain that we were actually on a date.  If you’ve seen my house you know that I have this really weird Charlie Brown type Christmas tree in my front yard, leaning out onto the sidewalk from my terraced garden.  When he walked me to my door he stood away from me with a tree limb in between us, such that if I were to attempt to make a move I would end up jamming a tree branch into my eye socket.  So we just said we had fun and said good night.  I saw him a few minutes later as I took the two beasts out for their last evening stroll and DW was out with his canine.  We chatted again briefly and then called it a night.

 

The next week we walked together again but no mention of the dinner or going out again. It was a pretty short walk though so I tried not to read too much into it.  That weekend he was out of town for most of the weekend and then I left for my vacation.  When I got back, I didn’t really see DW around.  I waited a week and then I decided I would text him to ask him out for that Friday.  He texted back something like “Got plans but thanks for offer” and then he pretty much fell into a black hole.  That was a month ago and I’ve only seen him a handful of times.  I’ve seen him at the gym (of course we go to the same gym – it’s not enough torture to just be able to see his house multiple times a day) and I’m pretty sure that he’s avoiding me.  When I said hi to him yesterday and asked him how he was he kind of brusquely said “good” and strode away. 

 

The result being that now I am torturing myself trying to figure out what the hell happened, or in darker moments asking myself what did I do wrong?  That and contemplating knocking him down and asking him/shouting at him “WHAT THE HELL?!!?!?” or egging his house or letting the air out of his tires. Don’t worry, I’m not actually going to do any of those things.  Mainly because I’m scared of what the answer would be if I did manage to force an answer out of him.  I’m mostly ok about it now except when I see him and it’s all strange and awful.   But it felt horrible the first couple of weeks – I really had allowed myself to hope and believe that this time was going to work out and to have that crushed out of me by my crush feels something akin to heartbreak.  No, I wasn’t in love with him – I recognize that I didn’t really know him all that well.  But I was desperately in love with the idea of just getting to be with someone who was actually nice and attractive and fun and a good, employed, dog-loving guy and who unbelievably seemed to dig me.  And this other thing, the reality of what has happened, just totally sucks. 

 

Thankfully when I was in the depths, I contacted my partner-in-crime in Mission DW and she came to the rescue with intense verbal barrages of his douchebaggery, alcoholic beverages, and sushi.  Plus we replayed the highlights/lowlights for her husband and he confirmed that DW had seemed to lead me on and he was in fact probably an evil bastard.  That helped arrest the spiral of misery before it got too melancholic to survive with any vestiges of dignity or self-respect.

 

Now the problem –other than the fact that DW’s house has not mysteriously been moved to another dimension—is that I don’t think I can bear to get back on those hideous dating sites and put myself out there again.  How much disappointment and insanity can one singleton take before she is put out of her misery?  Besides I’ve been on pretty much all of them at this point and none of them were so awesome as to make me want to run back to them.  For now I have to call it a night as I have to actually get in a real run tomorrow morning.  The dating decision dilemma will have to wait until another day.