dating suggestions (no, really!)

Attention single ladies! I have a great place for us to move to: Manville, NJ! (Come on, how much fun would it be to say "I'm a single girl from Manville!")

Actually, no, what I do have is two great suggestions for a date: first, go to Chelsea and wander around looking at galleries (especially the Agora Gallery* which is showing work from Nathan Sawaya, a guy who depicts human conditions in Legos). You'll get a sense of what your date thinks about art and what his relationship to it is, and, if you play your cards right, you can stumble into a gallery serving wine and cheese, and get a free snack! (What I don't recommend is selecting the celery and pretzels, as chomping on those while meandering through other galleries is, well, noisy.) Yeah, ok, some of the art is ugly crap that looks like a shellacked version of forgotten goods from my vegetable drawer, but the Chelsea galleries are all free and have some amazing natural light and wood floors, too... if you're into that kind of thing. And, if need be, there are lots of nooks and crannies that I imagine you can smooch in, as long as you're fairly decent about it.

The second place to go was suggested to me by my Saturday date (or, "Saturdate," as I like to call him), and when he said it, I was worried that he was a little bit gay: Crate and Barrel! It's a great place to go sit on some comfortable sofas (not the wicker ones, they're ugly) and to just hang out. The staff encourages you to sit around -- thinking, of course, that you're there to register for your wedding when, in fact, you're on your fourth date -- and you don't have to buy anything or even look at anything. And it's a great place to see how into home stuff your date is. If you're me, and looking for a new spatula (to replace the one that broke its neck) and he's looking for an apple peeler/corer or excited about the mini salt and pepper grinders, you might just have a match.

(Sidenote -- there's a funny piece of furniture for sale in Crate and Barrel. It's smaller than a love seat, but bigger than a chair. It seated me and my date quite comfortably, but we're two slim people. Crate and Barrel calls it a "Chair and a Half"; we call it a "Like Seat.")

*don't follow the link if you're going to the exhibit. It'll ruin the surprise.

how to schedule a good date

If you've got a date planned for one in the afternoon, you'll need a schedule to prepare for it. Here's what I did on Saturday. Given the outcome of the date, I'd highly recommend it. However, you might want to try it yourself before advocating it to others:

9:30 Wake up, eat toast, hang out. (You'll want this time to start doing dishes, since you have about sixteen million in your sink.)

10:15 Meet your neighbor, Jimmy, for kickboxing from 10:30 to 11:30. Wear your new tennis skirt, because, well, it's cute.

10:23 Swing some laundry by Lisa's house, which is across the street from the gym. (Two birds, one stone.)

10:30 Sweat your ass off in your new tennis skirt and wonder how cute it is when you're doing push ups and your butt hangs out. Reconsider future use of tennis skirts.

11:30 Drinking copious amounts of fluid, swing by Lisa's again on the way home. Realize, sadly, that all your good clothes are dirty (or currently in the washer) and wonder what the hell you're going to wear today.

11:47 Get home, sweaty and disgusting, and resume doing dishes.

11:57 Wonder how the hell you used so many dishes this week and managed to not do ANY of them.

12:01 Try to think like Thich Nhat Hanh and be present to your dishes. Instead, daydream about your date and how cute he is.

12:14 Add the tupperware that breaks the camel's back to the pile next to your sink. Start piling clean dishes up on the stove.

12:27 Finish the dishes and take your pruny-assed hands into the shower. Your date is meeting you (at one) on 10th street, so it should only take you five minutes to get there, even though "there" is easily ten to twelve minutes away.

12:31 Decide to shave your legs. You know, just in case.

12:35 Add special conditioner to your hair that, unbeknownst to you, will make it look all flat and lame.

12:38 Dry off, and put on outfit numbers 1-6. Answer your phone. (Your date is calling.)

12:43 Renegotiate the 1pm meeting time, while putting on outfits number 7-12, deciding on outfit number 13, drying your hair, putting on makeup and packing snacks for your date, all at the very same time.

12:53 Head back to Lisa's to make sure that the clothes in the washer don't sit there all day and get funkified. ( It's ok, her house is on the way.) Consider switching outfits to that cute, plunging-neckline sweater you're throwing into the dryer, but realize that you're already late and it just won't dry in time for you to look like anything other than a wet cat.

1:01 Feed Lisa's cats.

1:05 Head out the door. Call your date and tell him you're on your way. Hear him smile over the phone.

1:15 Arrive at 10th Street with a big, fat smile on your face. Have an amazing date.

(To fully follow this schedule, be sure to schedule a 3:30 am return home. Wheeeee!)

it's noisy in here...

Fernando's on vacation. And before he left, he was trying to figure out the most annoying song he could sing during karaoke. Unfortunately, he found one:


So I had to learn it, too.

("Movin' my hips like yeah"? What does that even mean?)

Meanwhile, I've been taking a mantra and meditation class, and have learned a really cool mantra:


For fun, press play on both of them. Because that's what's been happening in my head all week.

Wheeeee!

I share because I care

1. My friends' kids crack me up. Witness why here.

2. I was typing an email the other day and instead of saying that I would process someone's orders, I said I would "process their odors." I am fascinated by what that would entail, much the same way I am fascinated by that experiment they tell you about in college, where people who are related to one another smell the same. It involves ziplock bags and button down shirts worn continuously for six days or something. Stinky!

3. I told a co-worker recently that I was losing my mind. That my sanity was slowly leaking out through my freckles.

4. I know I've mentioned getting a sponsor for my blog -- ideally these guys (ohpleaseohpleaseohplease!), but after seeing this, I'd take Pedigree as a second choice...