such wrongness as has never graced my inbox

I woke on Saturday to a situation that yielded three major complaints.

First, I checked my email, only to find a message from a stranger criticizing my resume. Rude! Not only did I not ask for this person's opinion, I didn't do anything to solicit it. Take note, readers: just because someone has a LinkedIn profile does not mean that someone wants your critique of it. (Especially if that someone is me!)

Peg Crits (sounds like a pseudonym to me!) told me that my vocabulary was boring, I had a spelling or grammar mistake (but she wouldn't tell me where), and that I would never ever get anywhere in life... without spending $399 to have a professionally designed LinkedIn profile!

(Did I mention RUDE?)

Second, I got a new message in my dating profile, so I logged in there to check it, and what did I get? A fifty-something guy in Florida who has a need to show me something INCREDIBLY WRONG:

Yeah, that's right. I got a schlong picture. (Or, as my mother pointed out later, it could be a "schlort" picture.) Please note the festive location, the looking-like-black-business-socks effect of the water, and the PIECES OF TAPE ON THE EDGE OF THE PICTURE, INDICATING THAT THIS WAS TAPED TO SOMETHING!

So wrong.

So very, very wrong.

The other picture he sent me had balloons tied to his schlort, and a kitty cat who was very confused.

And, what, dear god, was the third wrong thing? Nobody was awake or around for me to complain to!

p.s. Normally I would be kind enough to censor the face of someone posing in a photo like that, but my theory is that if you're sending around schlort pictures, you should expect them to end up on the internet.

a hodgepodge of gobbeldygook

Heard recently in my office:

1. Fernando was calling the Japanese Rail Association the other day (he's going to Tokyo) and the woman came on the line to tell him to hold. Then the music came on, and he waited. Then the woman came back on the line and said simply, "Hold on more."

2. "Those pants don't fit you very well. They look like a small Mexican family moved out of your butt." -- Rachel

3. "The woman who poured my soup had a large rear." (Clearly it wasn't me!)

Unrelatedly, if you recall, the first two nights of Passover this year were incredibly rainy. Lisa was out of town and asked me to visit her cats, and, of course, her basement, which has been known to flood when her two year old drools heavily. Luckily, the work they've done kept the basement safe and dry, but I was complaining about being soggy. Lisa pointed out that I had someone nearby to keep me warm and dry, and I pointed out that he was busy with an Orthodox Passover. Lisa then texted me to say that she was such a bad Jew that she had forgotten it was even Passover. Her following text said, "No, wait, I ate a macaroon today. That counts."

Also unrelatedly, I learned a great game recently. It's a cross between a magic 8 ball and a tea party. Basically, when you drink yogi tea, ask the box a question, and then pull out a tea bag and read the quotation on its string to get your answer. It's nice, because it never lies. It just says inscrutable things that you can't parse.

I saw a great t-shirt recently that said "I Can't Afford to NY."

I also met three wildly bizarre home-schooled children who, I fear, may never get laid. Ever.

happy easter, or why do we get asparagus pee?

(I know it's a delayed reaction, but forgive me, I was busy having mushy feelings.)

You know how you can't smell your house? Or, if you can, it's only for that first second you walk through the door, or after you've been away from home for a long time?

Well, for me, at Easter, my parents' house smells like asparagus pee. Because every year, Easter is the first family get together where asparagus is in season, and every year, I eat my body weight in it. And I'm not the only Surgeon who does so. Both my mother and my aunt provided long, green, crunchy-to-mushy stalks of buttery, salty luxury* at family gatherings last weekend.

As far as I'm concerned, the Easter bunny could hide blanched asparagus around the house and I'd be just as excited to find it as I would peanut butter chocolate eggs. (As long as it wasn't covered in cat hair, which, at my parents' house, would be a feat to pull off.) (No offense, Mom.)

But back to the pee.

My sister and I wondered for the longest time if it was just us (meaning just our family) that got asparagus pee. Feared that we were smelly-peed freaks. Then she got married, and found out that her husband got it, too. I asked my friends and dates, and sure enough, they all had it, too. (I found out one boyfriend got it when he peed in the shower -- p.u.!) We began to wonder if asparagus pee was the opposite of that weirdo science experiment in fifth grade, where you either tasted the nasty, bitter, icky, putrid chemical (me) or not (far too many others for me to feel comfortable).

To quell our worried minds, I did a little research, and found this:

"This question has baffled scientists for over half a century. In 1956, British researchers divided the population into two categories: excretors (those whose urine smells after they eat asparagus) and nonexcretors (asparagus eaters who remain odor free). Since there’s no documentation of the asparagus-pee phenomenon before the 1700s, about the time farmers began using sulfur to fertilize soil, this and subsequent studies hypothesized that a particular gene allows people to process a sulfur-containing compound in asparagus (most likely asparagusic acid). The theory was that if you have that gene, your pee won’t stink. However, they were relying on the test subjects’ own reports and weren’t considering the subjects’ ability to smell.

In 1980, Israeli researchers performed a similar experiment but asked the nonexcretors to smell the excretors’ urine. Shockingly, they found that everyone’s urine smells after eating asparagus; it’s just that some people can’t smell it. So they, too, divided the world into two camps: perceivers and nonperceivers." (from http://www.chow.com/stories/10415)

So there you have it, folks. Hap-pee Easter!

*Asparagus is a little too expensive for my regular budget, especially at Steve's C-Town (Town Town).

crumbled cookies and spilt milk

So I met somone, as you may or may not have guessed. And in three weeks, I learned more about beauty and value than I may have ever learned before.

The man I met, who, in keeping with tradition, I'll call Frank*, was one of the sweetest, most thoughtful guys I've ever met. He was present, grounded, generous, and ninja-funny -- quiet most of the times, his jokes would sneak up on me from a dark corner and karate chop my funny bone. He made me smile with my heart. And my liver. And my tummy.

Frank and I met online, and he emailed me a couple of times, but, in truth, I kind of blew him off. Something about his messages didn't quite catch me -- and he didn't get around to asking me out for way too long -- so I let it go. But two weeks later, he was back again, following up on our conversation, and I decided to meet him.

The first time we talked on the phone, I had been working on the outline for the next seminar I'm teaching (about eliminating negative self-talk), and my conversation with Frank, from no effort on my part, went straight to the topic I had last been writing, about how you have the choice to believe whatever interpretation of what other people are thinking pleases you, since you'll never really know the truth of what's on their minds anyway. I saw that as a sign.

We agreed to meet that week, and on Saturday he was waiting for me near the Marquis de Lafayette at Prospect Park.

Did I mention that he's gorgeous?? Dark fluffy hair, tall, thin, beautiful blue eyes, muscluar... in a word, Yum.

We spent the day together, telling stories, laughing at jokes, wildly flinging frisbees, and eating some tasty fish on Flatbush Avenue. I had plans that evening, so we parted company early. There was a little bit of smooching, after which he looked kind of funny. I asked if he was ok, and he said, "I'm fine. I'm just a little breathless."

(Swoon.)

Anyway, several more wonderful dates ensued, and I was treated to a man who was patient, affectionate, gentle, and who taught me how to juggle! ("No!" I hear you saying, "It's too good to be true!" And alas, you're right.)

Frank is Jewish (raised-Orthodox Jewish) so my not being Jewish, in the end, was causing him trouble. It's not that he is religious, it's just that he's so committed to the Jewish community and culture that there are things he wants for his future, he told me, that I'm not in a position to give him. (You know, like Jewish babies.) And while it's too bad that I won't be spending any more quality, intimate time with him, I am so grateful to have met him, to have learned that there are men out there who are this amazing -- and who are still single! -- that I had to share my story with you.

So if you are sick of douchebags, think you are asking for too much, wish you didn't have to work so hard, or generally settling for less than you deserve, knock it off! Guys like Frank are out there, and are just as unhappy that they haven't met you as you are about not having met them.

And if you're Jewish, I know the perfect man for you!


*the funny thing about calling this guy Frank is the joke my family was making over Easter about how my brother in law wanted a hot dog with a natural casing, like the ones made by Hebrew National, which then morphed into jokes about him not being the only one eating a Hebrew National these days.

facebook statuses I opted against this week

Kate Surgeon...

... pretty much thinks tonight's cab driver was not, in fact, the man in the picture on the license

... would like you to see the bruise on her foot that she got by jamming a big metal sign into the open part of her shoe this morning

... secretly likes the way Trader Joe's soy sausage makes her farts smell

... is scared to open her heart

... could eat dried mango forever

... wants to be on the Biggest Loser, just to see how hard it is

... knows a secret and hasn't told anyone -- not even people who wouldn't care one way or the other!

... is worried that she makes it too easy to date her

... has easily consumed 3,000 empty calories since Friday

... hasn't picked her face since she got that new soap

... sometimes hates selling green energy

... felt like a sherpa today and now has a better appreciation for her brother-in-law

... vetoed the names Henrika and Fredrika for her potential niece, citing child abuse laws in the state of Massachusetts that would make it illegal

... is convinced that the IT department at her office is turning into the Jackson family -- you only ever see two of them at any one time

... knows that George Michaels was right, but she's having a hard time developing that faith-a-faith-a-faith-a-faith-faith