4, 3, 2, 1... ElimiDATE.*

Earlier today, Liz left a comment on my blog seemingly implying that I was holding out on her--being stingy with the details about my adventures with meMarmony Search 2.0. The truth is, sadly, that I've had no particularly interesting details thus far. Wait a minute. I take that back. The fact that a friend and I recently discovered we were both in "Open Communication" with the same guy was pretty interesting... as was the profile I received for a man listing his occupation as Superhero.** Aside from those little tidbits, however, nothing too interesting to note. I haven't even met a single one of these men yet. This seems a little strange to me... maybe I'm remembering things through the same rose-colored glasses that made me re-join meMarmony in the first place, but I swear the invites came earlier and the activity was more regular the last time I played this little game.

Perhaps there's simply a three-week incubation period on dates this time around, however, because in the past few days, I have had two invitations for the standard introductory coffee-date and one suggestion that I let a guy buy me "a coffee, a Greenie, or a gyro at Holy Land." Add in the upcoming dinner with Index Card Guy, and suddenly it seems entirely feasible that I may have four dates with four different men in the same one-week span. (Again, in case it isn't clear, no, I'm not a whore. But thanks for asking.)

This is all very unique and potentially interesting, but mainly I just keep wondering how on earth I'm going to squeeze all these dates into my schedule and still have time for important things like finally replying to long-neglected e-mails and watching the many fine television programs to which I'm addicted. I need my requisite amount of sitting-around time, after all. Dating has this annoying way of cutting into that at times.

I was pondering this in a message to GG and Darren earlier today... I was telling them that four men want to meet me all at once, and suddenly it dawned on me that perhaps I really should meet them all at once. It would be like my own personal episode of ElimiDATE, and it could be an entirely amusing (and ego-boosting) experiment. (It would also save me a whole lot of time.) Of course, with my luck, the four eligible bachelors would not be clamoring for my attention and performing bizarre feats of strength to impress me in absurd ways... instead, two of them would bond over some shared appreciation for the Vikings or Nintendo Wii or the latest developments on 24 and would thereafter ignore me the rest of the night, and another one would find himself rightfully above the foolish game of competitive dating, leaving me with only the most fawning and desperate of the bunch. There was a reason I never applied to be a participant on ElimiDATE, after all, and it didn't entirely have to do with not wanting to be filmed in a bikini entering a hot tub on national TV. Still, it's an amusing idea nonetheless...



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* Please tell me at least one of you got the reference in this subject line (and actually heard the guy's voice saying it in your head as you read it). I cannot be at peace thinking I am the only one who actually got sucked into the trainwreck that was ElimiDATE more than thrice.

** This is actually sort of a genius move, I think, if you're looking to give the ladies an easy lead-in to all sorts of borderline-suggestive questions... you know, like, "So what kind of outfit do you wear?" and "Do you look good in tights?" and, of course, "What sorts of special powers do you have?" Surely I wouldn't be the first woman to go down that route, however, so I wouldn't even gain any points for creativity with any of those.

What about Who now?

It's been a while since I documented any of the bizarre little scenes my subconscious cooks up while I'm asleep. In case anyone was thinking that was because I'd actually started having nothing but normal and sensical dreams, let me tell you about last night.

Last night, I dreamt I was sitting around a large, circular table on a warm sunny patio with the cast of What about Brian. We were enjoying drinks and light snacks, and I was chatting with them about how I'm the only one I know who's actually watching their show.

I told them about how excited I was when one of the Fug girls also claimed to be the only person in America who's even aware of the show and about how frustrating it is to have no one to complain to about how very annoying and vile Brian's new girlfriend is (not to mention how creepy and unsettling it is for him to be routinely having sex with someone his father "bagged" as well).

I also told the girl who used to be Felicity's roommate how strange I thought it was that the cast was culled so heavily from the WB's pool of stock actors. She just sneered at me in reply, perhaps rightfully peeved that I referred to her as "the girl who used to be Felicity's roommate" instead of by her proper name. (Which is Amanda Foreman. Happy now, Meghan? I looked it up.)

I am pretty sure I can attribute this dream to the fact that I stayed up well past my intended bedtime watching last night's episode on tape, because I was detained in small-talk with a meMarmony match during the 9:00-10:00 slot when it originally aired. I've already realized I need to put a curfew on my Internet time, because when there is no buffer between when I turn off my computer and when I head to bed, somehow bloggers and e-mail friends inevitably creep into my dreams shortly thereafter. Apparently the same holds true for TV characters as well.

Of course, the other possibility is not just that I need some buffer time between TV and bed, but that I simply need a life as well. Let's just go with the former, though, OK?


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Edited to add: By the way, I swear this post was neither endorsed nor paid for by ABC. You know, just in case that somehow wasn't abundantly clear.

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The worst parts of The Good Earth

I finished The Good Earth last night. My ten-words-or-less review is as follows:

Sweet Lord I'm glad I wasn't born in pre-revolution China!

I can't really list the passages I loved, because I didn't necessarily love any part of this book. I know it's a classic; I know Oprah loves it; but still, I would rank this just slightly above an "eating my vegetables" book (i.e., one I read because I think it's good for me, even though I'm not necessarily enjoying it at all)... I actually did get wrapped up in the story and the characters, and it provided a window into a place and time I know very little about. But the prose was pretty simple and straightforward, so I wasn't marveling at the beauty of any particular sentence or paragraph. Instead, my 21st century sensibilities just kept dropping my jaw at parts like these:

"When the rich are too rich there are ways, and when the poor are too poor there are ways. Last winter we sold two girls and endured, and this winter, if this one my woman bears is a girl, we will sell again. One slave I have kept--the first. The others it is better to sell than to kill, although there are those who prefer to kill them before they draw breath."

"You are a foolish child to be forever thinking of this. You have grown fond and too fond of your wife and it is not seemly, for a man ought not to care for his wife that his parents gave him above all else in the world. It is not meet for a man to love his wife with a foolish and overweening love, as though she were a harlot."

"And what if it be not a grandson but a girl!"

"Well, and if it is a grandson I will pay for a new red robe for the goddess, but nothing will I do if it is a girl!"

Sheesh. And some people think merely being the middle child is bad...

Call me

In case anyone is wondering, Index Card Guy did call, and we are currently engaged in the ever-popular game of phone tag. Apparently he adheres not to that three-day rule made maddeningly standard by the film Swingers, but to an even more casual five-day rule instead. This is all good and fine; five days is still well within the realm of acceptable follow-up time as far as I'm concerned, but in discussing the unwritten standards and usual patterns for this sort of thing with some friends this week, I got to thinking about other first phone calls in my dating life and the timeline, script, and circumstances of each. Here are five of them... the good, the bad, and the absurd.


Five memorable first (and, in some cases, last) calls from men

1. Troy (March 1999) - Even though I just said that five days post-meeting is a perfectly reasonable time to call a woman, I still can't help feeling it is on the outer edge of acceptable, just barely on this side of "disinterested and lazy." Back in 1999, however, with much less dating experience to my name, my standards were maybe a bit looser. Had that not been the case, I am not sure I would have accepted a date from a guy who called me three months after receiving my number. If he hadn't been a friend of my sister's, I sort of doubt I would even have remembered who he was. As it turns out, it wouldn't have been a great loss. My one (two-part) date with Troy is documented here, by the way. Our one uneventful phone call is not.
   
   
2. Jimmy (March 2001) - If Troy wins the award for most belated phone call, Jimmy without a doubt gets the award for promptest call. Something clicked between us immediately while chatting in the coat check line after a concert. Only later did he tell me that his friends had actually handed him his coat about four minutes into our conversation but that he had stayed in line all the way to the front anyway, just to keep talking to me. He called me the next day, approximately ten hours after our meeting, and left what I still think was a ridiculously sweet message [in a tone of voice that I wish I could convey properly in print], saying, "I know I just met you, like... ten hours ago, and I probably should have waited a while to call you, but... I just really wanted to call you, so, um, I hope you want to call me back..." It really is a shame that he was a pothead with a Peter Pan complex, because I still sometimes think that one should have worked out differently than it did.
   
   
3. Brian (January 2001) - Brian was a one-date boy documented here as well, but what I didn't talk about in that post was his first phone call to me. He called me at work (since, as I mentioned last week, handing out business cards to potential suitors was at one point my norm), but when he did so, he pretended to be a recruiter who had found my resume online. Points for originality, I suppose, but frankly, it annoyed me more than it charmed me (which, now that I think about it, sort of sums up my thoughts about him after our one date as well).
   
   
4. Kris (December 1999) - I'll admit that sometimes, when I call someone, I am hoping for voicemail. This is generally the rule when I have some quick info to convey or some sort of brief response to provide. When I'm looking to get to know someone and make plans, however, I recognize fully that it's better just to reach the person live. Kris must not have thought so, however, as his first phone call (to what he knew was my home number) came at 2:00 in the afternoon, despite the fact that he was well aware I had a day job. Apparently he wanted to toss the proverbial ball directly into my court. What he forgot was that I had a roommate who was in grad school (and therefore home at sporadic hours during the day), and that my roommate would tell me exactly what time he called and exactly how surprised and thrown off guard he was when someone actually answered the phone. I later realized that Kris was an idiot in many, many ways. I didn't even need the first phone call as a cue.
   
   
5. What's-his-name (sometime in 1999 or 2000) - I don't remember this guy's name, and since we didn't ever go on a date, I probably needn't include him in the list. The details are still funny to me, though, so I'm including him anyway. I met this guy at a friend's bachelorette party in a city five hours from my home. I do not remember why I gave him my card except that he had given me his (and had been swapping cards with others in our group, too, seemingly for no other reason than that we were all relatively new to professional business card-toting positions and it therefore was for some reason the thing to do). He didn't call me after that event (I never expected him to), but he did call about five months later, with a line that went something like this, "I found your card in my wallet, and I see that you work in St. Paul, and I'm just trying to figure out who you are or how I know you..." He told me that he was planning to move to the Twin Cities so when he found my card he figured he'd get in touch with someone living in the area. After a few details about himself, I finally figured out who he was and how he had my card, but I didn't let on to him that I remembered. My foolish pride decided, I guess, that if I weren't worth remembering to him, he should be similarly unmemorable to me. I basically said, "Sorry, dude; I don't know why you have my card," and I never heard from him again.

You know, when I started this list, I really thought more than one of them might be a nice memory. I have been called by men I liked; really I swear I have. I guess that, as with so many dating-related tales, however, the bad ones are almost invariably more interesting.

Because there's safety in numbers and mob mentality's the way to go

First off, I need to admit that I am not the politically active and aware person that I occasionally like to think I am. Wait. Scratch that. First off, I need to tell you that I've had some wine tonight. The wine is, perhaps, the reason that I thought that opening sentence might actually be an appropriate and sensible lead-in. The only reason I brought it up, actually, was that it is currently 9:17 p.m. Central Standard Time, and it only now occurred to me that I completely forgot to watch the State of the Union address tonight. It wasn't that I realized it was on but decided I couldn't handle listening to our man/ape-hybrid of a world leader give his sixth pointless pep talk to the nation and promptly turned my TV off. No, it was because I honestly forgot it was on and neglected to tune my television to any station with a modicum of reputable news coverage of sorts. Oh well. I'm sure John Stewart's recap will be entirely more fulfilling anyway, so I will just have to watch that in its stead.

Now, for the real reason I am here. Last weekend was apparently "Buy things people on the Internet told me to buy" weekend, as, in one shopping excursion, I unexpectedly purchased the Bare Escentuals "Get Started" kit, a ridiculously expensive tube of deodorant, some Neutrogena lip gloss, Downy Simple Pleasures Vanilla and Lavender fabric softener (in liquid and sheet form because, hell, I had a "buy two, save $1 coupon", plus the Tide-with-Downy combo, because I had a coupon for that too and because apparently I thought it would be amusing in an almost eerie way to have a threesome of purple laundry products simultaneously grace the conveyor belt at the SuperTarget checkout), and three Lean Cuisine Chicken Club Paninis. (GG is right--they are tasty, but everyone else knows about them, too, and therefore they are damn-near impossible to find. They are, it would seem, the Holy Grail of frozen lunches... so much so that the Target lady, while ringing up my purchases, actually said, "These must be good; we sure do sell a lot of them.")

Anyway, so my point is that, as I've mentioned before, the people out there on the Internet seem to be affecting my thoughts and buying patterns in some way, and while it is a bit alarming in a "Come-and-drink-my-Kool-Aid" sense, it is also kind of nice, in a happy, helpful community, "it's a small world" kind of way. People love recommendations from seemingly reputable and objective sources, right? And yet, I think my own "super consumer" posts have been sporadic if at all existent. I have tips to offer, too! Maybe some of you might want to hear them?

So with that, I thought I would share with you some of the products I am currently addicted or not addicted to, as the case may be for each.

Let's start with what I had for dinner last night. If you haven't yet tried Campbell's Select Butternut Squash soup, I assure you, you are missing out. My friend Lisa may disagree, as she was disheartened, during our entire long weekend in New York, to find that the only soup she could find was pumpkin or squash soup of some sort. Apparently I actually like gourd-centric soups, so this was not a drawback in my book. That said, Campbell's Butternut Squash soup is like a perfect fall day in a bowl. It's golden and sweet and delicious, even on its own. My sister likes to float some crispy bagel chips in hers, but I've recently found an even more perfect pairing for this soup. Have you ever bought those frozen pierogies you can find in boxes in the freezer case? They come in a few different flavors, but I typically go for the cheddar and potato ones. These are basically ravioli stuffed with mashed potatoes and cheese, and I'd be hard pressed to come up with a more exciting combo than that. Pasta? Check. Mashed potatoes? Check. Cheese? Check. Really, what more do you need? What more you need, it seems, is some butternut squash soup. What I've been doing lately is boiling a few pierogies in the microwave for five minutes, then heating the soup and dropping the pierogies right in. It's comfort food and convenience, all in one bowl of warm and starchy heaven. I heartily recommend you try it yourself one of these cold, harsh winter days.

You can get each of these items at Target (or possibly just SuperTarget), and you know what else you can get there? A whole aisle of deceivingly-healthy-looking Archer Farms snacks, in handy mid-sized, keep-in-your-desk-drawer-type bags. I first became addicted to the Honey Cashew Crunch ("They're nuts!," I thought. "It's protein!" I rationalized. Never mind that it's protein coated in a crunchy glaze of crystallized syrup and sugar that may in fact be more habit-forming than heroin), and I quickly moved on to other varieties from there. I bought the fun-sounding "Zen Party Mix" a few times, before I realized that what I liked best in there was the Asian Rice Crackers, and I could buy a whole bag of just Rice Crackers in the Archer Farms snacks aisle as well. My latest discovery, however, is the Cranberry Nut Trail Mix. It boasts cranberries, white chocolate-flavored drops (i.e., chips), almonds, and pecans, and although I am not traditionally a fan of white chocolate, this stuff was sincerely addictive nonetheless. The label says there are eleven servings in each bag, but people, I did not see eleven servings in there. That is, of course, unless my problem with restaurant math has somehow extended to all food-math as well and in my frail and addled brain, eleven is suddenly now the number that comes after three.

Since I didn't want this to be all about food, I thought perhaps I'd also give you a lip balm recommendation as well, but I think I've mentioned this stuff enough times already that I've recommended it far more than might ever be necessary. So let's consider other things in my bathroom and medicine cabinet, OK? If you are a boy (or a non-makeup-wearing girl), this will be meaningless to you, but if you ever wear mascara, I should tell you that Almay's Moisturizing Eye Makeup Remover Gel might actually be worth its label of "#1 eye makeup remover brand." It goes on easily with just your fingers (no cotton balls necessary for this), and with a slide of some tissue, your mascara wipes right off. It does leave a bit of greasy film, but it doesn't burn my eyes thereafter like so many other brands have. And if you wash your face directly afterwards, your mascara (and the greasy film) will all but disappear.

Returning back to food for a moment, I thought I might shift away from the recommendations and close with an item you should not, under any circumstances, buy. Have you ever thought, "Hey, I'll buy some carrots... or maybe some cucumbers or broccoli... but I need something to dip them in, because veggies on their own are just not appealing enough to me"? If so, you have likely encountered the T. Marzetti brand of veggie dips in your grocer's produce section. I do hate to cancel out any health benefits of raw vegetables by dousing them in fats and artificial flavors, so I thought I might try the fat-free variety of T. Marzetti's Ranch-style dip. I am here to help, so I urge you, please don't make this same mistake. I have had the full-fat and the low-fat variety of this dip, and they were tasty and quite palatable, respectively. The fat-free version, however? Stay away from that. I should have known, when I opened it and saw the disturbing color and texture, that it was not something worth investigating further. The gray, cloudy sheen was not unlike swamp water, which is presumably also fat free but which I also would not ever eat by choice. Consider this your public service message for the day. T. Marzetti's Fat-Free dip. Just say no, OK?



And that about wraps up my super-consumer post for this evening. I do enjoy this trend, so feel free to leave your own recommendations in reply. In particular, I'm in the market for a new mascara. Obviously I've already got the goo to remove it, but tell me, what brand and variety should I be removing? (My apologies to my five male readers out there for steering things in this direction. If you want to talk about your favorite video game or the best variety of Ace or Tag deodorant spray, by all means have at that as well.)

Sparty on

I have a story that I think warrants telling, but my attempts to craft some clever intro to lead into it are falling pretty flat. So I will just jump right in and say that what I want to talk about is what I did Friday night, and what I did Friday night was go to a Singles Party.

Maybe that doesn't actually sound as absurd as I think it does. Maybe you aren't actually scrunching your eyebrows into your Confused face and wondering if I've lost my mind. Maybe to you (or to a previously single version of you), a Singles Party sounds like an excellent idea. I'll admit it sounded like a pretty reasonable idea to me... Or, it did when I got the widely distributed Evite announcing the event, an Evite that didn't just call it a Singles-Only Party, but used the more clever hybrid term Sparty.

A Sparty sounds just quirky and offbeat enough to be fun, I thought. A Singles Party sounds like something from another decade. I mean, do we really use the word Singles anymore? Maybe we do, but do we put the word Party behind it? Doesn't that combination of words just beg to have the word Swingin' inserted in front as well? To me, the phrase Singles Party calls up a weird 1970s vibe. It sounds like something Mary and Rhoda would have gone to and had some amusing misadventure at. It would have been Rhoda's idea to go, of course, but all the polyester suit-wearing guys with thick, bushy hair would have clamored for Mary's attention instead.

I honestly have no idea who's the Mary or the Rhoda in our group, but four of us joined up on Friday to check out the Sparty nonetheless. We were intrigued and trying to be optimistic, but our sense of humor was in check. At the very least, we would have an interesting Girls Night Out. Plus, the drinks were cheap. It's hard to beat $2 gin and tonics, so that alone seemed to make it worth the trip.

The Sparty was held at a downtown club I'd never been to before but which, in a former life with a different name, was one of the most prominent meat markets for 21-year-olds in backless tops and micro-minis. It may actually still be the place for 21-year-olds in micro-minis, but the 21-year-olds don't come out to scope and grope until after 10:00, I think. The Sparty started a bit earlier than that, which means when we walked into the club, the only portion of it that was widely populated was the penned-off raised area in the corner prominently labeled "SPARTY: Singles Party." I know that corralling the party was necessary to differentiate participants from non-, but I couldn't help thinking we were being quarantined from the rest of the bar simply because, as Bridget Jones noted, underneath our clothes, we Singletons are covered with scales.

Once we got over our initial hesitance and edged our way into the crowd, it really wasn't that absurd or humiliating, but there was definitely a weird dynamic nonetheless. I won't go so far as to say it was like locking a bunch of foxes in a hen house, but I was very aware that everyone surrounding me had one supposed thing in common, and that was that we all had a large "S" on our forehead advertising ourselves as single and accepting offers.

I can't say that the crop of potential dates was so appealing overall, but it wasn't a total bust, at least. In addition to enjoying the cheap drinks, I did give my number to a seemingly nice (and tall--6'5"!) guy who I wouldn't be opposed to going on a date with to investigate whether any potential is there. In my early 20s, I typically made sure I had a few business cards with me when I hit the bars on weekends. I treated them like the calling cards ladies in Jane Austen's day used to provide contact information to potential suitors. Since then, men have taken to plugging womens' digits into their cell phones, but apparently Tall Guy hasn't gotten the memo yet about that. Perhaps it's because he's a bit older than me (39); he's not aware of this semi-new trend. Instead, he pulled a blank index card and a pen out of his pocket to make note of my name and number. "I came prepared!" he replied, when I asked if he had any number-noting tools. The index card was not suave enough to be smarmy, and just dorky enough to be endearing, so I'm not going to fault him for this at all. And in case you're wondering, yes, I did check to see if the index card was still blank when he pulled it out. I did not, I just realized, consider the fact that he might have had several additional cards still tucked within his pocket. Live and learn, I guess.

Eventually, a loud band started playing old Bon Jovi covers, and we figured that was our cue to leave. We had one more drink in a more conventional bar in the area and then finished the night with a slice at Pizza Lucé. Frankly, a slice at Pizza Lucé is such a perfect way to end any evening that it can all but erase any bad times and ugliness that came before. I have a feeling at least one of my Sparty-going friends wishes we had just fast-forwarded to the pizza part immediately, but all in all, I'd say it was a successful Girls Night nonetheless.