Adventures in online dating profiles

I love cats so much. I have seven of them. Mitsy, Misty, Bitsy, Penelope, Scratchy (he scratches a lot), Blackie and Mrs. Peacock Feathers. They are my babies, and my trailer would feel and smell so empty without them.

I've just joined A.A., but it's really cutting into my drinking time, and since my cats are with me constantly, I wouldn't really say I drink alone. If you love me, you have to love my kitties too! We're a package deal!

I love long romantic walks on the beach, but since I've topped out at 300 lbs, I can't walk too far without stopping a lot, especially if I'm huffing on a Virginia Slims. But hey, that just gives us more time to roll around in the sand together and gaze into each other's eyes now, doesn't it?

I'm still great friends with my ex. In fact, he's the manager of the burger stand where I eat breakfast every day. He's actually the guy who got me into this whole internet thing--I think we still have a video floating out there in cyber-space! Sure wish we'd made the money that Pamela and Tommy Lee made!

I'm looking for a man with a job. Also, you must be incredibly good looking, like Fabio, and maybe drive a muscle car. I've always wanted to meet a special guy who knows how to treat a lady, say by treating her to a candle-lit dinner at a classy place like Red Lobster (hint hint for future reference!).

I'm a real fun person and I make the best tuna casserole you'll ever taste. Also, I'm a whiz with a glue gun and I'm saving up for a Bejeweler (Santa, can you hear me?) so if you ever need anything sequinned, just ask!

I can't wait to meet you! Toodle-Ooo!

P.S. No long distance please. My parole officer gets antsy if I leave town for too long.

P.P.S. Don't be shy--you can see me. If you want a smile, have a pic. That way I can see if you look like Fabio, or Michael Bolton (swoon!).

What a wonderful WHAT?

I'm listening to 89.5 The Current from Minnesota (Thanks Ro!) and now I'm wondering, were Shane MacGowan and Nick Cave completely wasted when they recorded What a Wonderful World?

On second thought, don't answer that.

Things that go bump in the night

I should warn you in advance...this will not be one of my better postings. I have no interesting insights today, no funny stories, no stoner revelations to share.

I just have this one nagging thought coursing through my brain.

I hope there are no moths in the house tonight.

Holy shit am I freaked out by moths, and I am telling you, last night, the mother of all moths got into my house and everytime it hit a window, I thought it would crash right through it. It was terrifying! It kept flying right at me, and so I had to huddle under the covers, petrified, shrieking to myself and hoping it would go away.

I turned a light on in another room to see if I could draw it away from mine, but the moth-bat was too fast for me, and right before I could slam my bedroom door shut, it flew in and nearly took out one of my eyes.

It was a hideous creature too...a HUGE giant body under its mottled gray wings, and I swear, I could see its beady little eyes staring me down. It wanted something from me. Maybe it was my sweater, maybe it it was my child, maybe it just wanted to wreak havok because of something its mother did to it in its youth.

A couple of times it lulled me into a false sense of security, and I would pull the covers down just enough to take a peek and see if it was still in the room. Everything would be silent....eerily silent...and then just when I thought it was safe to take the covers off my face, psycho moth would start dive bombing me again. I don't think I slept all night!

More vacation pics, plus one of my all-time favourite guy

So, that's me with the super-dark hair at a place called Hollyhock, which is a wellness retreat on Cortes Island. It has the most fantastic garden (these pics don't do it justice) and it overlooks the ocean. The girl in the purple skirt is my famous and fabulously beautiful friend Kate. Finally, this is F, looking as sweet as he can next to Cuddles the daycare rabbit.

By the way, if you click on these pics, you can see them larger. In case you didn't already know that. Maybe I'm the only one who didn't know that was possible. I got all excited about it. I'm seeeer-eeee-osssss!

Talkin' 'Bout My Revelation!

Your neighbours, your friends, limiting what you say, wanting to feel proud and yet wanting to talk about what's real to you, what you experience, wanting to make the writing pure, wanting to love your friends and still reveal those goofy quirks you observe that you hate and you adore, wanting to share what you are doing, what you are excited about, what you are most proud of, and what you are most ashamed of. Wanting to be true to what you felt happened and still respect that this is only your perspective and possibly not everyone else's experience of the subject.

I felt all this, with such sadness and affection, and wanting to be true to my experience of my friend and still knowing that one day she might see this and feel hurt by the way I recall an experience we shared, and I ask myself, did I need to share this experience? Do I have to put this out there? Was this really something that happened to me that is important for people to respond to?

I want to write about my experiences. I want to share my experiences because I love them. I need to write because I need to see my perspective in the written word in order to make sense of it. I need to share how I feel on paper and yet not feel limited as to what is safe to write about. And that scares me. Because if I really write what I think, and if I really write from the purest part of me, I might be fucking great. And people I meet might be terrified of revealing their personalities. And I would have no friends. And I would no longer have anything to write about.

What I did on my summer vacation.

"We have to be out of here by noon, we have to be out of here by noon, we have to be out of here by noon," is all that Crazy Polish Kate says to me for the two days leading up to our little road trip. So, I pack the night before. One bag. Cosmetic-y stuff, a bikini, underwear for three days, a dress, a skirt, some jeans, shoes, condoms, 3 t-shirts and a sweater in case it gets cold.

She calls me at 5:00 pm the night before we're supposed to leave.

"Are you packed yet?!"

"Yeah, I packed about an hour ago," I tell her.

"Ok, because we have to be out of here by noon," she says for the hundredth time.

I resist the urge to scream and tell her not to worry, I have the day off, I can leave earlier if necessary, everything is cool, it's all good, RELAX! She's bringing the cooler and sleeping bags, tent, etc, so I have done as much as I can do. I ask if there was anything I can do to help and she says, "don't worry baby--it's all under control!"

The next day I take F to daycare, kiss him and hug him enough to last him all weekend, and go home and clean the house so I won't have to come home to a complete disaster. At 11:30 I call Kate. She's still packing.

I repeat. SHE IS STILL PACKING.

So, I walk over to her house and peek inside the van. It's empty. No tent, no cooler, no nothing.

I open the door to her house and yell, "Yo bitch! What the hell are you doing?"

She staggers down the stairs and explains that she wasn't feeling well last night, and didn't feel like packing, no energy, etc, but she'll be ready in about ten minutes. Uh huh.

Now, I've probably never mentioned this, but Kate has more clothes than God. Assuming that if there is a God, he/she wears clothes. Hmmmmm....ok, she has more clothes than Madonna. Anyways, for her, just going to 7-11 requires a fashion consultation. I'm not kidding. She'll come over to my house and parade around in 2 or 3 outfits, and once I've helped assure her that she looks fine, hot and totally cute, she'll try different combos of the outfits. Then she'll pull out the accessories. Holy fuck. At this point it is everything I can do not to kill her. Except she is hilarious when she does this and it's kind of fun, but don't tell her I admitted it. I have a curmudgeonly rep to maintain.

So, she showers and finally comes outside. I'm helping her load up the van, and she looks at my backpack and says, "is that all you're bringing?"

Then she goes inside again and about twenty minutes later she comes outside in a new outfit. In her arms is a mountain of clothes and a full backpack. She starts putting outfits together and asking what I think. It's 12:30 now.

I say calmly, "Kate, I thought we had to leave by noon or else."

She blushes, "yeah, I know, I was tired last night, yada yada yada..."

Ok, I don't want to continue in this vein, but suffice it to say, she changes 3 more times, re-applies her makeup twice, decides to unload the van and vacuum it out and reload it again and finally we hit the road at 1:00. There is no point in my getting upset over this, I tell myself, because we're on the way!

"Ummm, I just have to make a couple of stops before we hit the highway," she tells me.

My head is going to explode.

So, we get out of town at 2:00 pm. It takes 3 hours to get to the ferry, which is probably backed up because it's Friday. But again, I tell myself, do not waste your weekend getting upset on the road.

So we crank up the tunes and hit the open highway.

"Oh YEAH, babay!" she screams. "Cortes, here we come!"

It is nice of her to warn Cortes in advance, I think.

Apart from the fact that she is always late, Kate is an awesome person to travel with. She takes turns playing DJ. She lets me drive and doesn't freak out when I'm behind the wheel. She laughs at all my jokes and punctuates every hour on the road with, "We are going to have such a great time! Oh yeah, babay! This is the weekend of fun!"

Here is a sample of dialogue that occurs on the road:

Crazy Polish Kate: "I am going to hypnotize the men of Cortes this weekend."

Me: "Oh yeah? How do you aim to do that?"

Kate: "I will seduce them by hypnotizing them with my belly-dancing."

Me: (spit-take on the dash board, Coca-Cola up shooting out of my nose).

Kate: "I'm seeeeer--ee--osss!" (no one pronounces 'serious' like Kate)

Me: "Hmmmm, so when did you start belly-dancing?"

Kate: "Oh, I've dabbled in it for years, and when the men of Cortes see me dance, their sperm will shoot across the floor--I will raise penises like snakes from baskets!"

I can't argue with that. Kate thinks she's the best dancer in the world. Once she and our other neighbour Jen had a fight that almost came to blows over who was the better dancer--Kate or Usher. Jen was astonished that Kate would make such an outrageous claim, but Kate, determined to prove that she was more skilled, insisted on showing us some of her "moves." I think I probably lost five pounds from laughing so hard.

I'm not going to bother giving you a long drawn out description of our trip up there. So, briefly, lots of highway, lots of gas stations, lots of junk food, a great seaside meal, 5 outfit changes (all Kate's) and one long ferry wait, and finally we were on the second ferry to Cortes, drinking wine and watching a fantastic sunset.

We drove around the island for a bit and finally parked in a spot near an outdoor music festival--a real hippy scene--lots of drumming and didjeridoos , lots of barefoot kids with face paint, lots of pot wafting through the air, and yes, lots of patchouli.

But despite the patchouli, it was amazing. People were incredibly friendly and we had a group to sit with almost immediately. We partied into the wee hours and then crashed in the back of the van because we were too tired to set up a tent.

The next day we hung out at a little lake with a sandy beach. The water was incredibly warm. Kate somehow hypnotized me into getting into the kayak with her, and we paddled around an island and then spent the rest of the day sunning, eating, admiring the island and flirting with the local boys at the music fest.

My flirting paid off, and I met a really sweet cute guy who took Kate and me to an after-party at some local beach way in the middle of nowhere. People dragged their instruments down to the beach and jammed for hours--the music was incredible, I don't think I've ever heard anything like it, and I got a little garden tilling taken care of if you know what I mean, wink wink, nudge nudge.

So, I'm back. Sunburned, a little poorer, but so glad I went. Sun, sea, and lots of action for me--what's not to like?!

If you don't hear from me by Tuesday....

Call the authorities. Crazy Polish Kate and I are heading to Cortes Island to camp all weekend. Now, those of you who know me might have noticed that I've never mentioned my love of camping. That's because it doesn't exist. The last time I went camping with friends I got so drunk I passed out and the next thing I know my friends were dragging me out of some kind of wicked rainstorm. Later I was huddled up shivering in a sleeping bag near the campfire, trying to get warm again, and the sleeping bag caught on fire. Not pretty. Ok, I'll admit, this was many years ago, back in my days of drunken debauchery, long before I had a child.

But...the child will not be coming with me. He will be safe in an undisclosed location. Which means there is nothing to stop me from partaking in a little tiny bit of debauchery. And Kate tells me that this island is inhabited by "the BEST looking men in the WHOLE WORLD!"

I am only a mere woman, and we all know about my weakness for the opposite sex. Well, if we didn't all know, we do now. It's a disease. Men make me act silly--they make me do silly things. So, ladies, start clutching those pearls in fear and disgust, because who knows what kind of trouble I may get into? Unless I smell patchouli oil. That stuff is like kryptonite to me.

Two girls and a car with a backseat full of kids

Crazy Polish Kate is such a teenager. We went to the beach tonight and she was totally excited that her ex is going to take our kids camping next weekend so that she and I can have a girls' retreat out on Cortes Island. She blathered on and on about all of the wonders of Cortes, how the place is like some kind of utopia of alcohol and lakes and hot men. I told her, "I don't care what it's like as long as the weather is nice and I can get a drink and a burger," and she cut me off, gushing, "Ohhhh, you can get the BEST burgers in the world there!"

Nothing about the place is mediocre, according to Kate. Everything is the BEST, the most BEAUTIFUL, and apparently I am going to have THE GREATEST WEEKEND EVER.

She became so excited that she did her cute breathless Polish thing and began dropping words, as in, "Don't worry! I have tent, I have cooler!"

On the way home she started checking out every guy we passed and despite my protests of humiliation, hollered out the window things like, "Woo hoo cutie--nice scenery!" or "Hey baaaaaaa-bay, give us summothat sugar!" I put my sun glasses on and tried to duck below the dashboard as much as I could without steering us into the next lane.

Keep in mind we had 3 small kids in the back, covered in sand and staring at us freakishly with their wet bathing suits and goggles on like silent little frog people.

Eventually she noticed them and said to me, "those kids are really cramping our style. Wouldn't it be great if we could just throw a blanket over them?"

I'm pretty sure she was kidding. Well, I'm at least 30% sure.

My future husband

My crush on Mark Wahlberg has reached epic proportions. Of course, the truth is, my crush is actually on the guy with whom I had the brief fling who looks like Mark Wahlberg, but (in my humble opinion) is cuter and less simian. Still, since I didn't have the foresight to take a picture of him when he was here, I will just have to post yet another picture of my future husband, Mr. Marky Mark, for my viewing pleasure when I log in here. Humour me. Mrs. Katie's Brain-Marky Mark. Has a nice ring to it, n'est pas? Ok, I know, I know. I should really start dating again. This can't be healthy! When did I become a 12-year old girl?!

A Myspace observation

You know what I love about Myspace? I love it when I see profiles from guys who are earnestly trying to meet women through myspace (you know, the ones who have six hundred pictures of various lap-dancers on their friends lists).

But more than anything I love it when they write, "No pyschos please."

What a clever way to weed out psychotic women! I imagine a woman scanning the fella's profile and excitedly saying to herself, "Yes, I have big tits and blond hair and I love giving head, I like hockey, sure I don't mind that you're unemployed and can't spell for shit....oh, now, hang on a minute! No psychos?! Damn. I guess that rules me out. Too bad--we were perfect for each other except for that whole psycho caveat."