Charming, but single

I have an insane Crush From Afar on the Wine and Beer Guy from the Fancy Mega Grocery store near my house. (Lots of capitalization there!)

Crush From Afar? Pretty self-explanatory.

He seems to be close to my age, he dresses very casually and has a stocky build that makes me want to tackle him and demand cuddling on the ground right next to the olive bar. (He also has a beard and great eyes.) He used to be the cheese guy, and I only know this because the cheese people wear faux chef jackets, I think. Now he seems to work exclusively with the wines and beers. I always see him stocking, organizing and talking to people, pointing to wines or discussing ales.

I watch from a safe distance, making excuses as to why I don’t make conversation. My hair is a mess. I’m not wearing make-up. My work clothes are rumpled. I already have selected my alcoholic purchases for the night.

And then I sneak my single person-sized cart around the cheese case and over to the breads so I can peak at him again. He just looks so relaxed, well-mannered, friendly, funny and easy to talk to. (Yes, these are things I can tell just by looking at him while pretending to be comparing flat bread.)

I have this far-fetched plan about our imaginary courtship. I will keep a particularly challenging recipe in my purse and wait until I am certain that I look fantastic – like one a day when I’ve let my hair dry in soft waves, when my eyebrows are perfectly arched and my make-up is subtle, yet outstanding, and I am wearing a flowing casual skirt with a body-hugging tee and sandals – and I gather the ingredients and fancy cheeses and seek his counsel for a mid-priced wine to pair with my fancy dish. And he spends a half-hour explaining what wine goes with Taleggio cheese or maybe earthy wild mushrooms and I listen intently and make witty wine comments. And then as I am walking away, he follows me to the pastry area and says, “I’m sorry, I can’t let you leave. This is so unprofessional of me, but you are breathtaking and intelligent. And I see you each time you come shopping and pray that you’ll ask me my opinion on a good wine and I just can’t let you leave this store without asking for your number.”

And then we get married. And go on a wine tour of Europe for our honeymoon and have a dog we name Porter because he is the color of our favorite beer. The end.

Of course, this will never come to be. Because I will never speak to him. Ever. Talking to him would only ruin my perfect fantasy of him – he will undoubtedly not be as charming and insightful in real life and then I’ll be disappointed each time I stroll through the beer section, lingering just a minute too long in hopes of catching his eye.

A girl can dream.

I never do memes.

I was tagged by Texas Cinderella and I am going to do this meme, if only because I am sitting in a coffee shop with a sugar-free skim milk vanilla latte that took me three minutes to order correctly because I was so caught off guard by seeing The Nurse sitting with a group of other people doing some sort of study group, which confused me because I thought he was finished with school. (And also, because I hate him.) Of course, I think that it is possible that he maybe has to take some sort of certification exam? Boards? Nursing tests?

I have no idea. Suffice it to say that now that I am stuck here with my coffee because I cannot leave because he saw me set up my laptop before I ordered my coffee and he would know I was leaving because of him and all I really wanted to do for about two hours was chill out, listen to music and write. Am I going to let a Scumbag Ex and the fact that I’m not wearing any makeup stop me? To quote Whitney Houston: Hell To The No.

Also, as an aside, I have to say that it isn’t that I think I am above memes. I just usually don’t stay motivated enough to finish them. Like, I’ll get 37 things into a “100 things about me” post, go have a drink and forget where I saved the file. And then Conan will be on or my cell phone will ring and all is lost.

But not now. I am motivation-freaking-central.

Also, I wasn’t going to blog about this, but whatever. I heard through the grapevine a few weeks ago that The Nurse had been dating his Baby Mama for, like, a year before his swimmers found her egg. While he was dating me. While he was on Match.com. I didn’t mention this earlier because it was enough to just make me finally be over him, him not calling me, him getting her pregnant and the whole nine. The person who told me felt bad about telling me, but I was ecstatic. Because it was over. I was so mad that I let him make me feel bad about not being committed to a relationship when the truth was that he was seeing (at least) two women at once. I knew I’d never speak to him again and if he reached out to me, I would let him have it.

Anyway. The distracting-me-from-a-jerk meme. I think it is Six Weird Things About Me, but I’ll also go with Six Things You Don’t Know About Me, because I make the rules around here.

1. I feel bad leaving the movie before the credits end.

My Dad hates lines and crowds and when everyone rushes to the door, like when a plane lands or a movie ends, etc. So he sits and lets the crowd clear. When we were younger we’d complain about wanting to leave with everyone else and he’d say, “You see all of those people listed in the credits after the big stars? They all worked on this movie and no one ever stays to see their names.” And so then we weren’t staying because of the lines. We were staying to support the little people who worked for months on a movie and got no glory. And I still feel bad when I leave early – because clearly someone should know who the gaffer and key grip were.

2. I don’t eat most macaroni and cheese or any cherries.

I hate the way macaroni and cheese sounds when you stir it. (Especially the boxed stuff.) It makes this soggy gross noise that is like nails on a black board to me.

And when I was little, my mom would make us drink liquid Jell-O when we were sick because it was supposed to keep up from getting dehydrated. (Her mom did it to her and I imagine that one day I’ll forcefeed my children liquid Jell-O as well, convinced in a fit of parenting that if it didn’t kill me, it won’t kill my offspring.) I don’t know why, but this is the only reason I can think for why I refuse to even smell cherries. The scent makes me want to vomit everywhere.

3. I hate confrontations in public situations.

I don’t ever want to send back food at a restaurant. I hate having to make a scene about my coffee order. Part of it is a fear of confrontation – I get really nervous and shaky when I am angry and arguing. One time years ago at a previous job I got so angry at a coworker that my face turned bright red and my hands were shaking. I was right and she knew it, but I was so mad that I could barely speak. It was mortified that I’d been so physically angry and vowed to never let myself get to that place again. So I avoid confrontation.

The other part of it is that I’ve worked in retail jobs before – I got my first job when I was 16. I know that working in a store or restaurant is a hard thing to do, that you’re on your feet all day, that you are young and don’t have much control over anything, that you make low wages and that people generally act like you are a moron. (This used to piss me off. I wanted to be like, “Hey Soccer Mom, I’m not a lifelong candle saleswoman! I am paying for college!”) So I try not to have to make big scenes and make the day worse for people who already don’t get appreciated enough. I will ask politely to have my order fixed, but I can be a pushover in these situations.

4. I’ve never purposefully stolen anything from a store. (Though I did used to sneak into bars and download mp3s from Napster. And for that I apologize.)

A lot of people have shoplifting stories from when they were younger and taking risks. I don’t – I was so petrified of what my parents would do if they caught me stealing that I’d never done it. Until one day about three years ago. I was wearing a jacket that for some reason had a piece of Velcro on the inside cuff. (I have no idea why it had Velcro. The rest of the jacket was normal, promise.)

Anyway, I was with my sister at Victoria’s Secret going through the table of panties trying to find five different pairs. (They were having one of those five pairs for $19 sales.) We paid and moved to the next store. About 15 minutes later I saw a pair of Victoria’s Secret panties on the floor of the store by sister and I quickly picked them up, stuffed them in my sister’s bag and scolded her for not being careful. When she got home she couldn’t figure out how she had six pairs of panties in her bag, including one pair that was the wrong size. We figured out later that the panties had gotten stuck to the Velcro in the cuff of my jacket and I hadn’t noticed until they fell on the floor in the next store. My family still teases me about “shoplifting” from Victoria’s Secret.

5. I do not keep secrets. Eventually, they come out.

Just ask a high school buddy of mine who used to lie about staying at my house when she was dating someone older. Yes, I was the drunken bridesmaid who blabbed on about that lie on her wedding video (that she didn’t see until the final cut had already been sent to her parents and her grandparents).

She’s forgiven me. I think.

6. I used to fear playing “I Never” in college.

My group of friends was very pro-drinking game and we’d almost always end up at someone’s apartment playing drinking games after the bars closed. I feared “I Never” the most because there is such a fine line in that game between being normal and being either a prude or a whore. And I’ve witnessed too many times when someone would say something embarrassing, like, “I never showed a boob to my first cousin” thinking that other people would drink. And then room went silent in horror and you could hear crickets chirping in the background and they’d be mortified that they would be the only person who’d done that. (And to clarify, I have NEVER done that. I promise. All of my first cousins are a good nine or 10 years younger than I am, which would make it even creepier.)

Sigh. That was fun.

“I’m giving up Cokes for Lent,” The Banker announced.

“I’m giving up sweets and probably bread,” Married Girlfriend added.

They turned to me.

“I’m giving up being bitter about not having a boyfriend.”

Valentine’s Day always brings up such a mish-mash of emotions for me. On one hand I hate it because I am not dating anyone. On the other, I hate it because it is an overly commercial celebration of a stereotypical ideal where chocolate and roses pass for romance, when really the most romantic thing I could think of right now would be a boyfriend who would come to the parking garage after work when I am weepy because my battery has died and I need a jump – and not in a good way – and I’d rather not have to sleep in my car all night. (Not that this happened, say, to me on, say, Tuesday or anything like that.)

Really, I find it kind of tiring to be that Valentine’s-hating. And slightly cliched. If I hate V-Day for lacking originality, am I really helping by bottling up bile and hatred for all things coupley and dating-like and spewing it forth on one day?

I dislike being single because I am a weepy optimist who does believe that there is a crazy, tallish, latte-drinking, (possibly) glasses-wearing, good-listening, creative, kind-hearted, sexy, intelligent guy who would just love to eat dinner with me at this little romantic Italian place that serves the best eggplant parmagiana within five miles of my house.

Until that man makes an appearance in my life, I’ll just keep on keeping on. Head up, shoulders back, smile on face. Because to quote that song, “if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.”

Also, buy jumper cables.

When my Mom said she was going to see “Because I Said So,” I was a bit concerned. For those who haven’t seen the movie, I don’t feel that I am spoiling it by saying that one of the central conflicts is a mother trying to find a man for her free-spirited daughter.

My concern was that my own mother would take notes for use against me in the future.

She’s been good so far. She mentions single men she knows – or has heard of – from time to time, but she’s yet to do something humiliating, like write her own personals ad for me, give out my phone number to unsuspecting gentlemen or beg strangers on the street to take my hand.

I do sense that she’s anxious. She, who was once fearful of all things online dating, informed me that “Miss So-And-So in my office is single and she says that Match.com is much better than trying to meet men in bars.”

This evening we were talking about my grandparents. My grandmother has wanted me to date the man who rents the house across the street from hers for a very long time – his long-time girlfriend was merely a minor detail we’d work out later.

I’ve never met the man, though I imagine I should look fierce the next time I go to her house.

“Your grandmother wants you to know that [Man Across the Street] broke up with his girlfriend.”

Fantastic.

I am amazed by the search engine hits this blog gets from people I presume to be parents. They use the search terms “marry my daughter” and “will you marry my daughter.” (And the creepy “Marry My Daughter Video.”)

To them, I say, leave your daughters be.

Also, no. I will not marry your daughter. I mean really. Wouldn’t that throw my own mother for a loop?

But I hear my grandmother’s neighbor is looking.