Charming, but single

I don’t know if this is the exact way the vote worked out, but it seemed like a lot of people wanted a dating list. So I present, in no particular order, the five things I’d like to find out about you on our first date:

That you can hold a decent conversation – without needing booze as a crutch. I used to joke that I’d go on a first date with anyone who met the following criteria – not evil, able to hold a conversation over a cup of coffee. It should go without saying, but if talking to you is like talking to a stone garden statute, I’m going to pass. The thing is, I could talk to a stone garden statue. I could talk to an empty chair. I could talk to a fence. I’m not ashamed to admit that I am an accomplished talker. But eventually even I tire of hearing my own voice after awhile, so if you’re not ready to hear your own, move along.

This isn’t to say that I don’t want to talk at all. Many have tried to outtalk me. Few have succeeded. But we need to be able to reach a happy medium where you talk some and I talk some and we learn about each other.

Also, despite my love of beer and other alcoholic drinks, I’d rather we not get sloshed on date one. Because if you can’t make conversation unless you’re two drinks in, then you probably aren’t a good conversationalist. This is why a coffee date is a nice way to start things off.

That you’re excited about something. Maybe you like to play soccer. Maybe you take photographs or collect something. Maybe you just really love your job. Perhaps you’re an avid golfer or love seeing bands play. Whatever it is, you better have something that excites you, other than watching bad TV, because otherwise I’m going to worry that you lack hobbies or interests. And I believe that everyone should have something or many things that make them tick. Life throws enough mediocrity at us all each day – if you can’t entertain yourself, I doubt you’ll be able to entertain me.

Why you chose your current job. I firmly believe that when you’re devoting forty plus hours to doing something each week, you should have a reason for doing so. Maybe your job isn’t perfect. Few people’s are. But I’m looking for someone with career goals, who sees their current job as, at the least, a stepping stone for their future. Also, if we’re going to date, I’m going to have to hear about your job and possibly even meet your coworkers, so I’d like to have something marginally interesting to discuss.

Where you like to hang out and what you like to do there. It’s always good to know going in if we’re socially compatible. Not that we only eat at the same restaurants or get coffee at the same shops, but compatible in the kinds of places we like. Because if you never want to leave the house and all I want to do is go out, we’re going to clash eventually. Same goes for you only wanting to spend every night in some crappy hole in the wall that serves PBR in the can when I’d like to put on my black dress and go somewhere we can overpay for glasses of wine and cheese boards.

Something we can joke about later. I sometimes (usually) forget to pack my “serious” gene, especially around men I like. My best flirting techniques involve joking and sarcasm. Call me a fourth grader, but if I can’t be somewhat teasing and playful with you, I’m probably not feeling the chemistry. And if you can’t take a light ribbing from time to time, you absolutely 100 percent will not want to date me.

Dear Readers –

Please forgive me for not having a new post for you on this Monday. I have major writer’s block and my life is boring and I haven’t kissed a man in months. Sad, but true.

Please vote in the comments about what you would like me to write for Tuesday. Your options are:

1. A story about me being a Party Girl in college
2. Me rambling about songs like that I like and how they remind me of people
3. Various lists of things related to dating or men. (I.e. “Five things not to do on a date.”) Please specify list topic in your comment.
4. Other. Please specify.

Cheers –

Charming

I don’t do lists enough, I think. (Also, don’t know that I could throw together a coherent post right now to save my life.) So here are some of my favorite summer-type things:

• There is this skirt from Old Navy that isn’t online, which annoys me, because I would order two more. But I happen to know that it is still in stores, because, well, my mom saw me wear it (because I wear it all of the time) and she said she saw it at Old Navy and my Momma speaks only the truth. It is the perfect summer skirt. It is full and flowy with a two-inch smocked waistband, which makes it extra comfortable. It is great paired with a tank top for a summer barbecue or an afternoon shopping, perfect over a swimsuit at a pool party and even kind of cute with a thin button down sweater over a camisole. I would recommend trying on a size smaller than you normally wear, because the waistband is reeeeally stretchy and the skirt is kind of full. Also, if you find it online, let me know. ‘Cause my goal for this weekend is to sit by the pool with this battery-powered fan attached to a spray bottle that I found at Target, not shop.
• Watermelon brings back memories of Fourths of July at my grandparents’ house, swimming in their pool on Sunday afternoons when the most difficult decision I had to make was if I wanted wear my Speedo practice swimsuit or my bright floral “fun” swimsuit.
• A bartender at this pub I sometimes hit after work introduced me to Leinenkugel’s Sunset Wheat beer. It’s been tough on me because I didn’t know how to pronounce it until I actually purchased a six pack (tonight). A few weeks ago, I made The Banker order a pint of “that beer from the bright blue tap with a fake orange wedge on it.” And this guy sitting at the bar quipped, “I love when people order beer based on how pretty the tap is.” And I had to set him straight – that I love good beer, that I love wheat beer, that I am not some ditz who is like, “Ooooooh, blue tap will match my eyes!” In the bottle, it is good, but on draft with a wedge of orange, this beer is amazing. I’ve been drinking Blue Moon as a cheaper alternative to Hoegaarden, but the slightly fruity undertones of the Leinenkugel are so perfectly refreshing that I’ve abandoned Blue Moon temporarily. Don’t take my word for it. Go to a bar, get yourself a pint, sit outside and people watch with a friend. You won’t be sorry.
• I saw an 80s cover band a few weeks back and I’ve been obsessed with “Shadows of the Night” by Pat Benatar ever since. If I were to wake up one morning with even a modicum of musical talent and became a hit singing sensation, I would start all of my shows with this song. Me, standing in a pool of light alone in the middle of the stage, belting out that a cappella opening and then the lights come up and I’m being backed by The Bangles (this is a fantasy, after all) and there is smoke and flashing lights and I’m wearing that green dress Pat Benatar wore in the “Love is a Battlefield” video. Surrender all your dreams to me tonight, people.
• A few weeks ago, in preparation for tailgating season, I bought this awesome tote-bag style cooler at Target. I wanted something big enough that I could stand a wine bottle in it – not because I bring wine to tailgates, but because I bring wine and snacks other places. So this one hold 24 cans, which is an embarrassingly large amount, even for me. But I figure this way it won’t get too crowded. And it has straps like a purse, which is good, because I can’t really fit that much beer in my purse.
• My new favorite song to use to torture my little sister is “Rehab” by Amy Winehouse. (I know, not that new. I’m not hip.) My sister hates that I sing the wrong lyrics to songs, so I make sure to do it loudly when she’s around. I was staying with her this past weekend while my parents were out of town and I kept singing, “I don’t wanna go to rehab, I said yooooo, yooooo, yooooo.” I thought she was going to deck me, which made it even more fun.
• Orbit has this new Mint Mojito flavored gum. I’m not a huge fan of the mojito, probably because I don’t think I’ve ever had a good one, but this gum is kind of fruity with a kick of mint. As an added bonus, it is bright green, which reminds me of Bubbleicious gum that I used to chew when I was a kid. Also, it is sugarfree.

“So what are you doing this weekend?” My Waxer brushed my unkempt eyebrows with a small comb and, leaning in close to my face, examined my brow line to determine her starting point.

“Going to see a band with my girlfriends tonight,” I said, bracing for the shock as she painted warm wax beneath my left brow.

“Sounds like fun,” she said, pausing to concentrate as she rubbed the cloth strip over the wax. She firmly pulled the strip taut against my skin and then snapped her wrist back and out popped the errant hairs.

She touched her fingers to the freshly waxed patch of skin as I bit my lip – I’d rather have her wax my brows than constantly rely on my own plucking to remove the hair. But the first rip is always the deepest.

“Any special occasion?” She asked, applying a thin layer of warm wax to the top of my left brow.

“It is my friends’ birthday. She just got married and she wants a girls’ night,” I said, taking a deep breath and mentally reminding myself how pretty my shaped brows would be and how they would “just open my face right up.” (As my Waxer always exclaims.)

She tore off the second strip with a satisfying yank as I tried to hide my agony and continue telling her about my evening plans. Only three more swipes left, I thought.

“That will definitely be fun,” she said, proceeding to the right brow.

“It is nice that her husband lets her go out with the girls,” she said, pausing again to yank off the overgrowth beneath my right brow.

I bit down hard.

“Uh-huh,” I squeaked. “A lot of husbands or boyfriends get upset when you go out without them.”

Then she told me a story about a friend whose husband didn’t want her to go to a bachelorette party without him and insisted on picking her up at midnight.

“I could not put up with that at all,” she said, punctuating her sentence with a quick rip over my right brow.

“I couldn’t either,” I said. “And I’m thinking, if that’s what a marriage is, then no thank you, I’ll be single.”

“Right,” she said, rubbing wax in between my brows and yanking upward to remove the last of the remaining hairs.

She dropped the waxing strip and reached for her tweezers for a final touch up.

“And maybe this is why we’re still single,” I said as she handed me a mirror to inspect her handiwork.

“Looks good?” she asked.

“Perfect,” I nodded. “Just opens my face right up.”

I was helping my brother and his fiancée clean their apartment and load their moving truck today, which is something I cannot yet write about, as the realization that my younger brother will suddenly be a more than 10-hour drive away from me as opposed to a five-minute drive from me has not yet set in and I’m really not in the mood to cry. Again.

As I crawled across the floor wiping down their baseboards – my brother’s fiancée had a long checklist of things to clean in order to ensure that their full deposit was returned – I was reminded of moving out of one of my college apartments.

College Roommate and I lived in a two-bedroom apartment near enough to campus and our favorite bars. We were party girls for sure. We hosted a few small parties and a slew of late-night, post-bar, pre-dawn gatherings. We were young and social. It was not uncommon for us to get visitors even on nights when we stayed in and watched TV. And our apartment refrigerator and pantry were stocked with our favorites – cranberry juice, boxed wine, Pasta Roni, bottom shelf vodka, Chinese food (leftover from Sex and the City marathons) and half-pints of ice cream (ditto).

We made the somewhat critical mistake of letting our friends smoke the occasional cigarette in our living room. (We might have smoked a few ourselves.) We foolishly thought this smell would somehow go unnoticed and that somehow traipsing intoxicated 20somethings through the place at all hours of the night would not lead to lasting spills or stains.

We were wrong.

A few weeks after we moved out of the apartment, we received our deposit check and a letter outlining why exactly the more than $300 we’d paid in a deposit had been whittled to only $36.

“You would not believe why we didn’t get more of our deposit back,” College Roommate told me over the phone.

“We cleaned the place up, I said. “Kind of.”

“First reason? Heavy smoke smell,” she said.

“Eh, I’ll give them that. We did let people smoke in there,” I said. “Is there another reason?”

“Yeah. Red stains on the carpet,” she said.

We paused.

“Vodka and cranberry?”

“Yep.”

“Well, we’re pretty predictable, aren’t we?”

“It is our signature drink!”