Vienna Sausages and Easy Cheese

Anytime my kids are with their dad, I tend to put very little energy into food prep and feeding myself. Like the other night, for example. I had spent most of the day and into the evening, trying (mostly in vain *sigh*) to find some new shit to stir up online, as well as applying what little data I had gathered into a new blog entry and even though at some point I realized that I was absolutely famished and that I would eventually have to go put something in my belly, I couldn't stand the thought of wasting valuable computer time in my kitchen. After succumbing to my irrepressible hunger, I hurried over to the house and rooted around the fridge, freezer and cupboards, searching for something quick and easy to put into my hungee tummy and I finally decided on an unusual combo which I had never tried before. First I pulled the lid off of a can of Vienna sausages. The pop of the top coupled with an aroma startlingly similar to Alpo, prompted my two ghetto dogs to covetously hold vigil by my side. Next I poured out the gelatinous juice, then one by one, removed the precious, pink weenies and squirted a decorative, ruffly stripe of Easy Cheese down the length of each one. Mmmmmmm...I didn't even bother to dirty a plate, I just took each ingredient straight from their cans, directly to my mouth - very classy, wouldn't ya' say? I was shaken from my junkfood-induced euphoria when my agitated pups initiated a relentless campaign to score some of the spoils. It was during this intermission from devouring this un-epicurean concoction that I paused to marvel at my disturbing dinner. The magnitude of its disgustingness began to register and was then galvanized upon my disquieting discovery that the first ingredient in Vienna Sausages is: "mechanically separated chicken"......You don't think that such a gruesome process takes place while the animal is still alive, do you?...(God I hope not)...I begrudgingly relinquished a few morsels to my mongrels, and continued the short break from feeding my own face by cleansing my palate with a couple swigs of my favorite, eveningtime cocktail, at which time I had a minor epiphany...In a weird kind of way, those gnarly, nummy nibbles were the perfect companion food to my Big Ugly Blog, you know? Like if a blog could have a food mascot...well then, wouldn't Vienna Sausages slathered in Easy Cheese be the obvious perfect fit?

I went out on Friday night with Pierce, not an online guy...just a friend of a friend. I think I told you about him a few months ago when after peepin' at each other from across many rooms at assorted weddings and random parties over the span of 3 or 4 years - both finally simultaneously single - we tinkered with the idea of going on a date. For whatever reason though - we never formalized a plan back then and it wasn't until I got a message from him about a month ago on my favorite networking site, that we struck up fresh conversation and decided to meet, for real this time. I thought it was cute the way he initiated our most recent correspondence with, "Ok, Isobel...may I please come in from out of the doghouse now? It's kinda cold out here" I don't even really remember giving him the shaft the last time, as his note implied - but whatever. So I answered back with, "All right Pierce, come on inside and warm yourself up" And so began a new dialog which led to our eventual date, a week ago, Friday. 

I was a few minutes late in arriving at our destination but once inside, I walked right up to Pierce where he appeared to be somewhat anxiously hovering around the outskirts of the Friday night Happy Hour set which had apparently relegated him to the periphery of the busy bar. He was short, I already knew that, but it was a bit more in my face than I had remembered, as in - his face was literally in my face (I'm 5' 4") And I was definitely not diggin' on his nose either. It was sort of like someone had blopped a big dollop of clay right onto the middle of his face and you know how twitchy I can be about that type of thing. To make matters worse, I could not warm up to his less than appealing, cloddish hands...He had these kind of crunchy breadstick-like fingers and his nails were way too short, I reckoned because he munched them down to nubs. I'm sorry, but bitten nails make me nervous (by association, I guess) plus, if I don't like a guys hands in general, it's really difficult for me to get excited about the thought of having them all over me...someday.

Dinner was nice (there's that dreaded four letter word, again) and we never had a problem talking but that's partly due to the fact that I sometimes think that I do better when I feel I have the upper hand, like when I can tell a guy is liking me more than I am liking him. I felt and acted confident and didn't hesitate to go into elaborate detail about all my crazy online stuff and examples of my horrible conduct with men which in some instances has led to several relationships ending bitterly. Oh and of course I couldn't resist pushing the envelope a smidge, by hammering home my love of and addiction to masturbation (would you believe that he insisted that he has not masturbated in 2 whole years? That has to be absolute bullshit, dontcha think?) I didn't hold back in the slightest. It was as if I was trying to see if there was anything I could've said to him that would have tarnished his impression of me. I was uncharacteristically cocky and forthright, was I trying to run him off?

Dinner was over and we both had 30 min. drives home, respectively - so we skipped grabbing one last cocktail at a neighboring bar and instead Pierce walked me to my car and I then drove him to his. We sat and talked in my car, briefly. He said "Goodbye" and turned as if he were about to disembark my shiny, little Datsun. But then he reconsidered, leaned over towards me and laid quite an "I had a great time, hope to see you soon" kiss on my surprisingly receptive mouth. It's just the darndest thing. I was not really attracted to Pierce...at all, during dinner. We had a decent time and everything, but I wasn't blown away by him on any level, and yet that scrumptious kiss that he had lavished on me, told a completely different story. I got the lightening bolts, in spades, in fact the tingles through my middle were so intense that they actually hurt, almost like when you go up really high on a swing and on the downward phase, your tummy hurts, for a sec. - in a good way. Pierce abruptly pulled away saying, "Your lips are so soft" I interjected that I thought he smelled good because he genuinely did...all clean and soapy. But almost immediately afterwards, he announced in a high pitched, nearly panicked voice what a nice time he'd had and that he looked forward to hanging out with me again, and then he bolted. Pierce was clearly out of sorts and I watched through the rear window as he kind of hobbled back to his car, slightly hunched over. I felt certain that he was about to reset the clock on his masturbation-free last two years...possibly even on the car ride home, heh heh...But there's another side to this unpredictable coin of attraction...

On Sunday afternoon, I had originally planned to get together with the Aussie, but he turned up missing and I'll tell you about that later. Instead I filled the now vacant slot with an impromptu first meeting with Blaine, another new guy. Blaine and I met for our late, alfresco lunch on an unseasonably warm Sunday afternoon in February, coincidentally in the same exact town as Pierce and I had met, the Friday before. Blaine was younger and cuter than Pierce, but a wee bit on the metrosexual side for my taste, i.e. - I strongly disliked his girly man shoes with the pointyish toes, ewww...But counteracting his taste in fashion was the fact that he wasn't terribly hard on the eyes...I especially liked his nose and hands. We enjoyed a perfectly acceptable afternoon together. At one point, after having relocated from our lunch spot to the neighborhood biker bar, I remember studying his face and thinking to myself, "Yeah, I could go out with him again..." 

Frances, her daughter and Frances' sister were coming to my house for dinner that night and after a few pesky texts from Frances, I told Blaine that I had to head back home. We walked to our cars which were practically side by side in the parking deck. It was a cinch to put off parting ways for a few more minutes, the excuse being that we both needed to gush a bit about how cool each of our fine automotive specimens were. But ultimately, as has become the customary culmination of my first dates, Blaine and I slid up next to each other and partook in an obligatory goodbye kiss. I was crestfallen to have felt literally nothing, not even a tiny flutter. I just couldn't make any sense of the incongruity. Here was this guy whose package I much preferred to Pierce's, and yet there was absolutely no flippin' chemistry...go figure...

So...you wanna hear my favorite subject heading attached to an email received on an online dating site, this week? Ok, here it is, "What's up girl? You are mad sexy!" Awwwwww! The simplicity and the sweet sentiment of it made me twinkle and if it hadn't been written and sent by a 20 year old, I would have definitely replied enthusiastically to the flattering snippet...

Now...wanna read my least favorite email of the week? Ok. Let me preface by saying that the profile pic. being displayed with this message showed a middle-aged man, very attractive with lots of dark hair and a straight, angular nose, riveting stare and a strong jaw line. His look was professional and posh, and if I had to wager money on what he did for a living, I would venture to say that he was an architect...Anyway, here is what he wrote to me...

Hello Dear,

Nice Profile that no Matured Minded man whom knows the Joy of Love is all about would ever pass By, I must let you know that you have a wonderful Profile Without beign Greedy, I would like to be a Friend to this wonderful woman, Knowing you the more and Probably seeing in Person someday. If you wouldn't mind my Hand in Friendship, Kindly let me know asap, here is my Private Email Address, you can send mail or invite me for a Chat, (**************)

Once again, I adorn your Profile,

your's Admirer,

******* *******

Say what? If my hunch is on target, there is no way in hell that this note could possibly have been written by someone with such unprecedented good looks and reeking of education as I had gleaned from the photo which now, after reading his pathetic note, I deduced must have been plucked from a library of online images. I mean really...the author of this baloney was clearly an imbecile. It never ceases to amaze me that folks think that they can actually get away with blatantly false self-representation.

Which brings me to the frustrating and irritating run-in with the Aussie...I first started talking to the Aussie on the morning of the Friday that I went out with Pierce, after coming across his irresistible photo on my #1 dating site. I sent him a message which stated that outside of the fact that he lived a little bit far away from me, he seemed practically perfect. He responded without delay and by the end of the day we had gone from e-mail, to IM, to phone. He said that he had been single for 10 years and that he was a child psychologist and that he had a horse farm with a 20 stall barn and that he competed in equestrian events and was raised in Australia but had lived in America for the last 20 years (I reasoned that that was why his accent wasn't particularly strong or consistent) and that he hoped to move back there someday and did I want to go with him? Wow! That was fast! the Aussie was quite the Romeo, wooing me with promises of exotic vacations and jaunts on horseback...Fool that I am, I liked the sound of it all and found myself wrapped up in a fascinating romantic fantasy. I was brimming with optimism that meeting this appealing Australian man (a newbie to the online dating world) would definitely be on the weekend's docket...

We chatted online Saturday morning and when I informed him that I was childless for the entirety of that weekend - his ears pricked and although he was unable to meet me on Saturday, we made a loose plan to picnic in a mutually beloved, historic cemetery on Sunday. So, Sunday arrived and I could see that he was logged into our shared IM provider, but curiously he held his tongue. I resisted contacting him because I was sensing that he was having a change of heart and I didn't want to risk suffering unmitigated rejection if his silence persisted. However, not wanting to waste a perfectly gorgeous Sunday waiting around to see if the Aussie would follow through or not, I emailed him to ask if we were still on for that day and after about an hour and a half of his sudden estrangement, I sent one last message to say that I would take that as a "No". He eventually emailed back that it was absolutely not a "NO", that he was working right then but that he would get in touch with me once he had a better handle on how his day was gonna unfold. Uh huh, yeah...I'll just bet you will...

The Aussie never did contact me as he promised he would, hence my decision to go out with Blaine. So, late Sunday night, post date with Blaine and dinner soiree with friends, I sat down to my trusty ole Mac and blocked that awful Aussie's ass from ever contacting me again on my #1 dating site. I have no earthly idea why his flakiness pissed me off so badly but I diffused my disappointment by convincing myself that he must have been some hideous porker and not the strapping hunk in his profile pic. or that he was actually still married or had a girlfriend or something equally unforgivable. My shaky ego had no choice but to deflect the blame for his expeditious dismissal of me. 

So, today is Valentine's Day...which I typically consider to be an utterly annoying, pointless holiday, I'm talking - absolutely freaking useless...But this year, Valentine's Day takes on a whole new meaning and actually marks a significant milestone. This year, on Valentine's Day, I jubilantly celebrate the monumental one year anniversary of my gloriously successful, permanent break-up with Jimmy. Exactly a year ago today, when yet another stupid fucking Valentine's Day was marred by a ridiculously unromantic series of events, I tenuously tromped away from Jimmy, yet another time, uncertain about my ability to steer clear of reconciliation with the undeserving pig...And, save one teeny slip-up in March (yeah, ok...so we had sex because we were lonely and horny, but by that weekend's end I had peeled outta his place in one of my classic huffs upon finding a spent condom in the trash can after he had lied to me that he hadn't been with anyone since we broke up)...I have remained diligent in my efforts to remain Jimmy-free! 

One of the best side-effects since banishing Jimmy from my life was the eradication of my crippling, stress-induced acid stomach. I have been virtually devoid of tummy pain, except for during a few isolated tangles with Mark, until now...For the last few days I have had an unsettled feeling, evocative of the abdominal angst I chronically suffered during my tenure with Jimmy...I'll give you all the details in the next episode, I promise...But let me assure you that it has absolutely nothing to do with my consumption of Vienna sausages and Easy Cheese...