Twitterpated??

Ok, I bit the bullet and joined Twitter yesterday. I know, I know, sooooo last month of me. But I have been busy mooning over Liquid Chocolate Eyes (who makes a pretty good cheesecake, by the way), and haven't had a chance to hop on the latest trend.

So on Twitter, I "follow" a diverse group of people: Kevin Smith, Deepak Chopra, Springsteen, etc. But what I found puzzling was that within 5 posts I had 13 people following ME. 13 random people with no connection to me who found either my 3 word profile or my 140 word posts so compelling that they want a running update on their home page.

I feel a certain pressure to entertain, which is hard to do in 140 words or less, dear readers. I much prefer this forum where I can expand on my random thoughts (I know, much to your chagrin).

I am loving Stephen Colbert's tweets, and Jon Stewart's mom's tweets are pretty funny as well: "Kim Kardashian thinks she is a mermaid." I am categorically refusing to follow Ashton Kutcher or Demi Moore, because that would be lame, right? 1 day on twitter and I am already a twitter snob.

I find myself thinking that maybe Twitter is the middle of the end of a literate and rational society. The beginning is, of course, the advent of text speak. LOL, LMAO, WTF, U R WEAR? Yesterday in court, an older judge was addressing an accused, asking them what they wanted to do about a charge - did the accused want to plead guilty or not guilty to a charge of mischief to a local business? The accused responded "well, I can't afford a lawyer because I lost my job, LOL."

Do you hear that, gentle readers? That sucking sound? God just opened the valve and started letting the air out of the earth.

Oompa Loompa Lawyers

I am a Crown Prosecutor. For those of you who are ill-acquainted with Canadian law, that means that my job is to convict the guilty. Part of my job involves interacting with a species called "Male Lawyers".

My friend, Tequila and I were in law school together when we noticed something unusual about our habitat. It was mostly filled with small, aggressive, vertically challenged penis-ridden individuals. They were everywhere, it was like being surrounded by rammy little oompa loompas.

Tequila and I came up with a theory to explain why 8/10 law male law students were 5'5" and below. At least 7/10 of that group were insanely and ridiculously competitive. Our theory was that those who were picked last in dodgeball concentrated on academics and not athletics, and they ended up being the ones who had the marks to go to law school. Now there are exceptions to the rule, of course. Every once in a while I end up running across a tall, dark handsome lawyer with no trace of the proverbial short man complex. So there is no hard and fast rule.

I should say here that I am not extraordinariy tall. I am 5' 3 1/2". Not at all tall. So this essay was not aimed at promoting sizism or any other ism. And in fact, Oompa Loompa Lawyers are not necessarily short. Basically, I have refined the definition of Oompa Loompa Lawyer to include any lawyer who might have been shoved repeatedly into his locker as a kid in high school. It makes an Oompa Loompa Lawyer grow up mean. Hungry for power. Petty. Dangerous.

When dealing with an Oompa Loompa Lawyer, one should studiously avoid staring at the tops of their heads or at their ill-fitting suit or bad haircut as you speak to them. To do so, is to wave the red flag at the proverbial bull.

A colleague of mine just won a 2nd degree murder conviction against an Oompa Loompa Lawyer. This particular Oompa Loompa Lawyer is of the Ned Flanders category. He literally reeks of geek. You look at Ned Flanders Lawyer and you know he ended up in his locker a lot. Probably got pants a lot. But Ned Flanders Lawyer thinks he is very smart. In fact, he thought that he could win the acquittal of his client based on an obscure concept called nautical twilight. But in the end, twelve common sensical persons in the jury looked at what his client did and said "um, no...that's definitely murder." And they convicted a man for taking another human's life.

But Ned Flanders Lawyer couldn't take being beaten by a girl. A girl who he regards as being his intellectual inferior. And so, after my colleague beat him like a rented mule, he committed an egregious assault on our professionalism. He made disparaging remarks about her character in Court and then....he refused to shake her hand.

In our profession, we argue for a living. It's part of the reason most people hate us. But the majority of lawyers try to be objective and impartial about their client and their case. To allow emotion to creep is to undercut our ability to make rational decisions and to give useful advice to our clients.

So we argue like crazy on behalf of our clients. And then, when the dust clears, we shake hands and maybe even go for a beer.

So tonight I find myself disappointed in Ned Flanders Lawyer. No matter how many lockers we get shoved into in life, it does not excuse being a mean person.

Secret Decoder Rings

Everyone who has ever dated knows this stage of a relationship. It's the no-man's land between first meeting someone groovy and exclusivity. I have been at this stage more times than I care to remember with a motley crew (no, I did not date the band) of assorted lunatics, do-it-yourself projects and relatively nice guys.

So, as some of you know, I met Liquid Chocolate Eyes (I know - it's a horrible nickname - I have to work on a new one) online. Things have been going swimingly. However, both of us are still on the online dating website, a fact which makes me go a little loco from time to time. But, in the interests of being a "cool chick" I am trying to keep my jealousy under wraps.

LCE, however, displayed a good dose of it earlier this week. The simple fact is that, on this particular site, the men outnumber the women. And, ergo, I get way more emails. One day we were both online at the same time, and he msn'ed me to say "Hey." The exchange was a weird one, and it became apparent that he might be a scooch jealous (yay! a break through). When I tried to talk to him about it, he had to sign off. Abruptly.

I sent him an email indicating that I was considering taking my profile off, that I hadn't gone on a date since the first time he kissed me, and that, if he didn't want to take his profile off, that was his business, but that I didn't think I could continue indefinitely down the path we were going if he was actively seeking out other women.

Reponse to email:

Radio silence. Almost completely.

It has never been mentioned, and LCE was VERY absent this week. And then the following text exchange yesterday (reproduced only in part to avoid boring you, sweet audience):

LCE: Hey what's up this weekend? Are you doing renos?

Me: I know where there is free beer. However, there are also parental units :( And you might have to paint a deck.

LCE: You want me to drink beer around your parents?

Me: I don't think they would care much. I am 39 years old after all. All kidding aside, you are more than welcome to pop by this weekend, however, I assume that you have the typical male parental-unit aversion. If so, they leave Sunday afternoon :)

There was a pause of about 15 minutes. I opened up the next text message, which simply read:

LCE: Can I bring my parents?

At this point, I actually did laugh out loud.

Me: My mother just said to my father "You want a banana, big boy?" Shudder.

LCE: What did your father say?

Me: He simply turned down his hearing aids and went to his happy place - Deafville.

Another pause of about 15 minutes.

LCE: So you're saying my folks can't come?

Me: Sure they can, the more the merrier. Maybe my mother can offer them a banana too.

And suddenly everything was ok.

What has become absolutely apparent to me is that I might be dating my father. My mother is, for lack of a better term, a bit of a freak. You never have to worry about what my mother is thinking, she just opens her mouth and it all comes tumbling out, a torrent of her wants, needs and desires.

My father, on the other hand, is a "doer". He has told me he loves me just a handful of times in my life. We don't have great conversations about the meaning of life. He just does "things" and I apply the Dad Decoder Ring.

For instance. He is here this weekend, helping me with my deck. He is turning 70 this year. The translation of this is: "you are my daughter, I love you, and I am proud that you bought a house all on your own. And I want you to love your house and be happy here"

He'll make sure that my oil is changed. The translation of this: "you are my daughter. I love you. I want you to be safe. I have visions of your engine seizing in the middle of a scary place. So I am going to do everything in my power to protect you."

He once drove for 17 hours straight to help me move from Vancouver to Kamloops. He was in his 60s at the time. Translation: "This city is big and scary, and I think it is eating you alive. I want you to be in a small place, because they are safer. I love you. You are my daughter."

In this day and age where we do a lot of talking about our feelings, maybe a guy that can't talk about his is ok. As long as you get the secret decoder ring and know how to translate.

LCE and I spent almost 70 hours together in 1 week. And in that week, he stroked my hair as I fell asleep. He was offended when I put the water jug onto the dispenser and didn't ask him for help. When I had a sore back, he wordlessly got up, retreived my magic bag, popped it in the microwave and brought it to me for application.

Translation?

So maybe the fact that he didn't respond to my email about my feelings is ok. He still took the time to check in, to see what I was up to, and to make me laugh.

If a man that doesn't want to grow up is called Peter Pan.....

It occurred to me, as I was helping Cap'n Crunch locate his sled dog this morning on the back of my cereal box, that I might be regressing.

A little more than a year ago I was a de facto wife and mother. At 5:50 am I would likely have been putting in a load of laundry and starting lunches. When I left the Tricky Man, I left behind all but the most basic of responsibilities.

So this is a shout out to all of the women who have careers and kids and husbands, and who manage to do it all. What I remember about those years with the Tricky Man is a feeling of utter exhaustion and a simmering resentment. It didn't help that my partner was, well, useless. It seemed like the work was neverending, the appreciation sparse, and the house was just plain gross, no matter how hard I tried to keep it up.

I remember doing 14 loads of laundry one Saturday. I painstakingly folded and put away the Tricky Offsprings' underroos and grey-looking socks.

Almost immediately following the last load, I walked into the youngest Tricky Offspring's cave to find that, in looking for a favorite pair of jeans, the Offspring set off a laundry bomb. Clothes were ground into the chip-crumb covered floor by careless feet. I could no longer tell what was clean and what was dirty.

I grabbed a leash, I grabbed a dog (we had 4), and I hit the road. I don't know how far I walked. All I knew that if I stayed in the Pink House of Stress one more minute, the news story would end with "and then she turned the gun on herself."

When I walked back into the Pink House of Stress, I took a look around with fresh eyes. The dogs had shed with impunity, clearly having ignored my efforts to sweep that morning. The stove that I had scrubbed the day before was caked with a brown scorched substance that was unidentifiable. The sink was filled with dirty dishes with food still in them, despite the fact that I had unloaded the dishwasher and announced this loudly to the inhabitants of the Pink House of Stress. There was a wide debris field of kid's clothing, video games, chip bags, half-finished cans of pop and dog toys that stretched the entire main floor of the house. Alot of the debris field was left by a then-40 year old man.

I cried.

So fast forward to today. I woke up to a clean house. i woke up with only 1 shedding dog. I have sat here leisurely checking my emails, blogging and sipping my morning coffee. I will take the dog for a stroll. I would like to think that if I do settle down again and have a family, that it would be different. That my children would joyously stow their toys away after they are done with them in Ikea cupboards in their shiny and sunny playroom. That I would awake every morning with my loving and supportive husband in sheets that smelled like sunshine.

All I know is that the Pink House of Stress seems like a distant nightmare today. Thank goddess.

So far...so neurotic

So I had a little bit of a moment last week. A neurotic moment. It was embarrassing. Liquid Chocolate Eyes and I were messaging back and forth and I said something along the lines of "soooo just so you know, if you are playing the field and I am playing the field, we shouldn't be sleeping together."

Which is an entirely valid point. But it was a classic case of not saying what I mean. The translation of this was "I really really like you, don't want anyone else to have you, and want you to declare right here and right now that you don't want to see anyone else ever again. My image is burned on your corneas and I have ruined you for all others."

His response: what you might expect to such gameplaying. He hadn't thought about it. He hadn't dated anyone else for awhile, hadn't slept with anyone else for a while, but thought I should do whatever was best. If that meant that I needed to go date other people, then I should do that.

So then I freaked out inside while trying to play it unutterably cool. Not to a major extent, but it did involve a fair amount of sleeplessness that night. What had precipitated this conversation was his unavailability this past weekend because he was going to visit his nieces in a place about 3 hour from here. And I was busy the next weekend because my parental units are swooping into town. I immediately thought: what if he meets someone else. I know the rational response to that is that, if he does, then he does and there isn't a damn thing I can do about it.

My grandmother had a saying about boys. You should pay attention to where their feet are. And his feet ended up being in my house after all this weekend for another 30 hours or so.

I went to the City with Squirrel Dater, came home a little less neurotic after buying the proverbial shoes and purse, and was looking forward to a Saturday night of being curled on my chaise lounge when my phone rang. LCE had decided not to go visit his nieces that night after all and wanted to come and visit me. And stayed for 30 hours.

I guess that it has been a really, really long time since I really, really liked someone. I know that sounds sad, but it seems like the last 10 years or so, I settled for guys who were nice on some levels, but that had some issues or some problems or weren't quite the right fit.

LCE fits just fine, and that is what scares the absolute bejesus out of me. When I dated Mongo, and it didn't work out, it was ok, because I realized I didn't like him all that much. When I dated my high school sweetheart again after 17 years, and it didn't work out, it was ok, because he was a sociopath. When I dated Tricky Man, and it didn't work out, it was ok, because he was fundamentally not so bright and sometimes I wanted to staple something to his forehead. And when the Elf didn't work out, I practically jumped for joy, because he was just really very weird.

So, my goal this week, is to be cool, stop being so neurotic, and trust that if things are supposed to work out, they will. To pay attention to where his feet are, just like grandma said. And to avoid sabatoging a very promising start.

I hate this part....

So I have this rule that I don't have sleepovers with gentleman callers for at least 3 months after our first date. This means, if you factor this out, that Liquid Chocolate Eyes (still haven't come up with a non-sucky nickname) should expect to have a sleepover at my house sometime in July.

Which doesn't explain why our second date, which was supposed to be a coffee when he came through town, lasted 38 hours.

Yes folks, 38 hours. Coffee turned into supper, then it turned into watching Tropic Thunder, which then turned into....well, I think you can guess, and ladies don't talk about such things.

Suffice it to say that there may be some chemistry between LCE and myself. In a valiant effort to observe the 3-month rule, I blurted out that this might complicate things if I am still seeing other people and he is still seeing other people. However, in the heat of the moment, this was utterly disregarded by both of us and never mentioned again.

Sooooo....now comes the confusing part. Having had TWO sleepovers on our second date, I am unsure as to whether I can continue to accept other dates with suitors. We didn't talk about it, and it is incredibly awkward to ask these things when you have put the proverbial cart before the horse. I have an allergy to sounding like a clingy female, and asking a fellow on the second date whether or not the relationship is now an exclusive one seems a little needy.

But I DO feel needy. There is a saying that men don't think clearly before they have sex and women don't think clearly after they have sex, and I understand what that means now.

He left yesterday when I had to leave for court, and we had a hot clinch in my living room. And there was no mention of seeing each other again any time soon. He texted me last night to ask how my day went, and we texted back and forth a couple of times, but once again no mention of a third date. And I KNOW I am being neurotic, but I reserve that right, given the infringement of the 3-month rule and the resulting chaos in my little psyche.

I even went so far as to check the online dating site about 6 times since yesterday morning to see if he has signed in (he hasn't, but now it looks like I have - oops).

So while it is very exciting on one level to have a hot new romance, the uncertainty that is incumbent in this stage drives me crazy. Do we now have a standing Saturday night date because we broke the 3-month rule? Can I start writing my name and his last name together and planning the wedding. Just kidding, I know that is totally jumping the gun, but I AM a chick.

Ok, sorry it has been a while....

Well, I have so much to share.

The online dating thing has been very interesting. I have met three people in person. The cowboy/rodeo clown, a psycho ex-cop, and a guy who works in the oil industry who likes conspiracy theories. But not to the extent of Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory. Because that would be UNattractive, and this guy is kind of attractive. Actually really attractive.

Squirrel Dater is getting mad at me for taking them all to the same restaurant, but I figure how are you supposed to weigh the people if you don't make all the variables the same? Of course, the waitresses give me extra great service because I am bringing in heaps of new business. And so far none of them have outted me.

So, the new guy is making me feel a bit twitterpated. I need a nickname for him. Is Liquid Chocolate Eyes too weird? Our date lasted from 7:00pm until 3:30 am the next morning, and all I got was a hug out of the deal. We sat at dinner until the restaurant closed and then went to my house (unprecedented thus far in the online dating experience) and watched Slumdog Millionaire (awesome show) and then watched and made fun of videos on Much Music Retro.

And then...he hugged me.

And I don't mind saying I got the tingles. He tolerated my dog, was interesting and funny for 8 hours and was totally respectful. And he has been texting me ever since. So...dare I hope that this actually might be something? I am going out for coffee today with a guy who, from his pictures, may very well be an albino, but to be honest, my heart isn't in it today, and if I hadn't promised, I would not be going. He seems a little over-invested already, and I have bad memories of the Elf beginning in this fashion.

In other news, Bob got beat up by a Canada Goose and is still struggling with Post-Traumatic Goose Disorder. He got stuck halfway under the deck chasing a cat. And he managed to make a complete ass of himself with Liquid Chocolate Eyes for about 2 of the 5 hours that Liquid Chocolate Eyes was in my residence.