More Scylla than Charybdis, or how to not get asked on a second date

A couple weeks ago I went on a first date. I know at this point you're like, oh, for Pete's sake, Lis, how many effing posts can you start this way? And do you ever have second dates?

That, my friends, is the question, isn't it?

I had a perfectly nice time with him. He was cute, and big and tall. His only drawback was that he was just slightly delicate - not prancy, just delicate - which is what prompted the conversation with Jen about delicate vs. oafish, and to what degree you might prefer one over the other.

We had easy conversation, except when I said that one of my versions of hell would be to have to do something like hike the Appalachian Trail. Because if I am going to be that uncomfortable and have to camp, it has to be somewhere fascinating, like Nepal. Not somewhere like Appalachia.

This I said to a man who, it turns out, is from West Virginia. And annually camps on the Appalachian Trail.

Ugh. Prying Foot! Out! Of! Mouth! Very difficult with platform shoes on!

But overall, I did have a nice time. He seemed to as well.

This is what I said the next day when Bob asked. And then Bob laughed at my response and said, "So you never want to see him again, huh?"

"What? I said I had a nice time!"

"No. You said, 'I had a nice TIIIMME with him.' Time should not be the most strongly emphasized word in the sentence."

Oh.

So, anyway. I wondered if The Slightly Delicate was one of those things, like someone's voice, or their teeth, that I ought to learn to look past, to see if I could adore the person within. So in the spirit of "accept another date unless you're repulsed" I would have gone out with him second time. Just to see if he might grow on me.

And then he didn't ask me out again.

And so, as I was catching up with Jen, she asked if I thought it was the fact that I denigrated the camping experience of the Appalachian Trail that made him not ask me out again.

And I said that in retrospect, it probably had more to do with the book.

Because, you see, I had said that I love to write, that it's something I do for pleasure, and something I spend a good deal of my free time on. And when he asked what I write, I said that I'm working on a book. Which is true.

He asked, "What's it about? What kind of book?"

"Oh, well, me. A memoir of sorts."

"You're writing a memoir?"

"It's just one of those people telling their slightly odd story kind of memoir. More sort of funny, kind of nutty, vignettes."

"I hope it's more David Sedaris than Running With Scissors."

It turns out he meant this jokingly. I realize this is not exactly tantamount to saying "Gee, I hope it's more Scylla than Charybdis" - but still, I could've said it was far from both. Except that I in all honestly, couldn't.

And so, when I said, "Welllll, it's probably somewhere in between. . ."

Slightly delicate man was a little alarmed.

Note to self: Have on hand the titles of a couple of fairly innocuous memoirs. Or learn to lie and say you're writing fiction.

A travesty of justice

Whenever I am out with Jen I laugh my ass off. It's true. We are just sitting there catching up, swapping stories, laughing and laughing, until I hear a thud. And I look down and it's my ass on the floor. Once again, I've laughed it clean off.

Anyway.

We went to Proof last Friday night to catch up. (Kristin - if you're reading this - we asked but you weren't there.) It's my new favorite spot. It also seems to be the new favorite spot of much of DC.

So I am telling Jen about the slightly delicate man that I went out with a couple weeks ago. Jen's preference is for big, really big, sturdy, corn-fed men. She starts to think aloud about the extent to which she'd prefer oafishness over a too-high voice or delicate gestures.

She says, "I would rather have a beer-belching, crotch-scratching, game-watching man who insists upon eating at Applebee's. . .and um. . ."

She looks pained.

"You just threw up a little in your mouth, didn't you?"

She nods. I get the point, though. No high-voiced delicate-gestured men for Jen.

Shortly after this I get waved at by a guy I went on one date with last year. He is with a date. I am glad; we won't have to chit chat. I wave back.

Jen has to go to the bathroom and so I describe the fellow, as he is right in her path to the bathroom. There is no way she can miss him.

She asks what he's wearing, and I say a blue polo with the collar turned up, dressy jeans, and cream shoes. He makes a lot of money, and I am sure they are very expensive. But shockingly ugly.

She traipses off to the bathroom, and as she is making her way back, I see her inspecting people along the way. Finally she gets to him, stops abruptly, and looks him in the face. I see her eyes widen as she looks him slowly from head to toe. He is intent on his date and it is crowded, so he doesn't seem to notice. Although I don't know how he missed this inspection.

Two years in China erased any and all American ability to be subtle and pretend she's not checking someone out. She has a look of both alarm and recognition as she reaches the shoes. Her head jerks up and she continues back to our table, eyes wide.

She is laughing as she sits down. "That pink Polo logo on his shirt? As big as my face. You couldn't mention that? You made me look for the hideous cream colored shoes!"

"I just couldn't imagine that he'd be hard to spot! He was right on the way!"

"Why in hell didn't you just say, 'He's not wearing an outfit. He's wearing a travesty of justice!'? I would've spotted him immediately!"

Alligator ogling, shark petting, fish nibbling fun

Ohhh was that aquarium event fantastic. I've been to some amazing events, like receptions at the Ambassador's residence in various countries and lawyer proms at fancy museums like the Corcoran, but this was one of the coolest I've ever been to.

When do you ever get to sip wine, snack, listen to live music and peer at sharks? And how did I not know before that I love watching sharks? I tried very hard to get a decent picture of the bitey teeth. They've got rows of them!

We wandered around, admiring the sharks, the turtles, the tropical fish, the beautifully colored, serenely floating jellyfish. There was a cute sea otter lounging on his back.

They had a couple furry skins on a table near the otter, and an empty tank, and I wondered aloud if the skins belonged to whatever used to be in the tank. And was hurriedly hushed. See? They should've stuck me in the shark tank.

It was simultaneously serene and lively. There was always something new and fascinating to look at. I took a lot of pictures, but all (obviously) through glass and without flash. So they're a little grainy and murky.

And the food. Grits and sausage and redfish and some kind of fantastic seafood pasta and a bunch of other stuff I didn't even try. And for dessert one of the options was bread pudding.

I kind of believe bread pudding is actually divine. Like, after God was done making the world, on the seventh day he rested. In the morning. Because in the afternoon he was busy making bread pudding. With whiskey sauce.

One of my favorites was the enormous albino alligator. Incidentally, I took pictures mainly for Lira. You know, because unlike me, he was an actual albino. I like this one with simultaneous above and below water views.

He was ginormous. I couldn't even guess how big. I looked him straight in the eye, with just a pane of (super thick) glass between us. And he just stood, very still, staring. Without blinking. In an, "I'll bite you, my pretty! You and your little dog, too!" kind of way.

Ooh, ooh, and I got to pet a baby nurse shark, and sting rays. I am so very tactile, and this was a delight. Shark feels like sandpaper, sting rays feel smooth and squooshy and soft all at the same time. The sting ray guy was telling us how the stingers are like fingernails, and so it doesn't hurt them to have them snipped. And they have to cut them and file them down on a regular schedule.

I asked if they're poisonous, and he said that the ones we got to pet aren't, but the problem with being stung by them is that the puncture wounds are deep. And so if the wound isn't cleaned immediately and really well, it can easily get infected because of whatever bacteria is on the rays. I love knowing stuff like that. I don't know why.

Toward the end of the event, when copious amounts of alcohol and fattening food had been consumed, it was down to a small group. People were talking about where to get drinks afterwards, on this, our last night.

One of our meeting planners, who I have just recently gotten to know, and to whom I was earlier lamenting my lack of boyfriend, is 24 and just so cute and hilariously funny. It was the end of a long, long meeting. A meeting in which she'd had massive amounts of responsibility and had done a fantastic job. And was finally letting down her long blonde hair.

I said I was tired. And she turned to me, reached over, and pulled out the top of my purple tube dress, and said, "But you have to come out! You're so much fun! And you've got this kick-ass figure and hey, great breasts, by the way. Let's go out and find you men to flirt with!"

And then looked totally stunned. "I'm so sorry. That was totally inappropriate. I don't know why I just did that."

For me, that solidified my liking of her. It's the kind of inappropriate thing I have thankfully not done in a long time. It made me laugh loudly.

And that was the evening. We gorged, ogled fish, drank wine, and toasted the end of an exhaustingly long meeting.

I passed up one last chance to flirt with the men of New Orleans. Instead, I took my alleged kick-ass figure back to the hotel, packed, watched Entourage, and went to bed.

Paddling with the tide

Why is it that when something wakes you up at 4 am, no matter what it is, everything feels soul-crushingly terrible? Is it the dark? Is it the hour of the morning? When it feels like the entire universe, save you, is still and sound asleep and peaceful? Is it the quiet?

It dissipates with sunrise. That's always how it is. Nothing feels as insurmountable when the day arrives. Sometimes all you can do is force yourself not to lose your shit, and to just wait for morning. And breathe. And then the sun rises and the cold fear subsides, and you can organize your thoughts in a positive way. Suddenly everything is more manageable.

I cannot even remember what woke me. But I jerked out of a dream heavy, breathless, my eyes searching wildly in the dark. The first thing I thought of was a phone number.

My friend Andrew called my parents' house last night, and they called me to give me his number. He's an old Peace Corps friend of mine and we caught up several years ago for the first time since saying goodbye at the Lima airport years ago. During the time we were out of contact, it wasn't that he was ever out of my life; he just wasn't in it. If that makes sense.

Anyway, he emailed yesterday, and apparently the tone of my response made him want to talk to me, to know for certain I was fine. And he'd lost my cell phone number. When we were chatting he listed the two numbers he had for me. The 202 one that he rattled off went straight to my stomach; it's B's number. Long deleted from my cell, but not from my mind.

And so, in the blind panic of a 4 am awakening, massive responsibility and regret suffocate me. I should've this. I should've that. My mind is filled with horrible should haves and could haves. One leads to another. To another. To some I've never even thought of before. I have a litany of things I've done wrong, mistakes I've made, decisions I would re-do in a heartbeat.

And then I start thinking about the story Andrew told me last night about paddling through the Everglades. He takes a week-long camping trip there every year, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone.

He said that it's too easy to get up every morning and drive to work, and go to the gym every day because you need to stay fit, and go to the movies every other Wednesday, and watch Jon Stewart every night, and catch up with the same friends, friends you dearly love, every Friday, and do your grocery shopping Saturday mornings. . .

You see where I am going with this. Sometimes you need to shake things up. To remind yourself that the universe is vast and life is short. And travel, particularly when you travel alone, teaches you so many things about yourself and the world.

(I didn't say why camp alone somewhere that they might never even find the alligator that ate you to fish out your remains?) I said I would be flat out terrified to go to the Everglades alone, much less camp there for a week. Andrew reminded me that I'm strong. And that I have traveled plenty alone, and I realize how empowering it is. But the truth is, I'm strong but not that strong.

Where am I going with this meandering missive? Here is where I'm headed.

He said that when you canoe in the Everglades you have to paddle with the tide. You go in with the tide; you come out with the tide.

He wanted to get to a particular spot. And when he sat down with maps and tide charts, he realized that in order to get in and out with the tides, he couldn't paddle both ways in the light. Either in or out would be in pitch dark. For where he wanted to go, those were the options. He decided to canoe in in the dark.

He managed both in and out with no problem. It was fantastic, although he had a momentary crisis when pulling up against what he thought was a mud bank but turned out to be an enormous alligator. Who promptly swam away. But holy shit!

Anyway. He decided to go to the same spot the following year. He had a GPS, and he knew all the coordinates from before. And it was fine until he second guessed himself. He stopped to check, turned on his lamp, temporarily blinding himself (in the pitch dark!) and didn't realize his canoe got turned around. So for a while he was paddling the wrong way. It all wound up fine. But there was a lesson learned.

And so this morning, when I awoke hyperventilating, skin pricklingly hot, arm hair standing on end, and berating myself for poor choices, and reminding myself to breathe, and breathe some more, the phone number led to Andrew led to the Everglades. And to paddling with the tide.

And what I realized is that I think I've finally learned to do that. For a long, long time I was either stuck swirling along with the current, whichever current was strongest, or battling against it. I didn't realize you could pick your current and paddle with it, and it would make things smoother along the way.

I'm not talking about taking the path of least resistance. I'm talking about figuring out the paths that work for you, the ones you like, and then paddling with them. And sometimes you have to paddle in pitch dark and trust that you have made the right decision.

It's not that my 4 am existential crisis burst immediately into chirping birds and rainbows. Far from it. But I did have a little epiphany. I have, slowly slowly, been choosing paths that I like. Ones that come naturally to me and make me happy.

Of course, sometimes I capsize, and come up sputtering and splashing. Every once in a while I am terrified of drowning. But more and more I think I am paddling with the tide.

Relativity. With butter!

I flew back from New Orleans yesterday. We stepped off the plane at Dulles and you could feel all 93 of those Fahrenheit degrees sweltering through the walls of the walkway.

Someone complained about how incredibly hot it was.

And I said, "Yeah, but the good thing about DC is that at least it's dry heat."

The Hell? Is the look I got. From more than one person.

If you do not live here, let me assure you that these are words you will never hear from another human being in the entire DC metropolitan area.

But honestly, in the moment, I totally meant it. And it felt great walking to work this morning! It's such a reminder that everything is relative. I swear New Orleans is twice as humid as DC. You walk outside and your glasses fog up to the point where you cannot see three inches in front of you. It was like having some giant dog following you around panting on you. Ick.

You are just perpetually soggy. Your everything sweats. You walk outside and even your face is quickly covered with a thick film, and you only realize it when the condensation of your own perspiration becomes so great that it actually drips.

That is, of course, the sweat that can squeeze through your pores. Because you know I believe that the butter sweat just will not fit through those itty bitty pore holes.

You know the day after a long night of drinking? When even though you've showered, at some point you get a waft of alcohol, and then another, and you finally realize, holy cow, it's emanating from your very own self? You realize you are a walking, talking, sweating, gin distillery.

And it occurs to you that maybe the best course of action is to fill your bathtub with tonic water and tuck half a lime behind each ear and just run with it. Or maybe that precise scenario doesn't occur to you. But it's what I'm going to do next time, anyway.

This is how I feel about all the butter that was in and on every last morsel I gorged on the last five days. I wondered aloud yesterday if you can actually consume so much that everywhere you go you leave a scent of butter in your wake. Or maybe you could leave butter footprints.

I have a date tonight. And because I am unable to let go of anything absurd, I was thinking, now, if I actually did smell faintly of butter, it could go one of two ways.

Either it could subliminally remind him of baked goods, like chocolate chip cookies, and that could make him feel all warm and fuzzy and happy. Or he could sit there thinking, "Yeah, she's cool, but there's just something, I dunno, kind of sautéed about her."