Miss Peach

I finally did what I kept saying I needed to do. I joined Match again.** I have done this before, and I hated it. Sweet mother of GOD, did I hate it. But I didn’t really try to meet people through it; I really sat back to see what came my way. Obviously, that wasn’t the best approach.

After watching it work well for friends, I decided to try again, with the intention of signing on more often and really giving the whole system a fair shake. I signed up on Sunday, and once I was finally up and running, I had to leave for dinner so didn’t have time to check out profiles. So on Monday, around lunch, I decided to sign in and just see if anyone had reached out to me.

I’ll just post the meat of the email I got, because I really can’t paraphrase:

"I really enjoyed reading your profile and love your photos. I know this is over the edge, but I am a nice guy who enjoys going out as a tranny girl. Oddly, as a male I am not effeminate at all and enjoy being one of the guys with my friends... When dolled up, I am very cute and fun and relatively normal!! I am 100% straight, so I only am interested in dating women. Hope to hear from you!"

You do have to hand it to him for being so upfront and honest. But let’s just say this isn’t exactly making me like match any more.

This morning, I decided to go through and send out some emails to people. And there are some interesting guys on there, but this is the overarching theme: I like to be fit. (See photo of me running/playing tennis/hiking/white water rafting, etc.) I travel a lot. (See exotic photo of me petting baby cheetahs, riding camel, with foreign cityscape in the background.) I like fine wine and good food. (See photo of me opening bottle of wine.) I am reading either Freakonomics or From Beirut to Jerusalem. I want to be with some one who is pretty, fit, smart, attractive, passionate, open-minded, outgoing, hot, nice, adventurous, and has a nice rack and/or ass. Interested? Send me an email and be sure to include a picture of yourself!

Which—totally understandable. We all want to be attracted to a potential date. But if you’re trolling for a hot piece of ass, maybe an online venue isn’t your best bet. I suggest you hit up one of the many fratty bars on the Upper East Side where the hot, just-graduated sorority girls from Rutgers hang out.

The whole thing just smacks of uber-alpha males to me. I am man, I am in control of my destiny! I will have a hot girlfriend and trek through the wilds of Thailand! Me run long distance very fast! Me like to ski down steep hills with many rocks! Me like to take risk! Don’t let that fool you though. I’m also totally sensitive—I have nephews and we watch SpongeBob together, and I really enjoy going out to a good dinner/good museum/good play. Blech.

I’m still not convinced this is the way for me to meet someone. But I have spent cold, hard cash on this endeavor, so I will swallow my snarky reactions and borderline bad attitude and persevere. Just, erm, not with the tranny.

**Thank you, GG, for the awesome profile, and sorry I can't link from my post for some reason, but if you don't know GG, click on Red Red Whine on my blogroll. You won't be disappointed!

Ohmygod.
Work is really busy.
Also, life is busy. I went on a vacation! A real, true vacation! As in, not to visit my parents or attend a wedding!

I went to Colorado and I skied for the first time in 12 years. Which, though I couldn’t wait to get there, had me in a full-on freak-out state for the week leading up to the trip.

I am not the most coordinated person. I fall over standing up. My college housemates would sometimes just watch me and laugh, because I would constantly knock into things and fall over for no real reason. So the whole going-to-stay-with-a-former-coworker-and-her-new-husband-to-ski-for-the-first-time-in-over-a-decade was a little daunting.

I was envisioning a variety of scenarios, but I’ll just share with you the following ones, which received the most detailed, sick imaginings on my flight west:
1) I panic at the top of a hill and spend hours talking myself down (this happened once—I was 10, and my friend Nelson led me to the top of Golden Eagle, which was not just a black diamond but a DOUBLE BLACK DIAMOND. I still hold this against him. That time, I located a ski patrol member and she kindly brought me down, and Nelson got an earful from both our mothers afterwards. Holy Mother of God, that was terrifying.) Anyhoo, given the lapse in time since I last hit the slopes, I was waiting for this to happen atop either a beginner or intermediate slope, so that not only would it be supremely annoying to my companions but also utterly mortifying.
2) I no longer remember how to ski at all, and I wind up in ski school for two days. This more for the embarassment factor than anything else.
3) I fall and break something.
4) I careen out of control, smack into a tree, and break something (a la Arnold Schwarzenegger).
5) I careen out of control, smack into a tree, and die (a la Sonny Bono).
6) Another skier or snowboarder smacks into me and either maims or kills me.
7) Worst case: I smack into another skier or boarder and either maim or kill them.

Verdict: Skiing really is like riding a bike. I am happy to report that none of the preceding scenarios occurred. I graduated from beginner to intermediate slopes after my first run on my first day. And, to make things even better, I only had one fall the whole time!

It was in the café, while I was getting hot chocolate the afternoon of our first day on the mountain.

I went down so hard that the sound quite literally stopped all movement in the room for a good 30 seconds. I was fine, just mortified. (I trust that anyone that has ever worn ski boots will understand how easily this can happen and not make fun of me.)

I’ve got the ski bug again. This is an expensive habit. I’m therefore looking for friend with either a home in the mountains or access to a home in the mountains. I will provide the entertainment. As in you can watch me fall on my ass regularly. Oh! And, like my friend’s husband, when I pull on my old-school ski pants (it’s been 12 years, my gear is retro, okay?), you too can point at me, start laughing, and inform me between gasps that I kind of look like Napoleon Dynamite. (I know that sounds mean, but it wasn’t. It was just hysterically funny and had me crying with laughter pre-skiing.) And I’m a good cook, so I’ll make dinner every night. In fact, made a killer pork tenderloin last night that would be just fabulous for an apres-ski dinner.

Any takers? Hellooooooooooo? Anyone?