Baby It’s Cold Outside

There are moments of sobering truth that overwhelm our belief in our own significance. And sometimes we are present enough to recognize them.

With A Lot of Help From My Friends

I could never have completed a 444-mile walk without the help and support of many. Thank you is inadequate, but it's all I have in these very emotional moments at the end.

Dear Match.com

Welcome to Match.com! Please complete your profile information below so that we can introduce you to the Man of Your Dreams!

*Sigh*

Name:
Andra Watkins

Code Name:
CPA Lady (I know. Not sexy. Possibly male repellent.)

Address:
525 Hidden Boulevard, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina 29464 (1)

Email:
andracpa@aol.com (2)

Picture:
Uh-uh. No way. This town is too small for a photo. I am mortified that I am on this Site of the Desperate to Date in the first place. I’ve already identified about fifty people I know from their photos, which means they will know me, which further underscores my state of mortification.

Reason You’re Here:
I just got dumped after an almost four year relationship that I thought would culminate in marriage, babies and unending bliss. (Don’t print that.) I’m 32 but keep getting asked out by college students. While that’s flattering, because they’re college students (did I mention I’m 32?), going out with one of them didn’t work so well for me. We didn’t have that much to talk about, and I wasn’t into the beer bong. My other attempts at dating age-appropriate men were failures (guy who dropped out of seminary because he liked sex with men, because, really, I’m NOT a secret man; guy who insisted that we had to stop at his place because he ‘forgot something,’ only to come out in his underwear and insist we stay there – EWWWWW; and guy who was Swiss-Italian – exotic, THE ACCENT – but, at nine years younger than me and only here a year, not in the market for anything serious. It was fun, though.) I guess you’re going to make me admit I’m seeking something serious. With a man. Who likes women.

Age:
I already told you I am 32 and single. Must you keep making me repeat it?

Weight:
Seriously? Not overweight. How’s that?

Height:
5′ 7″

Education:
What does this question mean, exactly?
I went to college. I graduated. I have letters behind my name. None of this seems to impress men.

Religion:
Good grief.
I am Baptist. I respect just about any viewpoint, because arguing over faith issues is a waste of time. Nobody can prove what they believe is correct, because it is a faith issue, so I prefer to be respectful of different points of view. Does anyone on Earth see things that way anymore? Maybe just one guy? Who’s single and likes women? Answering this question is making my head hurt.

Children:
I have to decide how I feel about that right now? Okay. Let me back up. Perhaps, you’re asking whether I have any. NO. If I’m supposed to reveal whether I am a suitable mother for a potential mate’s babies, how am I supposed to know? I’ll just say that I think, for me, parenthood is a decision that should come from a void, a yearning to know a person that only I can create with someone I love and respect. I don’t feel that yearning to know this non-existent person today, but maybe I will someday. It’s hard to think about all that when I can’t even find an age-appropriate guy who’s gainfully employed, not abusive or controlling or a jerk, who likes women. Can we move on?

Profession:
Well, this one ought to make men FLOCK to my profile. I’m a CPA who runs a law firm. I tell lawyers what to do, every day, all day long. Translated: I am a ball-buster. According to the attorneys. They only put up with me because they make more money when they do what I tell them to do. (Do we really have to include this part? Can I just say I have a job? No? *Sigh*)

Interests:
I like theater, reading, travel, shoes, playing piano, singing, acting, writing in my journal, hanging out with my friends and taking baths. And yes, I realize this will match me with gay men, so let me also say – emphatically – that I like to have sex with men who like to have sex with women. Just in case your algorithms get confused.

Match.com is tabulating your information………………..We can’t WAIT to reveal your perfect Match!…………………

And, here he is, your PERFECT LOVE CONNECTION……………………

SERIOUSLY? This is my perfect match? The guy who came out in his underwear on a date with me?

$%^&*#$%@#^&%$#@#%&%$!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DELETE ACCOUNT.

(1) I no longer live at this address. Please do not put the people who now live there on junk mail lists and waste trees, paper and fossil fuel.
(2) Account no longer exists.

This post is part of a series. If the catchy title brought you here today, please follow the link to this post and read forward. And, stick around. There’s more to come.

Sexy and Seventeen

Well, I wasn’t sexy when I was seventeen, or at any other time in my life. But, I did go on my Senior Trip when I was seventeen. We went to Washington DC, that bastion of politics, learning and museums that was supposed to teach us seniors a thing or two about America.

I didn’t appreciate much about that trip, other than a hideous 1987 sweatshirt I bought from a street vendor and the amount of time I got to spend flirting with the cute boys in my class. It was February of 1987, and it snowed on our arrival. My first view of DC (or any big city, for that matter) was of it covered with a wash of white. I giggled and preened and hair sprayed my way through the whole experience.

Yesterday, I relived a portion of that trip. I decided to revisit the Jefferson Memorial, a site I had not entered since that freezing day in 1987 when our group of gaggling twelfth graders decended upon the peace of it. The sky was a bottomless brand of blue, the kind of lovely that happens when summer humidity abates for a few hours. Set against the backdrop of that sky, the white domed building jumped out of the landscape as I walked around the wind-whipped Tidal Basin.

I don’t remember how we approached the Monument my senior year. Maybe we came on a bus, or maybe we walked. I know we were obnoxious, however it happened.

It was different yesterday. I’d already walked past the spot at the White House where I had my photo taken with one of my male classmates and stopped at the Washington Monument, where we all stood in a long line to ride to the top. By the time I approached the Jefferson Memorial on foot, I was sweaty and tired and thirsty, and I knew I had at least four miles to walk on the return. In short, I regretted going out there in the first place.

Until I saw it again up close, a palatial Pantheon in our own country. I made my way through the high school groups to stand inside the breezy, shaded dome, and I sat, still and reverent. I watched a girl try to pole dance on one of the columns, and I wondered if I did that the last time I was there. I listened to the group of girls next to me, complaining about how they were ready to go. That was me at seventeen.

They say we shouldn’t repeat things, that the repetition ruins the novelty of the initial experience. In this case, I’m glad I relived a microscopic portion of my life. With adult eyes, I saw the things I missed at seventeen: the exact copy of the Pantheon ceiling in Rome, minus the hole; the way Jefferson stares longingly at the White House in the distance; the salient words of the Constitution engraved upon the walls; the way the stone columns frame various perspectives; the play of shadow and light.

It was so much better than when I was seventeen.

Too Much is Just Enough: Doing Things Over to Get Them Right

 

The Accidental Cootchie Mama

Okay. So. I think I can safely be called the Accidental Cootchie Mama.

We were invited to go out to dinner with Kristin Walker and her husband Randy. Because Kristin is very involved in the biking community in Charleston, we decided that we would all ride our bicycles for our outing. She and Randy proposed that we meet before dinner at a new place called The Gin Joint, the old Robert’s of Charleston on East Bay Street. Being adventurous, we’re always happy to discover another destination and obliged with a 6:15 meeting time.

MTM selected what I wore, a Patagonia dress that he recently bought for me as a surprise. It is a knee-length halter dress, but I thought it would be okay on the bike. When we started out, it was a little warm, and MTM thoughtfully suggested that if we rode on Concord Street we’d likely catch a breeze off the water that would keep us from arriving drenched with dew.

To digress for a few seconds, Charleston is a rather prudish place. Head on down to Savannah, and people walk around brazenly with open containers. Here, a guy tries to walk a block with his brown paper bag and gets arrested. In the Holy City, it is a weeks-long front page drama when college co-eds want to sun themselves in Marion Square, with numerous folks rising up to call their behavior “indecent” because they’re wearing bathing suits. Revealing oneself to unsuspecting strangers is certainly frowned upon here.

So, we’re riding along Concord Street. Only the slight cooling breeze that MTM hoped for was actually a gale that was blowing off the water and into our faces. I leaned over my handlebars and peddled as hard as I could in my kitten heeled thong sandals. Surely, we would make The Gin Joint on time.

Then it happened. The wind caught my dress and blew it up. I swerved precariously but stayed upright as I yanked my skirt back down with one hand. I wrangled my bike back into a straight path and pressed on. Only, my skirt kept blowing up. I’m weaving all over the road trying to keep my skirt down; MTM is laughing at me; occupants of oncoming vehicles are either howling with laughter, covering their eyes or staring at me reprovingly like I’m some sort of sick, twisted flasher person.

I kept waiting for the Charleston Chief of Police to personally arrest me for indecent exposure, as he would surely be wont to do given his hard line views. Mercifully, we made it to The Gin Joint without my landing in the clink, though I think it is safe to say that my face had not blushed that much in a very, very, very long time. The breeze did have a cooling effect in other places, though.