3 Month Checkup

Alright ladies, it's been 3 months since we've made New Year's resolutions. A mere 90 days ago, 2010 was full of hopes and promises, but how do we feel now? Let's see where we stand!

And the Oscar goes to...

Let's face it. WWBD? is a work of genius. It is only a matter of time before some literary agent discovers us- dating disasters, imaginary boyfriend, drunk dials, and all. Obviously we will all be flown to LA where the four of us shall all meet each other (apart from Vi who has met everyone!) and pour over our entries, deciding what ones need to go into THE BOOK: 'What do you do with your arms?'

After taking the difficult decision to go public with our true identities we will go on a whirlwind press tour promoting what the New York Times and Oprah is sure to call: "the greatest book of our time". The book shoots to the top of the bestseller list and remains there even with competition from JK Rowling who writes an 8th Harry Potter book solely to try and get rid of us.

Where there is a bestselling book there has to be a best-selling movie. And, just to complete the dream, Violet, Scarlet, Grayer and Fenella win the Oscar for 'best original screenplay.' (Oh and I meet Chris Pine during our whirlwind publicity tour. Obviously he falls head over heels in love with me).

Now ladies we need some casting! Suggestions so far include:

Violet - Anne Hathaway
Fenella - Amy Adams (love her but she might be a bit old to portray a 23 year old...)
Grayer - ?
Scarlet - ?
The Dark Horse - ?
Conrad - ?
etc.....

And may I suggest, if you are incredibly bored at work (which in case you can't tell, I normally am!) daydream about your wardrobe for the press tour and award shows. It's fun.

Even babies love Hermes

I know this is a dating/relationships/singleton blog, but we singletons love nothing if not our chick-lit, and lately my life has been a Devil Wears Prada/The Nanny Diaries hybrid, only without the Harvard Hottie or the Adrian Grenier boyfriend. *sigh* That and the fact that my love life is still in winter hibernation mode, so I don't really have anything else to write about. Although even if I did, this story still needs to be shared with the world.

I was watching Eloise last Friday, as usual, when Ms. X (Eloise's mother) asked me to run an errand for her, as I also function as her personal assistant. She asked me to run to Hermes, to pick up a gift she had on hold for a friend's baby while Eloise was at her guitar lesson (like any normal 5-year-old). Very Devil Wears Prada. My first thought was: Hermes? For a baby? What are they going to do, diaper the kid with a $500 scarf? What on earth would you get a child, let alone a baby, at Hermes?

I pulled into the parking lot- I declined the complimentary valet parking, thank you very much- and immediately knew I didn't belong. My yellow ford focus didn't exactly fit in with the black Mercedes and Audis that were already there. Not to mention the fact that I was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers, and this was a store with a guard at the door, and sales people who wear immaculate designer suits that cost more than my car. I was expecting a scene straight out of Pretty Woman, where the employees look at me with disdain because I wasn't dressed properly, and kind of wished I was wearing thigh-high boots and a halter top in the hopes that I would meet a Richard Gere-type sugar daddy.

Fortunately, the sales clerk was much nicer to me than the people of Beverly Hills were to Julia Roberts, and was very helpful and friendly, despite my attire. When I told him who I was picking up for, he thought for a moment, and said, "Oh yes, it was a bookmark!"

A bookmark? For a baby? He came back with what appeared to be a small, purple hippopotamus. Surely I could buy that at Barnes and Noble? I whipped out Ms. X's credit card, as he said, "That will be $178.60."

178 what? Dollars? Surely, he must have meant rupees? Or pesos? Or soles? But no, he meant one-hundred and seventy-eight American dollars.

For a bookmark? For a baby? Who can't even read? I don't spend any money on bookmarks. I use an old receipt. Or a brochure I don't need. Or a wad of paper I found lying on the ground. Or, if I'm feeling really fancy, I use a free bookmark from the check-out desk at the library.

A hundred and seventy-eight dollars? Good grief.

As soon as I got into the car, I called Grayer. Like I said, this is something that needs to be shared with the world. I mean, how many people know that $178 bookmarks exist? Because I sure as hell didn't.

First of all, if this woman can spend this much money on something that will probably never be used for a kid that isn't hers, then I am clearly underpaid. That's almost as much as I get paid for watching Eloise in a week. Depending on the week, it could be more. She just spent more on a
bookmark than she spends on a week of childcare. There is something fundamentally wrong with that. Second, if anyone gave my offspring a gift like that, I would return it to the sophisticated boutique from which it came, and use that money for something useful. Like starting a college fund.

$178. For a bookmark. For a baby. I will never, ever get over this.

Taking the online plunge

It is a woman's prerogative to change her mind. Which I've done. I was very wary of internet dating. I didn't want to try it and didn't like the idea of filling in little boxes about myself. Then one day I was off sick and bored and I decided to see what dating sites were out there. Just out of curiosity you understand.

While researching I came across a site which instantly appealed to me. It's called My Single Friend and I have linked the site in case you're curious. The difference with this site is that rather than you writing about yourself and making yourself sound fantastic, a friend does it for you. You fill out all the basic information- height, city, employed status, etc. you get a friend to write a description and then you write a response. My type of site.

I mentioned it to Vi who agreed this had potential. And because Vi knows me really well and has a way with words I enlisted her help. She wrote a lovely and witty description and now ladies I am on a dating site.

And it's fun.

There are different things that can be done:

1. I can add guys to my favourites and they can add me to theirs
2. There are 'mutual favourites'
3. I can email guys and they can email me
4. And finally, Vi's favourite- she can recommend guys to me. She is loving the meddling opportunities!

So far I've had about 16 guys add me as their favourites, some have looked promising. Others I've deleted pretty much straight away. It's bringing out my ruthless side. I have 3 mutual favourites and 6 emails. One email consisted of: 'Hey, you've got an interesting profile? where do you work?' Um...no. However, one particular email was really, really good and made me laugh. A lot. I'm trying to formulate a response.

I'm not yet thinking about actually meeting up with someone. I'm taking it in baby steps. But my conclusion so far? Loving it.

Chivalry is not (quite) dead

My car will be the death of me. Financially, anyway.

I was on my way to pick up Eloise yesterday when, once again, my car started making ominous noises, which were a little too similar to last month. This time, I pulled into a gas station as soon as possible. Luckily, my spindle hadn't snapped again. No, my rear tire was merely ripped to shreds. On one hand, I was happy that's all it was, but on the other, it was blatantly obvious that I was going to need a new tire. This was no patch job, that was for sure. At this rate, I will need a third job just to pay for my car (which is paid off).

I've changed a tire all by myself before, so that's what I set up to do, thinking all the while about what Grayer said about the man of my dreams coming to my assistance. I jacked the car, and got out my wrench, and took off the first two lugnuts. But I was still sore from my kickboxing experiment on Monday, and was really struggling with the last two lugnuts. Throughout this process, two men were standing at a pump, waiting for their tank to fill up and watching. And watching me struggle. I am an independent woman, capable of changing my own tire, but I just kept thinking, really guys? Can't you help a girl out? Finally, when I straightened up from another failed attempt to loosen the stubborn lugnut, one of the guys was standing right next to me. It was kind of creepy. He didn't say anything, just took my wrench and started unscrewing. "Thanks," I said. He didn't say anything. His friend finished pumping his gas, helped the first guy take off my shredded tire, and put on the spare, not saying a word. As the first guy was tightening up the lugnuts, I once again said, "Thanks so much!" Finally, he spoke: "Make sure you don't drive over 45, 50 mph on these donuts." Right. And that was all.

For all the "luck" I am supposedly having, it's not translating into any other aspect of my life. I've sunk $1,000 into my car in the last month. I have not met a Harvard Hottie in Eloise's building, and I certainly can't meet men outside of her building, since everyone assumes the mini-me holding my hand is my daughter. Dogs are man-magnets. Children are not. Now I can't even find a man while being a damsel in distress on the side of the road. What is this world coming to?

Mama said knock you out

The other day, I had a rare late morning/early afternoon off, so I checked the gym schedule for a class, saw kickboxing at the right time, and went.

Two days later, I'm still struggling to lift my arms and put a bra on.

What I expected was a toned, 40ish woman standing in front of the class, instructing us to punch and kick the air in reps of 8, all to the tune of dance hits of the '90s. Instead, I found an Ultimate Fighting Champion/Brad Pitt in Fight Club, complete with the tattoos and mohawk, wrapping my hands and handing me boxing gloves, and blaring Eminem-type rap music with lyrics like, "take that, mother fuckaaaaa." And yet somehow, while he was screaming "Push-ups! Go!" and "Mountain climbers! Go!" over said rap music during our "warm-up" (which had me sweating profusely in mere seconds) I found something about it oddly sexy. Hmmm...

Since I was new to the class, I had the dubious honor of being paired with the instructor so he could show me the proper fighting technique. It was brilliant, actually. For 40 minutes, I did my best to beat the snot out of a man. It was incredibly therapeutic.

Emotionally unavailable?

THWAK!

$800 to fix my car? Do you know how many pairs of shoes I could get with that?

POW!

Not to mention the self-defense skills I picked up as Brad Pitt taught me how to use knees and elbows, as well as a jab and right hook.

So yes, every inch of me hurts, from my abs to the palms of my hands. (Seriously, the palms of my hands!) But I'm itching to do it again, and I would recommend you do the same.

Rejection Adjectives

I am no longer a cool aloof ice queen. You may remember my discovery that WW is just not that into me. However, was I smart enough to leave it at that? That would be a no.

I blame wine and technology.

I was out with friends on Friday night. After a bottle (or two) of wine we got discussing WW and the men in our lives. My friend decided that I needed closure. I have no idea why I agreed with her. I guess I just had that scene from Friends stuck in my mind where Rachel leaves Ross a voicemail: "and that my friend is what they call closure." I've always kinda wanted to do that.

Now my drunken self should have been prevented from making a fool out of myself because I had smartly deleted his number from my phone. But my drunken self can be quite canny. I remembered that his number was saved in a Facebook email. And this is where technology is evil. Thanks to the progression of cell phones that were once the size of bricks to fancy new cell phones that can access the world wide web with a touch of a few buttons, well, you can figure out the rest.

His phone number once again installed in my phone I proceeded to text him. Even at this stage it could have ended relatively painless as the first couple of texts were innocent and friendly enough. Then I ruined it.

I said something along the lines of: "Just so you know I don't make a habit of kissing my guys friends...I kind of like you...thoughts?" I have deleted the messages so I'm relying on memory here. I'm sure that you've guessed by now that my drunken text didn't work out like Violet's.

Picture the scene. It's 11.30 on a Friday night. I'm in McDonalds because I decided that I really needed a burger. Burger in one hand, phone in the other I read a text message that went something along the lines of:

"Wow, big question! I know we kissed both times we met up...you're nice but...sorry that's just how I feel."

I'm nice?! This is one of the worst rejection adjectives. Ever. If you're going to hear: "You're _____________ (insert adjective) but..." you don't want nice.

Maybe it's just me. After all why should the choice of rejection adjective matter? But I think it does. If I'm going to get rejected at least let me maintain a little bit of my dignity with a decent adjective.

So what do we think are 'good' rejection adjectives?

And once again ladies I urge you to not drink and text or dial. One of these days I will practice what I preach.