Dating Debacle #1,242

I marched into the SW baggage office because my suitcase hadn't appeared on the conveyor. I'd just quit the guy I'd gone on a trip with, and he'd just delivered a last litany of stupid, compounding my outrage to the point of tears. Big titty baby, I know. I needed to vent like a live grenade, but the pin was stuck.

To the woman behind the lost baggage counter, I sniveled, "My bag . . . didn't . . . come through." Whimper, whimper. "I'm sorry. [gasp, blubber] I hate a man right now."

She gave me the solidarity grimace. You know, the one that says, Oh girl, I hear ya. Want me to kick his ass? This is what I love about women when you're feeling vulnerable; they get the entire picture in six words. If her coworker hadn't been there (a guy), we'd have pow-wowed with chocolate, a bottle of wine, and a cheese block we could carve into a voodoo doll. Helpful hint: Frilly foil toothpicks make the occasion more festive.

What, you've never done that?

Dating, you take your chances with complete strangers and, at minimum, hope for chemistry and enough things in common to keep things lively. Let's amp that up with the hope that your date's not that guy with the core belief that all women are sneaky and out to get him, cuz that's the guy who'll plant you in a no-win scenario where he can prove that his core belief is true. That's the guy who'll negate everything fabulous and wonderful and fun he did for you because of a single lame-ass assumption about your character.

And just so you don't feel too in the dark, here's a visual for you about how the weekend went:

Click to enlarge.

Here's what I came away with: a renewed appreciation for waterproof mascara and a deep crevice between my eyebrows. Like I need another reason for that.

And now I choose NEXT!, a nice Malbec, and Bridget Jones. Why BJ? Because when it comes to men, I am Bridget, looking for someone to like me just the way I am and holding out for something extraordinary. Someone extraordinary. Dude, where are you?

I leave you with my fave song from the movie, a sexy number you'll want to listen to while you're doing . . . stuff.

Now where are those toothpicks?

P.S. Yes, y'all. I found my luggage. It got to the office before I did. So weird.



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Road Trip Recap: NOLA

Peeps, my sister and I left last Thursday morning for Florida and made two stops in Baytown and Fort Polk to take copious photos of nieces and grandnieces and daughters that we won't see for awhile. We took our time, which was a good thing since it rained almost the entire way. Wouldn't you know it, while we drove butt naked and laughed hysterically, nobody even noticed. What's up with that, Gulf Coast Road Trip Gods? You're making me look bad! Plus I caught a chest cold.

Then came our third stop Saturday night at the Sheraton in the French Quarter. Ooo-la-la! An important note about this hotel, people (especially if you are plagued by vertigo like I didn't realize I was): the windows of the rooms on the 21st floor are carpet to ceiling, so you can stand next to it and feel like you could fall right the hell out. To your splattery death. Were these windows openable, and you didn't fall to your splattery death, you could barf onto Canal Street passersby while looking down from WAAAAY on high, which is, quite frankly, where I'm meant to hang out, gazing down on mortal peons. Am I right?

NOLA dinner was at street level and we stopped in at Huck Finn's for gumbo and related Cajun eats. Then my daughter and her precocious son showed us around, and I was both impressed and grossed out in equal measure at the spectacle that is Bourbon Street. Had I visited there in my younger days as a singleton, I would have fit right in with the other drunks and worn many shiny, beaded necklaces. Now that I'm totally tame (heh, heh, quite possibly that should be lame), I just pose with big, fat, green grenades of the plastic persuasion, while a three-year-old clings to my back, and wonder how bad it would be if I poked a hole in Mr. Rubbery Girth just to watch him blow up and sputter around the piss-stained sidewalks. And just FYI, that is the real reason people get so drunk down on Bourbon Street--it's the only way to tolerate the stinkies. That said, I was completely mesmerized by it all.

The best part of Bourbon Street? I found the treasure of a lifetime. Oh yes. People, a TREASURE! You see, 25 years ago at a Sixth Street piano bar in Austin, a tawdry pianist (really, how do people say that word without laughing?) crooned about that little-known African pygmy tribe, the Fahkawees. They ran through the plains, leaping above the tall grass to see where they were, all the while shouting, "Where the fahkawee? Where the fahkawee?" I was so impressed by their plight, I held their story close to my heart all these years. And now . . . now, I'm an official Fahkawee, thanks to a little shop on Bourbon Street.

Life is good.

More later, peeps.

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