Alright, I realize I've gotten away from the original purpose of this blog, which was to share my hard won dating experience. (Sweet Potato showed me an article from Good Housekeeping about internet dating, and this is my more specific, and hopefully more helpful, version.)

Things which should cause you to run away:
-If the last book a guy read was The DaVinci Code, run away.
-If a guy mispells "intelligence" on his profile (twice), run away.
-If a guy says "life is short" or any other kind of Carpe Diem-esque sentiment, run away. (Life is not short. It is very, very long. Some woman in California had time to make hundreds of thousands of pipe cleaner dolls dressed in unique outfits [See exhibit at The American Visionary Art Museum] and you know she had kids and a job and probably an interest or two. Think of how much T.V. you've watched. Life is very, very long.)
-If a guy sends you a picture in which he is taking a picture of himself in a mirror with his shirt off, run away. It is too confusing.
-If a guy says he is looking for symbiosis in a relationship, run away.
-If a guy says he liked War and Peace because it had a lot of life lessons in it that still apply today, run away.
-If a guy says something like "how wild it must be to race on top of this strong powerful animal" when you say you went horseback riding, run away.
-If a guy rapsodizes about your beautiful smile and he's never seen it in real life, run away.
-If a guy comments on one of your interests with a line that was cut and pasted from Wikipedia, run away.

Now, for the upside. Cause I believe in an upside.
-If a guy says that after he read your email, he consulted Wikipedia or Dictionary.com, that's cool.
-If a guy says he reads only technical manuals for work, that's cool. Just no Da Vinci Code or Angels and Demons.
-If a guy sends you a picture from his work badge, that's cool. Goofy, but cool.
-If a guy asks you a question about yourself, that's extremely cool.
-If a guy is able to list his top five [movies, bands, books, historical eras, whatever] and does not complain about the impossibility of picking/ranking, that's cool.
-If a guy sends you a picture of the elk he shot and mounted in his basement, that's cool. You might not want to go out with him, but it's a cool picture to have.
-If a guy sends you links to neat stuff, that's cool.
-If a guy narrates his emails in real time (Just got back from work and...well, I've got to go meet the guys at Tully's), that's cool.
-If a guy apologizes for something he thinks in retrospect might not have sounded kosher, that's cool.

Feel free to add in the comment box.

Today was the screening of my movie at the BMA. It was awesome. But the best part was sitting with the Potatoes, Sister Red, and the Padre, all there to support me. I am a lucky, lucky human bean to have such friends.

Today was largely uneventful, except I got the results from my bloodwork. Mostly things were fine, except my liver function is somewhat impaired (a 50 when 0-40 is the normal range). I'm getting retested in a month to discover whether the number is screwy because I've been having wine with my dinner occassionally or because I have some dread malady like gall bladder disease.

Cross your fingers.

The other weird result was my estrogen levels. Normal range for a menstruating female is 19-528. I scored a 13. Hummmm. I suppose I can no longer blame my weepy hysterics and love of romance novels on my estrogen level. Progesterone, prepare to become my scapegoat.

In other health news, I feel pretty good considering that I'm coming apart at the seams.

Wow, I have been very remiss in my posting. Yesterday I was starring in a film, but for Friday, I have no excuse.

(Hee, hee. I was starring in a film.)

The shoot was eternal (I left the house at 5 a.m. and got home at 1 a.m.), and oh my but acting is a lot of standing around, wondering "what's keeping lunch?" (Union actors get paid every 15 minutes that a meal is late.)

We shot at four locations: the Canadian Embassy in D.C., a creek in Silver Spring, a rowhome under construction in Hampden, and a pool in Carroll County. My co-star, an Orlando Bloom look-alike, squired me from location to location in his 1991 Subaru with a stinky, dead mouse moldering in the dash. He made up for his elaborate plans to start an ethanol monopoly should acting not pan out by doing a spot-on rendition of Arlo Guthrie singing "Alice's Restaurant."

Farid, the most charming white-haired, Iranian insurance broker, drove me to my car at the end of shooting, which reminds me that I should send him an e-thank you. If Farid is indicative of the Iranian character, I do hope we don't invade them.

The film is showing this Tuesday at the BMA. To be honest, the plot was incoherent, my acting was hammy, and my best line (I am a journalism student, and I'm looking for an opportunity.) is fairly snappy compared to the rest. But I'm a movie actress now, in addition to international playgirl, so it's all good.

Today was very, very boring.

We thoroughly discussed the limpet at dinner tonight, and after the topic was exhausted, Swims with Dolphins told the table about a snail that surfs ocean currents to beaches where feasts of dead fish await. Once gorged, the sailing snail burrows into the sand and awaits high tide to take him home again.

Sometimes I am not a fish at all. Sometimes I'm a sailing snail.

In Arts news, I saw an exhibit on race, gender, and ethnicity at the American Visionary Arts Museum this afternoon. They had a computer program which scans your face and alters your features to show how you'd look as Asian, black, Latino, etc. As a black woman, I look like Juwanna Mann.

In Chess news, I lost a game last night to Captain America, the mechanic. Sigh. I am such a classist.

I'm afraid I need to clarify an item for my learned commentators. Ahem. A limpet is a mollusk, not a fish.

In Entertainment news, I am meeting with the director of my first film this evening! I've joined a team competing in the 48 Hour Film Project, and this weekend, I will perhaps perform my breakout role. Check it out:

http://48hourfilm.com/filmmakers/rules-filmmaking.php

However, the most interesting news is that Captain America most kindly offered to drive me to Silver Spring for the cast meeting. Why? I couldn't say. Either he finds me extremely charming or his Tuesday evenings are extremely boring.

Am I more charming than Tuesday evenings are boring? Hummmm.

The past few days, I've been exhausted. On Saturday, the Potatoes, Swims with Dolphins, and I went to the quarry, played Settlers of Catan which is AWESOME, and then saw "An inconvenient Truth" at the Charles. Next day, Sister Red, her boyfriend, his sister, and I went to mass and lunch. Then, the World Cup with Mom, and consoling Dad, who was passing a kidney stone. Today, there was blood work a-go-go and a session with Moonpie, the hippy dippy chiropractor. Phewww.

All this is to explain why I took a three hour nap this afternoon, during which I had a vivid dream. My mother, sister, and I were climbing a steep hill to see a waterfall and a cavern. The first part of the ascent was completely vertical, and we climbed without harnesses or belays or other mountaineering accoutrements. We were wearing backpacks.

My mother went first, and at the top of the vertical incline, nearly fifty feet in the air, she managed to pull herself over the ledge. My sister was next. I should go back to say that the going was very, very slow, since Mom was first. We'd climb step-pause-step-pause-rest-step, just as you'd imagine mountaineering with your nearly retired Mom might go.

Well, when my sister reached the ledge, my mother leaned over and grabbed the straps of her backpack, and hauled her to safety. I was next, and my sister grabbed my straps and pulled, so that I was swinging like a baby in a basket, back and forth through the air, waiting for the motion to ease so she could drag me up, else waiting the plummet to what was certainly death or terrible injury.

The most interesting part of the dream was how calm I was as I swung. I told myself to leave the plummeting or the rescue to the future where it clearly belonged, and enjoy the rocking motion as much as possible, and the wonderful feeling of adverturing with mother and sister, the characters of my life before memory.

I woke up before the incident was resolved, but I think it was heading towards me be pulled to safety.

Ye olde internet connection was down last night, so this is what I would have said, had tech-mology been cooperating:

I've had trouble breathing since Q and I broke up three months ago. Distress can cause chest constriction, you know. So, I've been pitying myself, thinking "I haven't been able to breathe in three months." Sigh, woe is me.

Well, yesterday morning, after a rather alarming, unhappy discovery, the thought pops into my mind, "I don't need to breathe. I'm a fish."

My dear sister will accuse me of being obscure, but I can't think of a more clear way to put it. Glory be, I am a fish.

I also promised ma soeur that I'd find the upside by the end of the day. The upside is as follows:

• I lost 0.8 lbs this week, for a grand total of 103.8 lbs.

But the real upside always is that the world is a strange and wonderful place, that God has not yet seen fit to test me like Abraham, and that I am being molded into something better all the time.

So, I'll admit, my last post was a weenie-post. My dear readership (all two of y'all - hollah back!) must have been gravely disappointed.

The 4th is always eventful in the Petard-i-verse, except for those years when it isn't, and I am happy to report that this year was no exception!

The evening began with a delicious dinner at the Potaoes, with Mr. Potato's father, the Marine Mammal Official (MMO) and his wife, the knitting Alaskan programmer (KAP). After a rousing - errrr - long game of Trivial Pursuit, a coinciding game of phone tag with Captain America came to an unexpected conclusion. Shooting shit is postponed to next week, but Captain America did come out to watch fireworks with the rest of the merry - errrr - contented band. The scene at the Wynan Park baseball field was, as Cptn USA put it, "like the bar scene in Star Wars."

I had a lovely time, and I grow to like the Potatoes more with each passing day. I'm sad I didn't get to know them well earlier.

In Sports News, the national teams of both boys who recently neglected to call after the first date have met humiliating ends in the World Cup. Ukraine and Germany, leave comments and I'll let you know which of your countrymen is to blame. Bwah ha ha.

Happy 4th of July!

This morning I woke up feeling like a harem princess.

Yesterday, Sweet Potato redecorated my entire apartment. (Mr. Potato quite patiently screwed things into the wall, created a plumb and checked the level of my ceiling among other things, and guarded the car while Sweet Potato and I returned to Ikea for a tres cool looped curtain which absolutely does not have a hippie vibe.)

Sweet Potato is developing her decorating philosophy, and one day, I predict that she'll have her own home design empire a la Martha Stewart. Some Sweet Potato-isms:

• Rooms should flow into each other.
• Spaces should be defined.
• asymmetry looks cool.
• Dangling things look neat.

My apartment looks occupied for the first time. And not in a bad way, like France in early '40s.

I think I will take a lover. I'm tired of acting virtuous, pretending that this is the 50s and a dreamy kiss goodnight on my doorstep is the culmination of all my girlish desires. I'm 28 for God's sake! Who am I fooling?

I'm tired of listening to "time's winged chariot drawing near." I'm tired of pretending I'm scandalized by dirty jokes. I'm just tired of fussing with a losing proposition. Yet, biology is insistent. So here is my list of qualifications:

• Good looking
• Passionate
• Willing to experiment
• Possessed of some fatal flaw that makes him ultimately resistable (bad conversationalist, underemployed, Libertarian)
• Fun
• Sufficiently messed up in his own head that he doesn't judge me
• No weird guilt complexes

Now, Dr. Y, you BETTER not have told you-know-who about this blog. THAT would be mortifying.

And if any dear readers think of any candidates and/or additions to my list of qualifications, by all means, comment away.

Just got home from the Potatoes. Swims with Dolphins was there, and later on Captain America joined us. Sweet Potato made fondue, and we drank wine and rated it on the leg-spreader scale (0 to 180 degrees). Then we played living room baseball with some wrapping paper and a cat toy. I absolutely love the Potatoes and Swims with Dolphins. They are exactly what people should be.

And in other news...Captain America has promised to take me to the shooting range on Wednesday. Perhaps my inner bloodthirsty anarchist will be released. Stay tuned.

One more update: Yesterday evening, Sweet Potato and I went to a "Purse Party" at the Turtledove's house. This is how much I love the Turtledove, that I would consider buying a knock off Prada handbag machine sewn in China. But the most beautiful thing happened. We met Turtledove's husband, a waterman, and he showed us his crab traps (called crackpots) and explained how to tell the male crabs from the females and how to tell when a crab is about to molt. Then, we sat on the dock and watched the sun set into the Bay, and talked about the Tetons and a hundred other things. It was one of those moments of perfect comfort with a perfect stranger. Beautiful.