I recently went out with a dude with a beard (It’s a sensible, trimmed, full-beard/moustache combo. A good accessory for one of those corduroy jackets with elbow patches). I met him on the internet and based on the photos, I had a 50/50 chance of facial hair. For those of you who know me, this is a rarity. I’ve lucked out and for the most part I have dealt with minimal face fuzz (sideburns, goatee, 5 o’clock shadow). Would I stop going out with a guy because of facial hair decisions alone? Probably not. But if he were to go crazy and shave his beard into the porn stache, or trim the sensible beard into a chin beard… he may have to go.
In the meantime, I have a friend who’s woman WANTS him to grow some facial hair. I have no clue why. He is totally opposed to the idea. I think he has grown a ridiculous soul patch to appease her.
For those of you on the hunt for dudes with ’staches, Misprint magazine is hosting their 4th Annual Beard and Moustache Contest on February 19th at the Mohawk

So, I have started a letter writing campaign (on-line dating again). This time, it is in the name of science. A friend sent me a link to this blog entry by the super nerds that run the dating site (yes, they run stats on everything). They were looking at how race effects reply rate (they have looked at a whole host of reasons why people may or may not respond to your message). The numbers generated this nicely colored chart.

The chart shows that:
Men don’t write black women back. Or rather, they write them back far less often than they should. Black women reply the most, yet get by far the fewest replies. Essentially every race—including other blacks—singles them out for the cold shoulder.
My first instinct was to delete my profile and end my Don Quixote type search. But then I figured that I should keep on in the name of science. It’s a lot like casting bottled messages out to sea.
I sent the dudes and email not to long ago asking if they have looked at the numbers by location.
Stay tuned.
I was inspired to harness the power of social networking after M forwarded a tweet from a guy who was looking for a date.
Alright, twitter friends, I need a date. With a girl. Just dinner and such. PS-I have a job and a car. RT! RT!
Simple and to the point. Apparently this guy decided it was worth a try to use twitter to get a date before the end of the year vs. paying for internet dating sites. I am curious to see how that goes.
M and my sis made an attempt to find me a date on Twitter last February. I think the failure was that the “ad” took 3 to 4 tweets. This time I went with something simple.

In my head this was safer than posting or trolling on CL to keep myself entertained this winter while M is on vacay.
After almost a year long hiatus, I have decided to get back on the horse and start dating again.
I use the term dating loosely. I am really looking for a new partner in crime. With M in school I have been left to my own devices most of the time. On occasion I will go out on my own, but more often I am holed up in my house.
What exactly am I seeking out in a partner in crime. A slightly more punctual, male version of M (I suppose I could take a female applicant, but I’d rather a male because I would like additional benefits). Someone who will get me out of the house to see shows or grab drinks/dinner. It would be nice if they lived in the Downtown/Mexico area. After eight years of living in a house up North, I have decided that the numbered streets are much better.
M has already attempted to Social Network my ass. Now she has encouraged me to “sell” myself on CL.
I posted the ad for my ticket the “W4M” section of CL. I was torn between there and “Strictly Platonic”. Stay tuned on how this pans out. When all else fails I will be moving my ticket to the “for sale” area of CL.
For those of you too lazy to search, here is the text.
Explosions in the Sky July 4th - 32 (Stubbs)
I have an extra ticket to the show at Stubbs. Technically it would be a double date. I would like to go with someone* vs. being the 3rd wheel. Doors are at 7. Not sure what the pre-show or post-show plans are just yet. Most likely biking downtown and grabbing drinks somewhere.
*Specifics on that someone
- At least 5′11″ and between the ages of 28 and 36.
- You are the type of guy who likes to know how things work
- Knows who Maurice Sendak is
- Likes vegetables
- Is computer literate but isn’t a social networking addict
- Can tolerate some shenanigans
- Non-smoker
As for myself, I am a tall black girl (but I am in no way, shape, or form going to be your ghetto princess) with hot librarian glasses. I am a scientist by day and on occasion I moonlight as a designer/seamstress.
Just looking for someone to share my ticket with and possible get to know. Email me if you are interested, we can exchange pics and go from there.
So I logged back in to the dating site. After seeing Christian Rudder live and in person I felt the need to try again. Sunday I logged in and updated my profile. I explained that my absense was because I had been treating the site like Zappos for men (yes, I used those words). What I failed to mention is that I only window shop on Zappos. I have purchased more than a dozen pair of shoes but they were all returned within days of opening the box.
I suppose that you could say the same for my man shopping habits. Mainly window shopping. I have gone on a few dates but definitely no keepers just yet.

Zappos must have been listening. These men appeared in my inbox today.
There are way too many times in my life where I have flashbacks of grade school gym class. Most people would agree that gym was not a highlight in their academic career.
I had a discussion with a friend of mine and my love/hate relationship with dating. Apparently I go through phases of feast or famine. There is no happy medium. I am either all in or I want nothing to do with men. I let the conversation end there. I couldn’t actually go through with what I am about to write now.
I wanted to ask if he knew what it was like being picked last in gym. That’s what it has felt like my entire life. I was the girl that no one asked out on a date. I was the girl who almost didn’t go to prom (I ended up asking a friend). I was the girl who didn’t have her first kiss until she was 21. So what do you do when you are the kid that is picked last or not at all? You do your own thing. You start your own game or you sit on the sidelines. Or in my case, you say that you have band practice and you use your fake hall pass to get the hell out of there. I spent a lot of time in the band hallway and not in gym.
I was tired of sitting on the sidelines with the whole dating thing. That’s why I got off my ass and started asking people out. Unfortunately rejection once again reminds me of gym class. Hence my love/hate relationship with dating. That’s why I can do it for awhile and then I just need to take a break before I have an emotional breakdown. A person can only take that much rejection.
Just like the Walkmen declared. We said that 2008 was going to be a good year. Not just a good year but the Best Year Ever! I can’t say that it was mind-blowing but, it was definitely better than 2007. We picked up our tired, broken souls and we moved forward. “Out of the darkness and into the fire…”
For now I will give you the wrap up for 2008. The best of 2008 will come later.
This year in live music: Brothers and Sisters; Quiet Lovely; Les Savy Fav; Ghostland Observatory; SXSW (What Made Milwaukee Famous, the Constantines, Shout Out Louds, NERD, Explorers Club, El-P, Dizzie Rascal, Dan Oh, Staccato, Flosstradamus, Fuokids, Cut Copy, Moby, Ra Ra Riot, Bound Stems, MSTRKRFT, and Kimya Dawson); Ra Ra Riot; The Little Ones: Prince Paul; Tapes n’ Tapes; Flosstradamus; Thao and the Get Down Stay Down; Ratatat; Voxtrot; Cool Kids; David Byrne; Weezer; Tokyo Police Club; Girl Talk; Brothers and Sisters; FFF Fest (The National, Atmosphere, Deerhoof,… and You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Bishop Allen, Centromatic, Parts and Labor, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Spinto Band, Frightened Rabbit, Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears, The Dead Milkmen, Clipse, Franki Chan, and Toxic Avenger); Rosebuds; and Matt and Kim.
This year in non-live music: I now own an iPod. According to Last.fm, my top 10 bands are: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltzin, the Eels, Girl Talk, the Sea and Cake,Tapes n’ Tapes, British Sea Power, Frightened Rabbit, Wilco, Atmosphere, and the Pixies. I do like these bands a lot but there is a problem with last.fm and the iPod scrobbling. It doesn’t catch a lot of things that I listen to because I don’t sync my iPod frequently enough.
This year in Sewing: I taught a few more classes at FirstSamples. I did some more alterations. I taught M to sew and gave her a sewing machine to play with. Designed a line for a fashion show and I entered a design contest. I volunteered at the Swap-o-rama-rama at Maker Faire.
This year in Bikes: I managed to ride my bike the 10 miles to Megan’s house and back. I bought a “new” bike. A Japanese Mixte that I stripped, repainted, and rebuilt. It should be ready to ride in 2009. I learned how to be a better urban cyclist from M and the pedi-cab drivers downtown during SXSW.
This year on the interwebs: I redesigned climbinginskirts.com (I also migrated the content from Blogger to Wordpress). I finally signed up for Twitter (I am bad about updating it). I learned to love and hate facebook. I abandoned myspace. I signed up for Goodreads and Last.fm. I downloaded iTunes. I’ve viewed countless things on YouTube.
This year in Movies: (theater) SXSW (Nerdcore Rising, Choke, Bananaz, and Bulletproof Salesman); Iron Man; Juno (which is going to get my best sountrack award); Wanted; 21; Wall-e; and Milk. (dvd) Four-eyed Monsters, Darjeeling Limited, Batman Begins, Cars, Rattatouille, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, the Prestige, and Harry Potter (Goblet of Fire and Order of the Pheonix).
This year in Books: I signed up for Goodreads so I can actually keep track of what I am reading. I also made use of my library card. This is what I read: Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim - Sedaris, The Between Boyfriends Book - Chupack, Barrel Fever - Sedaris, Holidays on Ice - Sedaris, The Game - Strauss, The Sweet Potato Queen’s Field Guide to Men - Conner, Bringing Down the House - Mezrich, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Chabon, Heat - Buford, Strip City - Burana, Tropic of Cancer - Miller, The Sexual Politics of Meat - Adams, Little Birds - Nin, and Sex and Bacon - Lewis.
Here is the list of things I neglected to do in 2008 (in order of regret of not doing them) along with excuses for not doing them:
Not sure what 2009 will bring. I haven’t written up any plans just yet. Here’s to another good year.
So, I was thinking about and it’s probably time I make the official post about this dude. As per usual, I won’t reveal any names. But you guys already knew that. I kinda wish I had written this directly after the first ten hour date so that it wouldn’t be tainted. Now I don’t have so much of an objective opinion. I promise I’ll do my best though. Just bear with me on this, I know it’s long, but it was 10 hours.
Ok back to 10HDG. We had some pretty interesting conversation via IM prior to the date. I think we chatted about 4 or 5 times. The cool thing that I really appreciated was the discussion of, “If this sucks for you, then you should bail, but be straight forward about it and say it.” I think I may have suggested it to him first, but he agreed that it was a good idea.
I’m going to go out on a tangent here and say, WTF, why aren’t more dudes upfront like that. That’s all I really ever felt that I deserved from the get go. Not saying that I don’t deserve more in the long run, but really dudes, just a little honesty! (As of late, I’m finally getting that much needed dose of honesty.)
Right, so, we went for a walk. I suggested the semi-activity date for a first date. We were bouncing between that and shuffle board or some such. The walk just sounded like a better plan at least to start with. So I brought Diesel, you know, for protection just in case.
We met at Auditorium Shores, and started walking. We didn’t really even go that far, instead we went across the street to Butler park. It’s that new park area on the other side of the Palmer events center. We talked a bunch about just about everything. You know how they say you aren’t supposed to talk about ex’s on the first date, well, we did. It was nice how comfortable he seemed around me and Diesel. Also it was nice how comfortable I felt around him.
So we talked about ex’s, politics, music, and my personal favorite — to do lists. I don’t usually talk about them like an actual to do list, instead I say, “What’s yer story?” or “What’s next?” I say those questions in a purposefully vague way, the same way that a to do list could be interpreted. Like, what’s on your to do list for today, or for the next five years, or even the rest of your life.
All in all, I was having a good time, and I think Diesel was too. That’s a bonus for me. After maybe 2 or 3 hours of talking with a little walking thrown in, he suggested food. I’m thinking in my head, “Awesome, I didn’t mess this up yet.”
We decided on Doña Emilia’s over by the convention center. Food is something I’m always good with, you give me a suggestion of what you want, and I know where to get the best of it’s kind. So that’s good, I’m appearing knowledgeable to him at least a little bit.
Diesel was still with us, and so was my car. So we drop Diesel and my car at my house. And typically, I wouldn’t have agreed to take only one car, so that I could have an out if I needed it, but I felt comfortable, and I just went with it.
Dinner was good, food was alright, conversation was better. I think we got there around 7:45 maybe? Don’t think we left Doña Emilia’s till almost 10. It was nice to have conversation with someone engaging and who has the ability to converse well. Seemed like no topics were really off limits, which is good for me, ’cause you all know I’ll talk about anything, I’m unashamed.
We left because it looked like the staff was trying to close the place. (BTW, he paid for dinner, thanks 10HDG.) We were still talking when we were leaving though. So we decided just to start walking. We were down town and decided to walk towards action. This was a Sunday night, so there was not a whole lot of stuff going on. At this point I’m beginning to realize that with 10HDG shenanigans are going to ensue. I think we were talked to by two homeless dudes. I guess they could see that we are those people who will just talk to anyone. (Alright, here comes yet another side note: I have this thing. I don’t often give homeless people money, but I feel like ignoring them is way worse than just saying no. At this point I’m not exactly sure he feels the same way, but his actions suggest this.)
We end up over on 6th street, and I suggest shuffleboard. So we’re walking to Buffalo Billiards, then he says something about a movie. At this point I’m pretty much up for anything. So we ended up seeing the JCVD movie. And we were those people, you know the ones you hate that talk through the entire movie, er, at least that’s how I feel like it went down.
The movie was fun, a little depressing, and not the typical action flick you’d expect, decently written. While the opening trailers and alamo stuff is rolling, I sent a text to Jen and Kleen saying that he’d kidnapped me and demanded 42 virgins and a milkshake, we were at a movie, I’d txt them later on.
After the movie we did actually end up going to Buffalo Billiards to play shuffle board. We both had a few more beers there, not enough to be drunk, but enough to be a little more touchy/feely (or at least I was). I lost 2 games to 1. (I want a rematch still.) Eventually we left 6th street. Getting back in his car was the first time I noticed it, he opened the car door for me. I automatically reach over to open the drivers side door for him. He started laughing. I thought that exchange was v. cute.
He drops me off at my house, and we end up sitting in my drive way listening to and talking about music for another hour and a half. During this conversation (now it’s about 2 something) I get a message from Jen, asking if everything was ok, if he had tried to eat my face yet. So I responded with a: yeah everything was ok, was still out with him, and would call tomorrow.
Finally around 3:30ish I tell him I hafta go. So he walks me to my door gives me a good hug and begins to walk away. I tell him to come back, and just lay one on him. Yep, I’m that girl. I get what I want, because I’m totally willing to go for it.
So, that’s the first story of 10DG. I don’t want to be presumptious, but I have a good feeling about this, that many more shenanigans will follow. I’ll keep you guys updates (prolly with a little bit of a time lapse though).
So today was the day that I went Speed Dating. Yes, little readers. I am violating the 8 second delay rule for you (that’s dedication).
I went in there thinking, “I can do this. I will be like the Dalai Lama. I will not judge people.” ” I will not be that person that is referred to throughout Gladwell’s “Blink”.” But apparently I can’t do that 2 days in a row.
I felt like I was in a store that had been raped by crazy holiday shoppers. There were only a few items left. Most of which were reindeer sweaters. There were a few salvageable items but I think that they may end up in the pile of things that get returned (we will call them slightly imperfect).
So the deal with the Speed Dating is that you go on 10-15 5-minute dates. Today they were skimpy on the dates so there were only 7 to endure (BTW. This means that I get to attend another session for FREE).You get a score card to write down notes. At the end of the night you get to run home to the interwebs and fill out a form on the website to say who you want to see again.
First off, I was completely out of my element. The event was in a bar downtown that I never go to. Granted the live sharks were a good topic of discussion so I can’t complain too much. But seriously. There must be a better venue for this uncomfortable situation. Maybe a coffee shop.
So here is the rundown of my dates for the night. I had a lot of down time so I wrote up some notes in my journal (I am a good analoguer).
Most of the conversations started out with the usual where do you work, live? What do you do in your free time. After the 1st one I was ready to start making shit up. I often turned the discussion to the sharks. I wanted to test these dudes to see if they know much about the downtown area. Most people were unaware of the PETA/ASPCA issues and the fact that bar owners are not skilled in the area of shark caretaker. I also talked about my vast knowledge of water quality and the fact that if you go to the right faucet you will get your water with a shot of prozac (but you didn’t hear that from me kids).
Now that the dates are over I filled out my scorecard (and had a big piece of chocolate cake from the Real Jew’s B-day party). Unfortunately you didn’t get to grade the dudes on a scale of whether or not you wanted to see them again (not on your life to HELL YEAH!). The options were yes or no. I said that I would be willing to see 4-6 again. I will most likely run into 3 because we have mutual friends.
in 24 hours I should receive some sort of notification on who wants to see me again.
Stay tuned (and stay warm)
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