Pariah, booka

Just so you know you guys are horrible!!!

Dawn

Dawn,

I hope you meant that with some humor intended. Imagine me meeting a gorgeous and intelligent woman who wanted to engage with me. Naturally I would prefer she was much closer to my age. I have reservations about a much-younger person. OTOH, I'm not asking for her hand in marriage at this point. Ultimately it's my choice whether to engage with her again or not and to define the level of engagement. I am calm, cool, and relaxed, and will see what happens when it happens.

booka,

It was meant with a great deal of humor!!!!!

I am glad to hear that you would prefer close to your own age, for some reason guys think they should go for 10 years their junior, so that means guys my age are going for 30 somethings instead of 40 somethings, which means 50 somethings are going for the 40 somethings, wait maybe this thought is flawed John is 52, never mind my thought!!!

Dawn

Ok, I am 52 and I will hurt you if you tell anyone. I don't look my age. I have teenagers. My youngest child has just started high school. I would much rather have a younger man....not a lot...a couple to five years.

In fact, my paternal grandfather was younger than his first wife (who died)

My father was younger than my mother

His older brother was younger than his wife

His younger brother was younger than his wife

Bachelor #1 was younger than me (sort of a mutual rebound/recovery fling)

The Diplomat is younger than me (not quite 2 years)

A man my age is likely to be through raising his children and moving on to grandchildren.

But, that's ok....there may be men in this city of over half a million but I can't find them. I haven't found anyone half as good as The Diplomat.

cin,
If it's the right person age probably doesn't matter at all.

I have just found though differences in music, sense of humor that come with age!!!

But see I am only 46 and a grandma and I know others that are older and just starting families! UGH!!!

I am glad my youngest is a senior and will be moving on in the fall!!!

Dawn

Get this....I have just signed up to do my second half-marathon. I am doing it to raise $3000 for Gilda's Club Nashville. Here's the scoop!

My daughter wants to run a half-marathon. I can walk one. We wanted to do it together. Her grandfather has small cell lung cancer. I have lost several friends and loved ones to cancer. This was a natural.



- - HEY, this one looks like it's running!

My boss and I are going shooting tomorrow, then it's off to Dahlonega to try and finish up the reassembly of my airplane.

It seem I've really got him hooked on this shooting thing.

I've been designing my business card to hand out to get people to sponsor me.....Folks, I want to raise $3000 for Gilda's Club. Check out the link in my signature.

First training session is at 7 a.m. tomorrow.

Since I have a little trouble putting my thoughts down.

Here's a video of taking the boss shooting in my friend's basement range. My first guy is my buddy Mark, The scarey looking second guy is Ralph, it's his basement we're in, The third guy is my boss and after him is yours truly blasting away with my new Desert Eagle.

YOU TUBE VIDEO

We are snowed in and watching movies all weekend.

Boys and their toys Pariah!! lol

The difference between men and little boys....the price of their toys!

Today, I got up about 6 and went for my first training session. It was damp when we started...raining about three fourths of the way through and quit before we got back....then I went to see my mom and to take her shopping. After that, I came home and took a nap. Then, I got ready to go to a wedding. They picked the wrong church....it was standing room only. Not great planning. Then we went to the reception.....was fabulous --- at one of the more expensive venues in town. But money was no object for her family. Her dad is a big-name orthopaedist here in town...and primary ortho for an NFL team.

I worked all weekend.

Getting things done around here so I can focus all my attention on the STEELERS game this afternoon

I am not a Steelers fan. I had a college roommate from Pittsburg. I thing she stole some money from me. I didn't like her. I endured her. I don't like the Steelers just because of that association. All my teams are out. Vikings, Dolphins, Packers, Bears. even the local team is out though I am not a fan but I do know their chief orthopaedist's daughter who is a lovely young woman and whose parents throw one fabulous wedding.

didja follow that?

I've hated the Stealers (no, not a misspell) since 1979.

BILLY JOHNSON'S FEET WERE IN DAMMIT!!!

hate is a strong word!!!

My girlfriend in Pittsburgh is sending us Championship T-shirts and a set of Steeler Helmet lights for my porch...will look nice with my HUGE Steelers flag.

I'm hoping for a Pennsylvania Superbowl!!

On a football note, the game that I watched Sunday at The Dog (the Pittsburgh game, doesn't matter who else was playing because they weren't in the game) was the first complete game I watched all season. On a strange note all things considered, I'm rooting for the Cardinals.

Here goes:

Friday I left work and did a bit of shopping at Wally World and went home feeling a bit under the weather as I had started a cold the previous day. I unloaded the goods and took a decongestant pill and a zinc lozenge and made a nice little dinner which perked me up considerably, enough so that I considered an invite I had to Chris’s house and decided to stay closer to home and went up to The Dog for friends and family night. I had many conversations with many of my friends and eventually settled at a table. Friends Keith and Michelle and then Tim and Kelly came in, and as I am accustomed to doing, if seated, I stand up and greet people as they enter. Keith, as I’ve related before, is one of the first people I met in St. Paul and I knew in the first five-seconds that he and I would become good friends. That happens to me a lot and I’m not sure if it says something about me, my skills at meeting people, or the relative high quality of the people I know. All four sat at my table and we had a lot of conversation about a lot of things and Tim asked me a lot of questions about my background, marriage, divorce, etc. I find that people are a lot more curious about me of late. I like all four very much and am always happy to see them. Kelly is not to be confused with Kelly-baby, is a very good looking woman in her own right, a smoldering brunette, there’s just something about her that I like very much, and she invited my to dance several times to the breaks between karaoke and I reciprocated. I had a blast dancing with Kelly. Later Denny and Tanya came in and I had a nice chat with both. A bit later my neighbor Jeff came in and sat with us at my table and we had a rollicking good time. I left after many goodbyes about midnight, went home, had a cocktail, finished a ZZ Top DVD that Chris had lent me, and then off to bed.

Between the pills and the constant drainage of the cold I got about 7 hours on Friday night and Saturday night. I usually get more but had miserable sleeping conditions and would just pop awake. It was cold, so I stayed in until late afternoon and did housework. I reorganized 2- kitchen cupboards, one that contains all of the spices, etc., and one that had a lot of dry goods. This freed up some space and got things a bit more organized than they’re already highly organized state. Hey, I had plenty of espresso and plenty of energy, so I went at it. I then did some major vacuuming and found that the vacuum did not clean the decorative pillows on my sectional very well, so off they went to the washer and it took two loads. I also washed everything from my bed except the coverlet. I was on a roll. I had a couple of checks to deposit and wanted some cash, so I finally left the house and headed for the newest branch of my bank that is right next to McGurk’s in the Main Street area of O’Fallon. I could get into quite a diatribe about the efforts to extract money owed me by the XW for medical reimbursement for DD15 (I carry the insurance on DD15 which is part of the divorce decree, the XW owes me half of the out of pocket expenses) , which amounted to one of the checks, but it’s increasingly apparent to me that there is a vast disparity between our intelligence levels, with hers being on the much lower end of the scale. I never truly had an intelligent conversation with her ever and used to crave it and seek it from others. Oh well, live and learn on that one. While in the relative vicinity of Chris’s house, which is very close to the bank and McGurk’s, I popped over to Chris’s and we had some amusing banter about life and women. He invited me over for the football games on Sunday but even then I already had plans and declined. In addition to the housework, I had thrown some stew meat into the crockpot with the liquid form of beef bullion and was going to have that for dinner over egg noodles. Alas, despite having copious amounts of pasta and sauce, the cupboard was bare when it came to egg noodles, a rare omission in my supply chain. So, white rice it was, in this case, a poor substitute for the egg noodles. I then debated my wardrobe choices and decided to go with a theme of tans/browns and ended up with tan cords, a brown square-tailed suede like shirt, and my Nautica suit-coat jacket from Goodwill, along with brown semi-dress shoes. My wardrobe choices may be a contributing factor to some interesting things that have been happening to me. I get dressed, get my vice-key together (portable humidor, lighter, etc., I will need a man-bag at some point!) and headed up to The Dog to see what I refer to as the house-band, Big Easy. I know all of the players personally by now and Joe, their drummer, frequents The Dog with his wife Linda, and both were in attendance Friday night.

Keith and Michelle had a table and they had the 20-something blonde in tow, it turns out her name is Jaime, and she was in a down-mood all evening with what I believe was a death in the family. I gave her a nice hug later on and tried to cheer her up a bit. During the first set hardly anyone danced and it made for an unusual evening. Gene, who actually owns the tavern and is Jo Ellen’s dad and is famous for his dancing and yanking all kind of pretty girls out on the dance floor. He gets out there with someone that catches my eye and fair to so most of the rest of the male population as well.

Time for some background and comment. At any given band night at The Dog, there is going to be the top female, we’ll just refer to her as the queen of the ball. This is the woman that all the men will be looking at. Not many will dare to make an approach. The woman dancing with Gene was the queen of the ball. I recognized her and then it came to me, the same woman in a very short shirt with boots on and a rather interesting figure dancing sometime just after Halloween. I don’t know who she is at that point. So I watch for a while like everyone else does, women included. Ginger is watching the door while Curtis is doing something, so I go over there and keep her company and do my best to entertain her. We talked about our days and I told her that I live in fear of coming to The Dog on a band night with my bed unmade and will often make a special; effort to insure that it is made before I leave the house. I have three beds are all are usually made. I tell Ginger That my reasoning is that I’ll run into the perfect woman, have the prefect evening, she’ll ask to go back to my place, and I’ll somehow have to steer her away from the master bedroom where my bed is not made, thereby ruining my chances as a happy ending, metaphorically and philosophically. Ginger thinks this is hysterical stuff and is eating up right and left. We got on the subject of cooking and the mystery woman is in our vicinity and Ginger inquires to whether I would acknowledge the mystery woman’s cuteness and I affirmed Ginger in a very positive fashion that I did in fact find the mystery woman to be quite fetching. She sidles over and just behind Ginger and Ginger and I discuss what we did for dinner. We get on the subject of gravy and I describe how I ma King of gravy and Ginger wants to know my secrets, the greatest being corn starch. So I say to the mystery woman, clearly within earshot, “Were you listening to our gravy tips?” She replied that she had not been listening, but had at one point attended culinary school, I said to Ginger “Ah, competition.” I then asked the mystery woman is she was the queen of gravy and she smiled and we then got into a 3-way discussion of what she had for dinner, which included chicken cordon-bleu, and Ginger and I oohed and ahhed. Then it was me and the mystery woman alone and I introduced myself and she said “I know you Dirk, I live right down the street, I’m Wendy.” Now my computational circuits were slowed by my cold and it took 2-picoseconds rather than 1 to assemble the picture. I recall meeting Wendy last winter at The Dog when I had a discussion with a certain Nathan and he introduced me to their crazy neighbor woman who had just got divorced and I could not establish any rational conversation at all with this neighbor and later walked away. I was not and never was introduced to Wendy ever, she always kind of floated in the background. I ran into Nathan several times after that point and said hello to the both of them many times while walking past their house on my walks into town. So, of course she knew and recalled me, but it took me those 2-picoseconds to piece that together. Now there’s one more piece of evidence that occurs to me, neighbor Jeff told me that he dated a certain Wendy for a while right after she got divorced and this is the same Wendy. So I don’t quite know the exact timeline for everything and don’t know where Nathan fit into the picture, i.e. before or after Jeff and whether he was the BF or the XH. Of course these are sensitive and possibly awkward questions and answers and the emotionally mature can wait for the right time and can make discrete inquiries after the fact. So the light bulb goes on in my head and I then realize the mystery woman who is so casual about knowing me, like we’re old friends, is The Wendy of lore. We then get into a general Q&A, she tells me that she’s a VP for Atlas Van Lines, works virtually from her house and travels quite a bit, presumably a lot to Chicago and San Diego, and she told me that she had work-related apartments in both. I am pretty familiar with San Diego as my parents lived there fro 10-years and I visited many times and got around quite a bit. She gave me an address that I wasn’t familiar with in San Diego, but that of itself doesn’t mean much. She also said (with Ginger back in company) that she tends bar at an establishment in Wentzville that I’ve never been to that had rather strict requirements for shirt length, i.e. the opposite of what you’d think, and I recalled for Wendy that the last time that I saw her she was in such a short skirt (I gave a replay of her outfit for her in detail as I recalled it quite well!) and we had some amusing interplay between the 3 of us. Ginger and I had some follow up and Ginger said the she admired Wendy I’m assuming for her accomplishments in life, attitude, etc. It turns out in further discussion with Ginger, who you’ll recollect in Curtis’s FG, Curtis is Jo’s son, etc., that Ginger describes herself as shy. This is very interesting to me because I would have never considered her to be that way, in the 2-minutes when we first met for her to get comfortable with me, she has never seemed shy. I realized after she said it that it was probably true based upon some past happenings and she requires some validation. It never occurred to me that someone like Ginger, who is simply scrumptious, could be insecure, but it’s just like the books and experts say, there’s a certain percentage of attractive women who seem remote but are really too insecure to approach. Very interesting. Ginger and I had a very fun time and I was on top of my game and very entertaining. She likes Wild Turkey and we had a bit of a discourse on the merits of bourbon.

So the band resumes and Wendy is dancing with some chick that I’ve seen before. I grab Ginger and hit the dance floor. Now I haven’t a clue how good a dancer I am, my only evidential experience in my dancing skills is that I am requested to dance frequently by women. I could write a whole book on the dynamic of the dance floor which rarely mirrors reality and is instead sort of an unreality zone where boundaries can be crossed on the dance floor there that wouldn’t be crossed off of the dance floor. You can dance, you can dance with some one, you can dance for someone, and you can dance to someone. Often of the floor attentions will be temporarily shifted to other partners and I often dance in a group where several exchanges of partners will happen organically. So I would dance with Ginger next to Wendy, with Wendy, back to Ginger, etc. Then I danced with Wendy several times. Then it was break time and by this time I an encamped with Paul and Rick on one end of the bar. Well, Wendy seems to know every one that I know, she throws her cigarettes down back Rick and hung in our group for the rest of the night when we weren’t dancing. I danced more with her and don’t recall another guy ever dancing with her. I would take a break and if she was still out there I would watch and she was watching me watching her. It was a lot of fun. I finished the evening dancing with Wendy and by this time she was dancing to me and things were quite fun on the dance floor. The last song plays and I have the last dance with her. We’re both facing the band catching their final words and she turns around and gives me the single best hug that I’ve had in quite some time complete unbidden. She fit into my arms, dare I say perfectly? The hug lasted just that much longer than a casual friendship hug. It was for me the perfect cap to the evening’s entertainment. We broke and she said something about having a nice evening as we’re walking back to the bar, my hand in the small of her back, I tell her thanks and that she’s beautiful, she grabs her cigarettes off the bar and then leaves, presumably to walk home and she’s just 5 houses down. Before you have any incredulous thoughts, at that point in the evening I was very satisfied with the whole experience. I didn’t mind that she scooted, I didn’t ask for more out of the evening and I do know where she lives. I had a very funny feeling that I had the urge, get ready to be shocked, that I wanted to be friends with her. I don’t know why I left that way and I still do feel that way. She is very attractive with all of the right parts in the right places. If she had asked me to her place I would have gone. I told myself as I got out of the shower that evening before arriving that I’m glad I’m single and not really dating anyone. I looked forward to the evening as a night of entertainment. I had no further expectations and my expectations where met in a very satisfying fashion. I went home with a smile on my face. I said my goodbyes and wandered out into a very cold night with abundant frost. I still had one of my Partagas lit and going, so I changed out of my Nautica sport coat into a down jacket and then put a hat on and scraped frost while smoking. I saw Keith and Michelle in their van in the parking lot and moseyed down to chat with them and gave them an invite to my house at their convenience. I haven’t really had other people over to my house other than close friends and neighbors and suddenly feel the need to have other people come over and to start integrating myself further into the community.

I went home and debated having a cocktail and instead tried to fall asleep for the next 2-hours and finally did at about 03:00. I got up at 10:00 and did some more housework and did the usual Sunday morning activities of reading the paper and listening to my radio show. I had a relaxing time and was by then left with no housework to be done. I had a bit of leftovers for lunch and got cleaned up an pressed and headed back to The Dog at about 14:30 for one of their more rare Sunday band days. I stopped on the road near by friend Bruce’s house and they were on the side of the road picking up cubic yards of leaves that were in the ditch by the road. I said hi to all and went up to The Dog and sat by Gary and his brother Dave, who are cousins of Jo’s. I think Dave broached the subject of me and again people are showing more curiosity about me and I gave a précis of my life history. Well, lo and behold, Gary and Dave grew up in St. Charles, the ex-town, and we have a lot in common and they recalled many amusing stories from their childhood. We had a very entertaining discussion and then Vera Bloom and The Silverwings started up their first set of classic country-western style music, complete with a pedal-steel guitar. Now you may think that me, the king of alternative music, would shy away from this experience, but somehow through osmosis or such I know the old country stuff very well and can sing along with most of the songs that they played. It is a fun, interesting, and different crowd than Saturday night. Other friends started rolling in and it was a great afternoon between 15:00 and 19:00 for music and fellowship, not to mention football. I had a great time. Jo and Dave came in later and Jo had on something called Rocketdogs that are a type and with those on, she could look me directly in the eye, so she was the equivalent of 6’2” with them on and looked great. We had a big discussion about wine and I floated the idea of having some of them over for a wine party. I also discussed in general my birthday party plans for this year and Jo suggested having it at The Dog the weekend before my birthday as I have Justin and Leslie’s wedding on 10-17-2009 and wouldn’t want to miss it and would not want a date conflict with it. Jo said that I could have my pick of the band. I will debate this versus renting a hall. I also discussed St. Pats’s Day with Jo and offered to help with the food preparations and told her how much I was looking forward to that celebration which is a fantastic time. Jo’s sister Nan and her husband Mike showed up, as well as Mike’s brother Patrick and his wife Alice. I have seen Patrick and Alice before and ended up having a very long conversation with her that started with the subject of the current county councilman’s mother, who was there in attendance, and why we liked the mother a whole lot more than her daughter, who is the current county councilman, and this bred a long discussion of politics in this area. She was surprised and complimentary of my being an alderman and I told her that I wanted that county council seat eventually. I told her that my opinions don’t matter a hoot because I’m representing my constituent’s opinions, a lesson lost on most politicians. She concurred. I talked about the tavern being a place fro friends and family and she remarked that I fit into the family category by now, which I will admit to taking some pleasure in hearing. Alice is a nurse and was very intelligent and well spoken and I’ll look forward to talking to her again. I’d like a few cheerleaders on my team. Tom and Ham showed up and there was more of the same conversation with one interesting observation in that Jo sat next to me and all of the women clustered at my end of the bar. Tom invited me out for dinner but I was tired and declined and went home not very hungry and forced myself to eat something and then off to bed early.

I had only worked half a day Friday because I felt so crappy from the cold that I am still recovering from. I know you’re going to ask and so here it is, Wendy’s age is indeterminate, I would guess 40-something, she seems to like younger guys (Jeff and I always thought that Nathan looked about 10-year younger than Wendy), so she’s probably in my demographic, if she’s not blowing smoke about working for Atlas I wonder why she bartends, she was about 5’6”, has middle of the back length blonde hair, lighter than mine, says it grows like a weed and she does the Locks For Love thing every few months and that takes 10” of hair to do, is very trim with an impossibly small hind end (very nice) and a rather petite overall figure. She was emotionally stable at the time and very rational. She knew how to get my attention when she wanted to and did. Beyond that I don’t know. I did invite Keith and Michelle to pop-in some time and want to invite Curt and Ginger over some time. I guess there is some urge to show off my house a bit but I also have the desire to get much closer to several key people this year. I’m going to start accumulating some of their phone numbers, etc. I am going the local Knights of Columbus and have been getting some chatter about that. I should know just about everyone involved and will enjoy the experience. Tim and I had quite the conversation Friday night, more than we had ever done before, and he made some comment about me needing to find a local girl.

So this is two weekends in a row that I have met some very interesting women. I guess for a long time I was content to observe. That’s not the case anymore on multiple levels. Something is different this year with me, things are working very easily and I’m more open to everyone now. I’m even getting hugs from the men. Overall I am very happy about the road that I am on.

The usual disclaimers apply and I will point out to you that if your social life needs a jolt and sitting at home on Friday and Saturday nights watching chick-flicks is getting old, you know how to get a hold of me. I guarantee that you will not be bored. Heck, just meeting all of the characters would be interesting enough. If you’re female and can dance, you’ll have even more fun!

pardon my ignorance, but football is played in the winter-time?