What's the Rush? Part 2

I am in a crowded club at Eighth Avenue and 14th Street for my first try at speed-dating. I'm sitting in a chair, facing another single man, both of us holding paper and a pencil. We have numbers pinned to the front of our shirts.(I'm #19). In a minute, a whistle will blow, starting off a series of 3-minute mini-dates with 30 different men. Every 3 minutes it will blow again, the signal to stop one conversation and begin the next one. If you like the man you just spoke with, write down his number, keeping a list to turn in at the end of the night. If you picked someone who also picked you, you'll both be notified of the potential match.

Sounds easy enough.

The whistle blows and date # 1 begins. There are introductions and then the usual chatter that you can fit into 180 seconds. Names, occupations, short list of interests. The first conversation is fine, as is the second. By the third, I am beginning to wonder if it was the man I’m presently speaking with that belongs to a gay bowling team, or was that the guy before this one? Confusion begins to settle in and before I can sort out exactly who said what…

…gay men of all ages, sizes, shapes and colors are passing by me in a quick-moving blur, of 3 minute snippets. I am barely picking up portions of conversations and, after about the fifth or sixth "mini-date" they are all melding together into one long nervous sentence: "Hi, I'm a doctor/lawyer/chef/accountant/personal assistant/aspiring actor/cater waiter/musician/cab driver/pilot and I like movies/dinners/vacations/hanging with friends/family outings/walking/working out/dancing/clubbing/reading/television and most of all I'm really looking for a long-term relationship/casual friendship/hot times/monogamy/friends/lovers/an affordable apartment and oh, by the way, what gym do you belong to?"

I am talking to blond haired muscleboys, middle-aged professionals, recent college graduates and the entire male student body of the Stella Adler Acting school. And every 3 minutes, the whistle blows again and I move to another chair and begin what seems to be the same conversation over and over and over and over again. I can't recall what anyone said. I don't know which one is the corporate executive with a posh townhouse and a foot fetish and which one is the assistant district attorney who managed to tell me how much he hated his life before the whistle blew and I moved to the next chair. This could be the fifteenth date or the twenty-fifth. I have absolutely no idea.

The only thing I do realize, is that I haven't written down one number of someone I'd like to get to know better. I'm so disoriented that I've forgotten about the paper in my hand. And at this point, there's no way I'm going to recall even one number of someone I liked, because I can't remember one man from the next. I'm exhausted.

Then, the whistle blows, I move to another chair and I find myself face to face with him. Warm smile, cute dimpled chin, beautiful brown eyes and an appropriate age. He smiles and asks me how I'm enjoying speed-dating and I find myself telling him how confused I feel and how I haven't written down even one number, even though we're near the end of the night. He shows me his own empty pad and we both chuckle. We talk for another minute or two, but I'm barely processing what he's saying since I'm concentrating on making sure I get his number written down. There's no way I'm passing up those brown eyes.

The whistle blows again. We say our goodbyes, and it's not until the evening is over and I'm handing in the paper with Brown Eyes' number on it that something he said suddenly registers. When I asked what he did for a living he answered "Oh, I’m not working right now." I'm in a room filled with the eligible doctor/lawyer/chef/accountant/personal assistant/aspiring actor/cater waiter/musician/cab driver/pilot and I picked the unemployed guy. I have just handed in a paper which essentially says that I would like to date someone who won't be able to pay for anything, ever. And it seems a small consolation that I could be sitting across a restaurant table staring into those beautiful brown eyes while he's on his side telling the waiter to just slide the check on over to me EVERY time we eat out.

The next day an email arrives and I’m told I had no matches. I have been rejected by a man with no source of income. But, take heart, the email reads, there’s another speed-dating event coming up in just 2 weeks to give me the opportunity to try again. Just the thought of it makes me dizzy.

Man's Best Friend

My dog Nora, often wakes me up. Sometimes she'll jump on the bed and head-butt me out of my sleep. Other times she lies her 70-lb body across my chest, which makes it hard to continue to sleep. Or breathe. Last Sunday morning she devised a whole new way of waking me. At exactly 7:01 AM, she threw up on my bed. If I'm tired enough, I can sometimes sleep through loud thunderstorms and have worried in the past that if someone broke into my house, I might sleep right through it. But this woke me. It's hard to sleep with a vomiting dog just a few inches away from your head.

I've had Nora for four years now. I picked her out at an animal shelter shortly after I bought my house. She was terrified of me at first. The people from the shelter put us in a room together and she sat as far away from me as she possibly could. I sat cross-legged on the floor and just waited with my hand extended, until she oh-so-slowly got curious and began to creep across the room. For the first few weeks, whenever I came home she'd stand one room away for a while before coming over to give me a very cautious wag of her tail.

Eventually, I won her over, which will happen when given enough love, attention and milk bones. She began to understand I wasn't going to hurt her and we became pals. She even progressed to the point that when I get home from work, she's there at the door, dancing. Yup, Nora dances. She goes up on her hind legs and does this half-jump, half-twirl dance. She dances when it's time to go out for her walk and whenever I walk in the front door. Sometimes, actually often, we dance together.

About two months ago she stopped dancing and started limping, so we headed off to the vet, Dr. K who said "Nora's developed back problems." He hands me a bottle of steroids. Steroids? Great. Now even the dog will have a better body than I do. Once the steroids start getting into her system, there's no telling what she may begin to do.

I can practically see her in the free weights section of the gym screaming at people around her;"You're working out with only 50 lbs. of weight! What are you a bunch of sissies?" She'll become addicted to the stairmaster and the treadmill, running as fast as Steve Austin in the 'Six Million Dollar Man' before settling into the juice bar to flex her muscles for everyone to see. Or she'll start doing interviews for Dog Lover magazine, her muscled physique gracing the cover, while inside she'll swear that it's just good genes and a healthy diet.

And from there, it's a slippery slope. After a few months she may demand I take her to Splash so she can be ogled by the boys. You can practically hear them saying "I don't know who the old man is, but that dog's hot!" She'll be calling me at work, telling me to not rush home 'cause she's got a couple guys coming over and she'll need the house for a while. And I can only imagine the hook-up ads she'll be posting on craigslist, all of them starting with the words "Muscle Bitch Seeks..."

All kidding aside, the back problem is pretty serious and at some point there are going to be decisions that need to be made. The steroids are only a short-term solution, but for now, they're doing their job. Nora's back to walking a little faster. And although she's not dancing quite as much as she used to, when the pills are working and she gets really excited, she can still twirl with the best of them.