The Chronicles of Dating: Installment #6 - Advice for Guys

I'm not a dating guru, and I certainly don't know the best way to impress a date*, but the date I went on last night left me with a long list of "what the crap?"s. So to possibly avoid future calamities (of yours and of my own), I have constructed a list of advice for guys, and present it here in descending order (note: not all of these were directly my date's fault, but they were all the fault of someone on the group date, and no one on a date should ever do any of these things (some of these things have happened on other recent dates too, which makes me feel like a list of advice is even more necessary)):

10. Don't rev up the car to the sound of your own wanna-be Jack Johnson voice blasting from the cd you just recorded, and don't turn it up so loud that no one in the car can hear each other or carry on any manner of conversation.

9. Don't ask lame, generic questions like, "So how many kids do you have in your family," or "what do you like to do for fun," etc. If you're getting along and having good conversation, these things will come out naturally, or won't be necessary at all. I doubt any girl has ever left a date thinking to herself, "Man, that was an amazing date, but it's just not going to work out because I have no idea if he is a youngest, oldest, or middle child!"

8. Don't take your date on a large group date full of people she doesn't know. A double date is fine, even a triple date, but an octo-plus date driven by mission memoirs and inside jokes is going to do nothing but alienate the girl your trying to get to know/impress.

7. Don't make any comment that is not 100-percent positive about her high-heel shoes. No "I don't understand how you girls walk in those things," or "wow, those are really high heels," is going to be taken in a good way. Sorry that her 5-inch heels make her taller than you and make you feel like less of a man. She wore them because they make her calves look great.

6. When your date is wearing 5-inch heels, don't expect her to climb into the back of a truck that meets her at eye-level without any assistance. Don't expect her to do that in flats.

5. Don't take your date to an action movie that got less stars than your basement floor. Don't take your date to a movie, period (well, not within the first five or six dates, at least).

4. Don't pretend you're going to run over the cat crossing the road.

3. Don't not feed your date - EVER! Unless you specify otherwise, your date is going to be planning on food, and therefore is hungry. Leaving her that way for the entire night is going to make her crabby and make her forever associate the memory of you with the feeling of her stomach trying to eat itself.

2. Don't ask your date to just meet you there, and really, seriously, don't ask your date to meet you at the gas station down by the freeway either. I don't think I need to expound on this one.

1. Don't ask a girl out over text message. Nothing about this is okay.

And there you have it. That is my current list of advice for guys. I hope it is adhered to with the strictest of obedience and the humblest of attitudes.

*I am still extremely single.

Summertime, and the Living is Easy

So, I've got this fun new summery background going on here. I know, I know, it's not as delightfully tacky as the pink and blue birds (which I will likely go back to one day), but I feel that the blab-my-every-whim-ness of my blog lends itself to backgrounds of whim.

And what is my whim? Right now, it's SUMMERTIME.

So I usually am less enthusiastic about summertime than I have been this summer. Normally I just feel hot and icky and groan about how I wish I had lost weight for the summer so I could feel more comfortable in the clothing that is sticking to my sweaty body.

But not so this year!

Instead, it has been a mild summer, filled with all the things I love about summer and very little of what I hate (being the blistering dry heat that makes your skin feel like it is going to burn and detach itself from your body).

Warm nights
Golden sunlight
Outdoor eating
A touch of slight humidity
Gently sun-kissed skin
Cooling splashes of water
Refreshing home-grown produce
Sunlight diffusing through leaves
Light breezes
Vibrant blue skies

And now, with the slightest touch of Autumn hanging in the air, Summer is even better. The sky is bluer, the sun has a different cast to it. It is both insanely appealing and slightly panic-inducing. While I revel in the current state, I know it's going to creep into full-blown fall soon (which trust me, I totally love even more than summer) I know that summer is going to be gone soon, and so I cling to every thread of summer left.

Hello Diane, Take a Look at These Swatches!

Okay, so they're not Swatches (registered logo, trademark, other legal jargain), but they are swatches in the sampling of color sense.

And by the way, I am totally in love with paint swatches. A trip to Home Depot always ends with me leaving the store with a purse full of colors that rarely do, and rarely ever will end up on my walls. The magpie in me is just attracted to pretty things, and let's face it, there are few things in this world as pretty as racks of colors, organized into categories of shades, begging you to stick them to your walls, test them under different lights and under different phases of the moon, and then compare them to the little dot on top of the paint can.

When I die, I imagine that they will find forgotten paint swatches tucked in drawers, boxes, sofa cushions, purse pockets, book pages, and old check books.

And then there are these watches...


Aren't they beautiful? I dream of wearing each and every one with every single outfit I own, while the five year-old in me says, "pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, ooooooooo pretty!"

Perhaps I'll buy the white to go with my beachy summer ensembles or my snowy winter wardrobe, and the blue for when I'm feeling particularly bohemian or sunbathing on a Mexican beach, and the espresso for when I'm breathing in the rich smell of fall leaves, and the light bamboo paired with my minimalist ensembles I wear to art galleries and while sipping sparkling water.

And then there is Paris

and camping trips

and writing romantic poetry

and baking pies

and appearing for interviews

and when I'm taking a break from all the fame, snuggled up next to the hot heat of a raging fire...

I must have them all.

New Blog

Hey guys, I've started my amazing Halloween blog!  Check it out at http://iheartallhallowseve.blogspot.com/.

There's not much on there right now, but there will be!  I'm going to post awesome photos, stories, ideas, etc. and fun stuff like "Monster Mondays."  I really want to get other people involved in it too, so if you have amazing stuff that you think I should feature, check the blog for submission details!

I Need Your Help

So I'm going to start a Halloween blog. I mean, we all know that I am completely obsessed with Halloween and everything Halloween.




However, I am having a hard time thinking of tHe PeRfEcT bLoG nAmE. Anyone out there have any great ideas?

Have You Seen This Yet?

If so...enjoy this little tyke again.

If not...WHERE THE CRAP HAVE YOU BEEN?

Seriously, I LOVE the internet.


I also love baseball, and San Dimas.


I also love this guy:







And for more awesome, furry, fun visit this link right now (many thanks to Jessica).


ANIMALS ARE

THE

MOST

AMAZING EVER!

Alas, Poor Leroy

Your horn was so gold
Your heart so pure
Lips puckered to meet me
The oven you did endure

Eyes of piercing blue
Reached deep into my soul
deeper still you touched
my heart, that was your goal

You are gone now
and I lament your depart
I never will forget
the way you touched my heart

Some say you were a pig
others a rhinoceros
But to them I scream your name
"Leroy was a unicorn, and you sir are preposterous!"

Not gloriously swaying
beneath the tree
but silently folding
thyself in on thee

You died, poor Leroy
quietly in your sleep
and all of us for thee
ever do we weep.

RIP LEROY

You were the best pinata ever, and a unicorn to the last!

Guess What I'm Still Thinking About?

Love, lOvE, LOVE, love, LoVe,

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEE

this movie!

I'm Blue, Dabadee, Dabadie

I finally did it. I finally went and saw 500 Days of Summer (thanks to Sara for getting me there and to my mom and sister for bringing the treats).

The movie touts that it "is not a love story, it is a story about love." I wasn't sure what that meant before I saw the movie, but I do now, and NO, I am not going to tell you because that would be spoiling the movie, nosey-face!

Let me just say this, though: I love when movies use color motifs. This movie does just that. It's impossible to ignore the blue, blue, blue, blue everywhere and what it ends up being symbolic of.

bLuE

Anyway, just go see the movie, because it's beautiful and you will love it.

I'm a Sucker...

...for yellow.

And ruffles.

And dresses.





I have obsessions that come in waves. First it was unsharpened pencils,



then it was candy,


then it was picture frames,


then it was vases,

then it was eyeshadow,
now it appears to be yellow ruffly dresses.

Hello, I Love You, Won't You Tell Me Your Name?

Sunday Sermon

Laying in the bathtub, like I do nearly every sunday morning, after reading some poetry and killing a spider with said poetry, I began a sock puppet show (sans socks) based on the shuffle feature in iTunes.  While my right hand sang lead, my left hand tried to keep up the back up.

There was a lively rendition of PYT, followed by a head(hand)-banging punk rock compilation. All the while, I was noticing the toilet looming from the corner.  It's not very often that one finds herself staring UP at the toilet, and from that angle, it looks like a misshapen, winking hippopotamus.  But from that angle, the edges 

of my skin are distorted where they hit the water, like a pencil in a glass, making the backdrop for my puppet show appear plumper than it actually is (and I oddly weighed in 5 lbs. lighter than usual this morning after a weekend of eating little more than my own weight in junk food).

A song from Moulin Rouge came on, and my lead hand serenaded the silent one (it was a solo), who inched steadily closer to the other and did that little squinchy face thing that Kermit does every once in a while.  As the song ended, they embraced and slowly sank down as the camera panned up to a shot of the chrome faucet shining in the sky behind them.

Ah, young love!