Okay. I haven't written about the boyfriend in a while. Truth be told, I haven't wanted to jinx it. Things have been going so smoothly I sometimes wonder if there's something wrong?
In the past, I've kept my finger on the pulse of my relationships. If the heart wasn't racing so hard one of us was in danger of a heart attack, then the relationship didn't seem real. It was all emergency-room experiences.
Reality was at such a high pitch, such a fevered pace, there wasn't any down time or room for ambiguity.
Maybe it's maturity. Maybe I'm just exhausted post-divorce, but my new boyfriend and I have a rhythm that's positively lethargic. I'm loving it.
Here's the 411: I'm so busy rushing around with kids, job, music and meetings, that when I make a date with Mr. Right these days, I'm finding peaceful relaxation, safety, security, and the warm-fuzzies are what I'm looking for. Not a racing pulse.
According to domaintools.com there are 78 million registered dot-coms on the Internet. That's one way for companies and people to stake their claims. Others have Facebook or MySpace.
How else do people stake claims? During the settling of the West, they could claim large pieces of land by:
● Arriving in Oregon in the 1840s, where a married couple could get 640 acres of land, at no charge, as long as they settled there and improved it.
● Settling on and improving 160 acres in places like Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas under the Homestead Act of 1862.
● Scrambling from a starting line to claim a piece of farmland or town lots during the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889.
Staking a claim, whether virtual or real, is part of our human nature. During divorce, the rush to get a property settlement and a distribution of assets is a painful negotiation. I suppose on some gross level, even children may be treated like part of the distribution of assets.
Hindsight is 20/20, or so the saying goes. Another way of saying that is "Monday morning quarterback," meaning someone who opines on just how the quarterback could have won the game, after the game is over. Or, to get hoity-toity, as the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said, life must be lived forward, but can only be understood backward.
Last weekend I traveled to New Hampshire to watch my oldest son's rugby club play their final games. They got hammered, yet at game's end I was caught offguard when several of the players (including my son) suddenly turned red-eyed while hugging, weeping, and sniffling.
These six-foot, 240-pound young men, lurching toward their adult lives, seemed to think nothing of slamming into the other team's players, only to break down in sobs after the fourth quarter.
They were bummed to lose, and to see the season come to a close.
Last Saturday in Toronto, the Motherhood Movement was officially launched. Camera in hand, juggling cables and questions, I shot 30 hours of film and video, from the hip, as I tried to get answers from some of the world's foremost feminists. The subjects included mothering, violence, militarism, war, and social justice; mothers for equal rights; virtual mothering; feminists for a gift economy; maternal depression, and queer parenting.
"Wow," you say? Or, maybe "Why"?
Perhaps I'm trying to sort through my own confusion and ambivalence about terms like "feminist mother," "single mother," and "girlfriend," and to capture this unique moment in Herstory.
I am past the age of being excited about baring it all in a bathing suit, or less. Statistics show I'm not alone.
Four out of five American women say they're dissatisfied with the way they look.
On any given day, almost half of the women in the United States are on a diet. The average American woman is 5 foot 4 inches and weighs 140 pounds. Seen that on TV lately?
Tonight I'm going to be in a situation where I will be watching myself, on camera, at the preview of the film Momz Hot Rocks about the origins of the mom rock movement. It's a special sneak preview, with limited access, but still, my friends and neighbors will be there, and I'm hoping there won't be a sneak preview of my derrière.
This was a busy whirl of a week with travel, flirtation, airport fantasies and lots and lots of moms. In 2008 Jennifer Kampmier founded www.IndyBabyExpo.com, after dumping her online dating biz, and falling in love with a baby — her own, of course.
Her baby fair is an extravaganza of merchandise for moms-to-be and new moms with tots. Even though my children are way into high school, Jennifer and I synced up over the whole Mamapalooza and Moms Who Rock phenomenon and decided to team up for Spring 2009 events. So I jetted out to meet her in person.
We connected right away. As we sat on her deck into the wee hours, with the Indiana moon hovering, we spilled our stories of men, marriage, online dating, babies and being women entrepreneurs.
Past midnight and way into drinks our stories came spilling out, and I knew I had found a kindred spirit. For someone in the mothering expo biz, Jenn has made independent choices that I admire and respect.
My best girlfriend finally broke it off with the married guy she'd been seeing for the past year. Of course she didn't know he was married when she started seeing him, despite suspicious signs.
That doesn't bode well for any of us.
While warnings seem redundant, and books like Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo's He's Just Not That Into You and Jamie Callan's Hooking Up or Holding Out spell out exactly what not to look for, it bears repeating: If a guy looks sweet, but acts sneaky, you should probably be wary. Has to run to catch a train after work? A tan line on his ring finger? Wants to meet for lunch, and go to hotels? Duh!
Even if it's just that little voice in the back of your head that keeps whispering, "This doesn't feel right," then it's probably not right.
The Internet is a constant source of distraction and deception. I've heard of more guys who either get hooked on cyberspace porn, or start to roam in places they shouldn't be. (Why do you think David Duchovny is being treated for sex addiction?)
