Time Out (Maybe)

I am on hiatus. Or at least I'm trying to be. My last real, pre-meditated date was seven days ago, with the aforementioned Email (who, incidentally, keeps calling). He was a benign diversion, if you will, but by going out on an actual date with him, he served as the terminating force for Hiatus Attempt #1, which I'd just announced to the world a few days earlier.

Hiatus, n. The physical state of me not dating anyone because there's no one in rotation (virtual or otherwise) who is smart and cute and well-written and articulate and tall and educated and non-retarded. Hiatus status is rendered invalid whenever I elect to go out on a date instead of sitting home on the couch with my dog, Fudgesicles that are too soft because my refrigerator is a piece of shit, and stack of magazines.

This was going to be My Time. I'd read, write, cook, get to bed earlier, drink less, exercise more, keep up with Quicken, focus more at work, walk the dog twice a day, make pudding...the list grew exponentially over the course of the five full days that I was actually *on* hiatus...the first time.

Its harder than one might think, this hiatus business. Not 48 hours after extracting myself from Email's overly-familiar hug at the end of our date -- as I teetered gleefully on the precipice of embarking yet again on a very long awaited, oft talked about and much overdue break from dating -- a boy who'd gone retarded on me a week and a half earlier came back onto the scene. Thus blowing my plans for Hiatus Attempt #2 to bits.

I'm trying. I really am.

K2 (not to be confused with K of "The Story of K" fame), is/was an oddly fascinating and extremely attractive college-educated, home-owning, very super hot, tattooed and pierced glass "artist." [Edit: Thank you to my pal, L, for reminding me that, in addition to the above, K2 also owned a full-sized trampoline.] He'd also dropped off the face of the earth after four pretty great dates for no apparent reason. While I was disappointed to see him bail because there was obvious chemistry, the boy never could get his proverbial groove on. Seems he'd been on a rather extended hiatus of his own, I'd found out on our first date, which I'd subsequently learn first-hand would render him entirely ineffective at closing the deal. Or even getting us to land anywhere in the remote vicinity of first base for more than two minutes at a time. Sad.

When K2 re-emerged last week, citing a DUI as the cause of his disappearance, I took pity on him and agreed to a date. I drove. We had cocoa. He talked incessantly about how The Incident is going to serve as the catalyst for major life changes. It was dull. And most certainly not worth me missing My Fair Brady.

Hiatus Attempt #3...on!!!

Like the two preceeding it, I enter Attempt #3 knowing that it will be time-limited...but this go 'round, I can predict with a great degree of accuracy precisely when it will expire. My third attempt at not-dating will come to either a tremendously joyous or overwhelmingly sorrowful conclusion this Saturday (at the soonest) or the following Wednesday (at the latest). Because on one of those two days, I will finally meet M, a boy who lives about 100 miles to the north.

Due to our geographic challenges, M and I have been emailing for about a week and a half now. Every day. Multiple times a day. M is smart and cute and well-written and articulate and tall and educated and non-retarded.

I think.

And he just might make this whole notion of hiatus a very moot point. Here's hoping.