Oopsies

So I was pulling into the supermarket parking lot recently on a busy summer morning, and as I waited my turn in the queue, I sent a quick voice text to my son. At 9:00 a.m., he would be almost ready to leave for work.

“Hi honey pulling into the supermarket let me know asap if you want me to grab you something for lunch I’m running in and out so hurry.”

The line began to move, and as I circled the lot, I became distracted by the gorgeous hunky men ambling in and out of the store (I’m incorrigible, I know, you think I don’t know?) Owing to the early hour many were in t-shirts and shorts, fresh from or headed to workouts, while some were dressed for work. I debated which look I liked better, and muttered to myself once again how beautiful men are, and bemoaned the fact that I could watch them walk for hours. What is wrong with me?

As I pulled into a space, I looked down and realized I had never sent the message to my son, and did so quickly and distractedly, annoyed with myself that he may now not receive the message in time.

As I squeezed avocados and marveled once again at the fact that avocados are only ripe for about six minutes of their lifespan and that it was impossible as a consumer to predict when these six minutes would occur, I got a text from my son.

“Mom wtf?”

Confused, I replied.

“What?”

“This was so awkward.”

I didn’t understand. “What?”

“Your message.”

“What about it?”

“Did you look at it before you sent it?”

I had never turned off the voice memo, and it texted everything I said in the parking lot. This is the exact text I sent to my 22-year old son:

Hi honey pulling into the supermarket let me know asap if you want me to grab you something for lunch I’m running in and out so hurry oh man he’s hot that’s the exact body I like there are so many hot guys here today hey shirt and tie guy you’re gorgeous no go ahead and pull out you can pull out of me anytime you want go ahead back up on me yes sir feel free is it hot guy at Acme day today or what damn finally found a spot

“Oopsies. Sorry honey.”

“Jesus Christ mom. I can never unsee this. Don’t text me in the morning anymore please.”

Noted.

Quandary

I like to engage in physical challenges when I travel. The harder and scarier the better. I’m no uber-athlete, but I’m also not one of those plunk-my-ass-down-in-a-beach-chair-in-the-morning-and-drink-until-dinner kind of girls. I can do a couple of hours of that, but then I’m fidgeting, looking for fun (quick shag, anyone?) I figure I didn’t spend hundreds of dollars and hours of my time to sit on planes, trains and boats to arrive at a place to just sit by a pool and get drunk.

I can go to Florida for that.

When I choose a place to visit, I choose based on fun factor, topography and the potential, even willingness, for intimacy. I need to get into the cracks and crevices of a place, to use my eyes, body and hands to manipulate the landscape, to return home really knowing it.

I am always searching for that elusive connection to place.

I’ve spelunked, rappelled, and ziplined down and through canyons, mines, caves, craters and valleys. I’ve ridden horses, cycled, white-water rafted and kayaked over and through mountains, volcanoes and rapids. I’ve climbed mountains so steep that affixed handrails and ropes were the only thing standing between me and the sure humiliation of descent.

But I’ve got a sinking hunch that all I’ve done will not hold a candle to what my climbing friend and I plan to do come next week, which is summitting Mt. Quandary, elevation 14,265. There just simply seems to be no way to prepare for it.

Don’t get me wrong, I have my gear. I have the Camelbak and the REI boots and the energy bars and the layers. I’ve done the workouts, the hills and the inclines. I’ve looked at the trail maps, consulted alltrails.com, and installed the climbing app. I’ve got the physical game. My climb might not be fast or pretty, and little girls in jelly sandals will probably pass me, but physically, I’d make it.

I’m just not sure I have the mental game, the “la cabeza.” Quandary is double the height of anything I have ever climbed. Which puts me in quite the quandary.

All Trails reviews are of little help. While Quandary gets five stars consistently across the board, climbers have dissenting opinions as to its climber-friendliness and ease.

Peter W: “Left at 10 submitted (sic) at 3. Great mountain.”

Angry Hiker: “Five hours my ass. Hope you like rocks and impossibility.”

Steph: “Great 14’er but long slog. Bring aggressive hiking boots.”

Almost Died: “Had to spend the night, vastly underestimated my abilities.”

Yikes. And these are people who are acclimated to that altitude, while I sit here, marinating at sea level.

I decided to consult my Tinder men, who love nothing more than to brag about the places where they live and love, and who always offer to show you the sights. My friend and I have dates to paddleboard on the Dillon Reservoir, to gondola up to and then bike down from Peak 7, and to rappel to natural hot springs. So I asked one man from each Tinder guy category to give me their opinion on two middle-aged fit women wanting to climb Quandary. Here are the results:

Adam Scott: “Quandary I have not been where are you?”

Fuck Boy: “It’s tough but go for it. If you die, you die.”

LTR: “You should be ok, but I’ll go with you and make sure. I’ve done it a hundred times. Make sure you have plenty of water and snacks. Good hiking boots. A hat and gloves, because you never know.”

SNMNKs: “Fuck that, I can get you to the same view on the back of my motorcycle in one hour. What is that tattoo on your right foot in that profile pic?”

John59: “not sure where that is when r u here again”

Tinder Tony: “Great choice of mountain let me give you some specifics. Short hike, and has less elevation gain when compared to many other fourteeners, but it’s challenging. Much of the climbing occurs in two relatively short sections. One climbs 1300 feet over a 0.9-mile section, while the other climbs 1100 feet during the final 0.8-mile push to the top. And yo hottie, watch out for lightning and goats- someone got gored last year. I’ll go with you after my morning trail run, if you get tired I’ll carry you up on my shoulders.”

2020: An Earth Odyssey.

Of Mice and Men

Newsflash.

I did meet a guy when I was traveling last year. I only told six people about him, in case it didn’t work out.

Boom clap.

If he’s reading this right now, he knows who he is. Hey, what’s up? Thanks for haunting my dreams.

I was attending a conference in Tampa, and he and I were the only two lunatics in the gym at 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning. We exchanged hellos, watching each other peripherally, and I figured he was there for the golf tournament. The resort was teeming with gorgeous tan silver foxes, some with wives and families in tow, some stag. They completely commandeered cocktail hour, filling every bar stool and all available floor space with their loud playback on the day’s golf. Their cacophony fused perfectly with the more staid-nature of our conference, and happy hours got pretty rowdy. It was tremendously fun.

But that night I bumped into him at our farewell cocktail reception, as he was attending the same conference I was. We talked, and as my brain began to melt like a bar of surf wax on a hot surfboard, I had to force myself to focus on what he was saying, while my brain started ticking off boxes: gorgeous, successful, single, father, Catholic, Italian, conservative, check, check, check. I excused myself to the ladies’ room and hid in a bathroom stall to text a friend.

Me: What do I do? I really like this guy, and you know how picky I am!

Her: Calm down. And try not to be…YOU.

Me: O.k. Wait, wha?

Her: Act like you’re normal, someone who is open and receptive to a relationship.

Me: I am normal.

Her:

Me: Fine, I’m not normal, but I’m receptive as fuck.

Her: Try not to pick out his faults.

Me: I’m not doing that.

Her: You do it with every guy.

Me: I do not.

Her: Come on, you had to have found something wrong with him by now.

Me: Nothing. He’s perfect. I already miss his face.

Her: (Pause). Then get his number. And jump him.

Owing to the professional nature of the conference and logistical complexities involving roommates, I did not jump him, but I did get his contact information. We stayed in constant contact over the next few months, and I remember the exact day that we were like, yeah, let’s go for it. One thing led to another, and…

So much for checklists. Serves me right.

I couldn’t close the deal. Not from reticence on either of our parts, not even from lack of trying, just from the shittiest, stinkiest, most excrementally bad timing that has ever been.

I left no stone unturned. After all, I’m a problem-solver. Give me the problem, and I’ll help you come up with a solution. I didn’t get through the last three years without being able to stay calm, act rationally and take proactive steps towards success. We agreed we would make it happen, we agreed that it was meant to be, but fuck if it wasn’t.

The best laid plans of mice and men….

I think of him every day, and I wonder. Did we miss an opportunity? Did we fuck up? Was it miscommunication? Was he a player? Did he think I was?

But I always go back to the same theory: The Universe has its own timing, it doesn’t give one rat’s ass about yours.

Tinder Tailor Soldier Spy

Don’t ever knock Tinder. It’s fast, effective, and no-frills, and the men are real. From my perspective, that of targeting men in the age range of 55-70 in specific parts of the country, there are six kinds of men that appear on my feed.

Adam Scotts. These are foreigners who for whatever reason use two first names in order to sound American. I’ve met Tom John, Pat Tom, Ryan Bill, Doug Joe, Mike Doug, John Jay, and recent strange geographical combinations of Memphis Lewis and Tennessee Jones. Their clothing is just impeccable enough to be un-American, and they post pictures of themselves wearing Spandex shorts while running on treadmills. They are always good-looking, so I try to give them the benefit of the doubt, but their syntax and grammar reveals them immediately. American Tinder guys will say cool stuff like, “You have a hot vibe,” while Adam Scotts say things like “Nice to meet you, can we be friends on this platform?” and “I like how you look, can I get to know you?” I’ve also been getting a lot of “that wonderful” and “how you?” and “you look so good.” Adam Scotts immediately want to know where you are, and you picture them standing in line at Dubai International Airport, ready to buy a boarding pass. I’m not ready for international Tinder.

Fuck Boys. These are hot guys with loads of gumption, players looking for something specific: ooh-la-la on the side of their marriage, a steady travel partner, a Saturday night dinner date. One FB desired a weekend date in Chicago for a benefit in November, another asked for “a buff bitch to climb El Capitan with, and to climb me after” (gotta love the audacity). They want specific physical types like “tall and statuesque, or don’t swipe right,” and immediately unmatch you if you don’t meet their specifications. It’s quite refreshing to not have my time wasted. I couldn’t be tall and statuesque if my head and feet were put into a taffy-pulling machine.

LTRs. These guys are divorced two years and want a long-term relationship. They promise to spoil you, promise to bring no drama, and are willing to relocate. They pose next to other people’s airplanes, Ferraris, and yachts. Nice sometimes down-and-out guys just looking for a nice woman.

**SNMNK. Single. Never Married. No Kids. SNMNKs often post pictures of themselves on motorcycles while holding cats, seemingly unaware that the picture is a sure-fire anti-woman cock-blocker. Have fun being celibate. And never married and no kids? What would we talk about, Netflix and ramen noodles?

John59s. They have no information in their profiles. They are simply John, 59, and are just good-looking enough to pique your interest. They tend to write like 16-year old boys, their messages lacking capital letters and punctuation and sometimes taking days to arrive.

“hey”

John59 asks for your real number, “in case something happens to this site.” They proceed to text you for a few days, things like, “whatre you up too,” and “how was ur day,” and “where do you live again”, ostensibly getting bored that you’re not sending them nudes, and suddenly stop texting. You will miss the excitement.

Tinder Tony. Tinder Tony looks like a ski instructor, a white-water river raft guide and a big wave surfer combined into one. With a mouthful of pearly whites, Tinder Tony is always doing something exciting and adventurous, and messages you every day to let you know what. My Tinder Tony messaged me that he was leaving for a trail run.

“What’re you up to?”
“Golfing,” I said.
“Oh,” he answered, obviously disappointed in me.
I scrambled, wanting to make him happy.
“I mean, I use a pull cart and a lot of the course is uphill.”
He seemed to cheer up.
“Well,” he messaged, “that’s good cardio I guess.”
When I told him yesterday that I was going on a boat ride, he asked me what I was doing off of it.
“Off of it?”
“Yeah, like are you skiing off of it, fishing off of it, boarding off of it?”
“Drinking off of it.”
“Ah. Well. That’s cool I guess.”

Tinder Tony says he is 55 but looks 35 and offers to give you back rubs if you get sore from your adventures. He’s gonna message you when you’re in town and if he’s around you can do a trail run together.

Tinder Tony is exhausting and you hope he meets Tinder Tina on his trail run so he doesn’t make you go.

Tinder Men. So wonderful.

*the meanness of this took my breath away, and forced me awake at an atrocious 4:30 a.m. instead of my usual distasteful 5 a.m. I went for the easy laugh. So short of deleting it, which I won’t do (if a writer deleted everything that made someone mad, they’d be publishing blank pages), let me say I would never imply that there are SNMNKs out there who don’t have colorful, interesting lives. To imply anything else is just inaccurate. But I stand by my insight: not sure I would have anything in common with an SNMNK, because how would he ever understand the devotion I have towards my boys? Change my mind.

Headed West on Shag Highway

I’m not saying my late Hub is trying to contact me. I’m not a loon, I’m a pragmatist.

But dang.

Last week I had been puttering around in the garage, preparing my golf bag for my round that day. Balls, tees, glove, check, check, check. Getting my bag ready always reminds me of him, because we used to get our bags ready together. As I stood there in the garage, my mind wandered to my upcoming odyssey of travel. What would he think, I wondered, about my abandonment of my old life, the life I built with him? About leaving behind the way of life we worked on together?

He would approve of the travel part, no doubt, for he was all about adventure. But I’m not too sure how he’d feel about me heading west on Shag Highway. I’m sure an irritated glare would be involved.

Since I’d be doing quite a bit of biking, I had even considered traveling with his 12-speed racing bike. The bike he had used to go cross-country with his roommate after college. The bike he used to get his last taste of unencumbered freedom before he knew his health issues would take the forefront of his life. The bike that climbed hills, mountains and dales, through storms and floods, and brought him home to family, friends and the community he loved.

We’ve protected his bike through decades of refurbishment and chaos, garage sales and little boy (and big boy) antics. His bike has been gently and carefully moved from place to place, always cherished, always wrapped, always safe. That day it hung sturdily and unbothered from thick hooks attached to the garage ceiling.

I stood there lost in thought, staring through my golf bag. Should I bring the bike out west? I knew how to take it apart, and I could get it refitted for my height. Would it be a testament to his life, or a smack in the face of his memory? Should I ask the boys? Should I go to the cemetery and talk to him?

Suddenly a loud crash made me jump five feet in the air and I turned to see that the bike had fallen from its hooks onto the ground. I stared in shock for a full minute, waiting for my heart to start beating again, and looked for the hooks on the ground, figuring they were not screwed in as well as we had thought. No hooks. I looked up to see the hooks still hanging sturdily from the ceiling of the garage.

I’m thinking I’ll take the bike.

I thought about this strange occurrence again today on my morning walk as Luke Bryan’s “Drink a Beer” came on my playlist, a song that always reminds me of how the loss of such an amazing, charismatic, intelligent man taken too early from his sons, his family, his friends and his community would never make sense. As I looked down my eyes watered, but I smiled, feeling happiness through sorrow, and it was then that I spotted it.

A dime. Heads up.

Drama Queens

Being a young(ish) widow is like being a Zoroaster, or an ibex. No one has ever really seen one up close so you get googled a lot.

There are not many of us, so we are a mystery and are very often stereotyped. Men for the most part think we killed our husbands and that we are perpetually horny (well, ok…). And married men seem to think that widows want nothing more than to engage in a nice healthy bout of adultery.

And women? They seem to be convinced that since we are no longer being annoyed by our own husbands that the thing we want most in the world is to be annoyed by theirs.

(Ladies: we don’t want your husbands. We don’t want ‘em. No matter how good-looking or rich or charismatic you think he is, we don’t want him. If you see us talking to your beloved at an event, we’re not debating the coil tension of the bed springs at the Econo Lodge versus the Best Western. If we like something on his Instagram and comment “lmao”, it is not code for Kama Sutra. Let me repeat: WE. DON’T. WANT. YOUR. MEN.)

I’m glad that’s over.

When you are a widow, your sans-husband state eventually comes up, no matter how much you try to avoid it. Telling a man in conversation that my husband has passed away goes like this, and lasts two seconds:

Me: “My husband passed away three years ago.”
Him: “Oh, I’m sorry.”
Me: “Thank you.”

See why men are the greatest? That’s it. Short and to the point.

Having to tell a woman that your husband passed can take anywhere from six days to twenty years because it never ends. Once a woman finds out you have lost your spouse, she never talks to you in the same tone, never looks at you in the same way, and never stops trying to “fix” you.

This is an example of a fairly common exchange:

Her: “Maaaarrryyyy, how aaaaaaare youuuuuu?” (Imagine same tone as commentator in an ASPA commercial featuring emaciated starving dogs chained to doghouses in below zero weather).

Me: (Shit, not her again). “I’m well, how about yourself?” (quickly trying to turn the conversation away from me to her, but she’s not having it).

Her: “Good, good, really really good, but how are youuuuuuu?”

Me: “I just said I was well.”

Her: (Sighs and cocks her head). “I was just thinking about you the other day.”

Me: (Oh no. Oh God no). “Is that right?”

Her: “Yes, I was telling someone the other day how inspired I am by you.”

Me: (Fuck me). “Why?”

Her: “Oh, you knooooow, your strength, your resilience. You’re just such a great mom, and you’ve faced this whole thing with such courage. I mean, just LOOK at you.”

Me: (My head about to explode). “Thanks, listen I have to get going.”

Her: (Grabs my wrist, looks deep in my eyes). “Mary. If you ever need anything, I mean ANYTHING, whether it’s someone to talk to, vent to, hell, just to get drunk with, I’m here. Day or night. You shouldn’t have to do this alone. O.k.? Promise?”

Me: (Not wanting to negotiate with a terrorist). “Sure, whatever gets me out of this conversation the fastest.”

Her: (Laughing) “I love your sense of humor. Keep it up, it’s what will get you through this.”

Me: “No. Staying away from women who use pity as a way to wield power is what will get me through this.”

(That last line did not really happen, but it is on my Wish List).