The Danaissance continues...

If I do say so myself, I'm tearing things up...

Had a very long date with Sara last weekend. She’s such an interesting character, and she’s fun, but we’re so doomed. We were before, and we are again. And we both know it, and laugh about it. A couple of hours into our marathon 10 hour date last week, we came to a point in the conversation where, for like the sixth time in a row, we realized we had the complete opposite attitudes toward something pretty important. Everything from how I love big dogs and she hates dogs, to how she likes people who are needy and I am not a needy person (and she’s a needy person, and I don’t like needy people), with a number of major and minor issues in between.

After a pause, she just said flatly what I was thinking: we have absolutely nothing in common, this can’t possibly work. To which I started laughing and said “Yup. We’re doomed.” We then spent about a half hour trying to come up with a list of things we agreed upon. It was tough. We came up with only a few, and they were the sorts of things most people would agree on. We tried to get specific, but weren’t able to – so we ended with things like “we both like watching TV" and "we both like pistachio ice cream.” Doomed, I tells ya.

We have another date this Sunday, though lord knows why. Just a few weeks ago I said I’d rather be single than in a doomed relationship, but there’s something oddly fun about it when both of you know it’s doomed; I consider it a happy nihilism – since we’re completely doomed, we may as well enjoy the ride.

While I'm dating Sara I've also been flirting up a storm. You all read about the lady in the green coat, who due to issues with scheduling I haven't had a date with yet, but we email and text a lot, and are having fun chatting on the phone. She's an actress, which totally contravenes my very wise "no more actresses" rule, which was instituted following the collapse of my relationship with Becca, but Katie's so damn cute how can I not? Here's her headshot...

Also last week I had three dates with an Austrian woman I know, who was visiting New York on business. She and I had emailed a few times after having e-met on koolanoo.com (think "MySpace" for Jews) and a few weeks back I got a "hey, I'm coming to New York, take me salsa dancing" email from her. Now, those of you who know me, know that I am not the least bit afraid of dancing. But salsa? Who the hell dances salsa? So off I go to learn some salsa. But not just any salsa, you gotta learn Cuban style, and not New York style.... but I said fuck that, and went to dance manhattan and took a crash course. Four hours of salsa dancing, and I can honestly say that it made very little difference... my feet are still in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Except now I have a sore ass too - fyi, salsa apparently works your fatimus assimus muscles pretty well.

When the time came, I did my best, really I did. We tried to salsa, but I just wasn't capable at all. What can I say, I've been swing dancing for 17 years, and they aren't interchangeable... So I came up with a hybrid kinda thing; I adapted my 8 count swing to the 8 count salsa steps - badly - and was able to get her on the dance floor a bit. But not very well... Thankfully, there was another room in the club playing current pop, and we were able to dance in there. Here's the Austrian taking a picture of herself with her camera phone...

In addition to the dancing, we also went to a Purim party and spent some time at the Austrian Cultural Center, and spent many a late night on the town. She flew home Thursday night, and I have no idea when we'll see one another again. But it was a whirlwind week of dating and I'm exhausted.

And as if that wasn't enough, while all that is going on there's another lady who may just be messing with my head, but if so, she's doing a great job -- cause she's gorgeous, 23, and she seems to want me to ask her out. Perhaps it's just wishful thinking, I'll let you know.

In other news, after a fight with my landlord this past month over whether my right to have heat trumps his right to not give a crap about whether I have heat, I’ve gone and got me one o’ them fancy pre-approvals for a mortgage and plan to start looking for my own place. I don't know where, nor even what sort of home I'd be looking for, but I'm gonna start looking. On one hand, a house would be nice but I’d need to live like 2 hours away to find one I could afford, and since I’m one person do I really need a whole house, while on the other hand a condo in the city would be nice too, but do I really want one of those either? Without much of an attachment to any of it, I shall shortly embark on a look-see to determine what’s out there. Perhaps I’ll get lucky and catch someone about to default on the ARM they foolishly agreed to three years ago…

The winter season is nearly over, and my thoughts are turning to golf. Spending this month taking lessons and learning to play, because I hope to have a nice week of sun and fun the end of April. I'm looking forward to it, as it will be my first non-skiing vacation in years, and my first "someplace hot" vacation in even longer.

Over time, I'm slowly starting to grasp that it's not merely that December, January, February, and March were unusually busy, but that my life is radically different now. That my doing things, dating women, taking classes, staying out late, that all of that is now what my life looks like. And that a night home, like tonight, is the aberration and no longer the norm. I've canceled netflix even, cause who has time to watch movies? I mean, unless you're on a date. Who has time to watch movies that aren't date-related?