…She’d Love Seafood Too

Okay, so my new healthy eating plan has been going really well, and I’ve got a pretty good routine going with foods that I like… but most of it are things that are easy to prepare and things I can prepare ahead of time and warm up later in the microwave.  And that’s all fine and good…

…But sometimes you’re in the grocery store and see a package of scallops and your mouth starts salivating and your heart speeds up a little faster.  It probably didn’t help that I was a rather hungry at the time (rule of thumb – never go to the grocery store hungry).

I love seafood… I mean really love it.  Shrimp is probably my all-time favorite, but scallops are right up there too, and since they’re a bit more expensive I rarely have scallops.  It’s been so long I can’t even recall when the last time I had scallops was.

Suddenly, I found a package of scallops in my basket.  I recalled that I had some rainbow Swiss chard and broccoli at home (ingredients for my Green Smoothies) that were getting a little wilted, and figured I could toss them in my big fry pan as I saute the scallops.  I then ran across a package of sliced mushrooms, “exotic blend” which had Shiitake, Oyster, and Porcini mushrooms… and I knew my dish was complete.

I would dub thee… Scallops Delight!

So I added a little olive oil to my fry pan, tossed in the mushrooms, broccoli and chard to get them started, added the scallops, tossed in a little garlic powder, pepper, and Italian seasonings, and after about 10-15 minutes it was ready for my plate.  I added a sweet potato and looked at my dinner.

I just had to take a picture…

Yep, I made this

Looks good, huh?  I plugged the recipe into Calorie Count and it wasn’t bad at all, just 560 calories and fit right in with my plan.

I could have easily split this in two and had a side salad to round out the meal.  I had a brief moment of thinking “damn shame I don’t have a special lady to share this with!”  But then I dug in and just delighted in satisfying my seafood craving.

Do you like seafood?  It was easy to make, go indulge yourself

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A Man Worthy of a Strong Woman

My friend Molly put up a meme on Facebook that was taken from Jada Pinkett-Smith’s Facebook page that I thought was pretty powerful.  I’ve always liked Pinkett-Smith, she’s always struck me as a very strong and smart woman (in addition to being beautiful).  Even though she’s physically so small, especially compared to her hunky husband Will Smith, I’ve never gotten the impression that she takes the back seat in their relationship.  They seem like they have a partnership of equals.

Here’s what she wrote:

“How is man to recognize his full self, his full power through the eye’s of an incomplete woman? The woman who has been stripped of Goddess recognition and diminished to a big ass and full breast for physical comfort only. The woman who has been silenced so she may forget her spiritual essence because her words stir too much thought outside of the pleasure space. The woman who has been diminished to covering all that rots inside of her with weaves and red bottom shoes.

I am sure the men, who restructured our societies from cultures that honored woman, had no idea of the outcome. They had no idea that eventually, even men would render themselves empty and longing for meaning, depth and connection.  There is a deep sadness when I witness a man that can’t recognize the emptiness he feels when he objectifies himself as a bank and truly believes he can buy love with things and status.  It is painful to witness the betrayal when a woman takes him up on that offer.

He doesn’t recognize that the [creation] of a half woman has contributed to his repressed anger and frustration of feeling he is not enough. He then may love no woman or keep many half women as his prize.

He doesn’t recognize that it’s his submersion in the imbalanced warrior culture, where violence is the means of getting respect and power, as the reason he can break the face of the woman who bore him 4 four children.

When woman is lost, so is man. The truth is, woman is the window to a man’s heart and a man’s heart is the gateway to his soul.

Power and control will NEVER out weigh love.

May we all find our way.”

~ Jada Pinkett-Smith

Now, for as long as I can remember, I’ve been drawn to strong women.  My mom is strong, my sister is strong, so I grew up admiring strength in women.  I’ve never quite understood the attraction to a woman who’s subservient to her man, but I just figured, at some level, I wasn’t really manly-man or macho enough to have that swagger and urge to dominate.  I didn’t really see it as a weakness within myself, rather just as being a bit different from the archetypical male.

But Pinkett-Smith’s words here make me think that perhaps it’s that swagger, that urge to dominate, that can be a real weakness, especially when it pushes men to put women “in their place,” to be quiet, submissive.  How is man to recognize his full self, his full power through the eye’s of an incomplete woman?  These men tear women down to cover their own weakness, and end up diminishing themselves in the process.  And perhaps being drawn to strong women, that finding their strength attractive, is in fact a real strength within myself.

My muse Rachel touched on a similar theme in her recent blogpost “Head for business, bod for sin.“  She was reflecting on the struggles that women were going through in the countries of the Arab Spring, how there’s been a back-lash against women, pushing them to cover up and hush up.  She goes on to reflect on women’s struggles here in the States, and her own struggle as a smart woman in a body that’s stereotypically not taken as serious as she deserves.  It’s a good read, you should check it out.

Rachel concludes with:

“Well, I am upending this story.   I am about to conquer the world in my short, round, curvy, fat-assed, curly-headed body.   If no one lets me have a seat at the table cause I don’t seem to portray certain things-  well, watch me build my own table.”

Now, what kind of man doesn’t want a woman like Rachel, or Pinkett-Smith, by his side?  Who doesn’t want to tap into that strength and vitality to help you conquer whatever stands in your way, to build a life worth living, sharing, and celebrating?  Because a man worthy of the love of such women is a worthy man indeed.

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The Good Stuff

“Ah, but, those are the things I miss the most.  The little idiosyncrasies that only I knew about.  That’s what made her my wife.  Oh, and she had the goods on me, too; she knew all my little peccadilloes.  People call these things imperfections, but they’re not — aw that’s the good stuff.” — Robin Williams as Sean Maguire, Good Will Hunting

The other day I saw a little bit of Good Will Hunting in passing.  Such a great movie, I haven’t watched it all the way through in a long time.  Anyway, this scene was playing out where Matt Damon was talking with Robin Williams and that quote really stuck out to me and resonated with a conversation I’d had recently about women with my roommate.  He’d brought in the mail and kinda joked with me that I’d gotten a postcard offering a promotional deal on a subscription to Playboy magazine.  I find it a interesting that I’d be getting such a card– I’ve never had a subscription before, and I’ve not bought the magazine in decades, so there wouldn’t really be a record of me being a fan of Playboy on a Valued Customer card or credit card transaction.  I certainly never got the offer mailed to me when I was married.  How the hell would they know I was now a single man and might be interested in reading their articles and oh yeah, pictures of naked women?  I mean, I know everything we buy is gathered in databases, to be sliced, diced, mined and sold to people looking to find target audiences, so I wondered– what sort of buying trends had I done in the recent past that had tipped off Playboy to my change in life status?

Anyway, I’d told Chuck I wasn’t really interested in Playboy.  To me, a glossy image of another gorgeous woman is nice to glance at, but it’s not something that really gets me hot and bothered.  Attraction needs the mind involved in some way.  That’s why in the media I find actresses and singers much more attractive than models.  While actresses take on characters and are not typically showing you who they really are, I do think you can get a sense of their personality shining through, especially after you’ve watched them through various roles.  And for singers– especially those who are also songwriters– you get a sense of personality through the lyrics she’s written and the story she tells in songs.

Add physical “imperfections” to an interesting personality shining through and I can really get hot and bothered.  I really love seeing actresses and singers who fall outside the norms of “conventional beauty” because, honestly, there are no shortage of cookie-cutter generic good looking people coming out of Hollywood and the music business.  Most of them are interchangeable and not at all interesting.  I run across these “Hottest Celeb” lists and half the names and faces I don’t know or recognize.  Give me someone who’s shorter, or rounder, or has an odd shaped nose, or a goofy smile, maybe her teeth are a little crooked, maybe she’s got a bunch of freckles, funny ears, short fingers…

Which brings me around to real world women, and that quote by Robin Williams.  In my everyday life I run across all sorts of women, at work, in passing.  The ones who are perfectly coiffed, their makeup just so, their clothes perfectly tailored… they may earn a glance but are quickly forgotten.  Me, I notice those other women who aren’t trying to be some idealized version of perfection, but rather just being themselves.  It drives me nuts that women have such pressure to look more like what the media says is beautiful, and so they sometimes feel bad about what they think are imperfections in themselves that are, quite frankly, “the good stuff.”  Give me someone who’s shorter, or rounder, or has an odd shaped nose, or a goofy smile, maybe her teeth are a little crooked, maybe she’s got a bunch of freckles, funny ears, short fingers… add to that her unique and interesting mind and I just swoon.  Quirks, idiosyncrasies, so-called imperfections– that’s what makes each of us unique, and if you’re not trying to layer on someone else’s judgments or expectations, each person can offer up no end to fascination.

Among my fellow singles, I often read people talking about “instant connection” or “instant chemistry” being there or (as more often is the case) NOT being there, and that they can figure out right away whether someone has any shot at a relationship with them or not.  I can’t really relate to that because, as I wrote on my About Me page, “very few are the women I see in person, in passing, in print or on screen who don’t have something to wonder, cherish, ogle or fantasize about. “  I mean, maybe that makes me sound desperate or sad or lonely, but I’ve always felt that way.  I’d like to think that I’m more someone who really appreciates the breadth of variety life brings us, and I know there is no end to unique experiences each woman can offer with her mind and body.  Don’t offer me perfection… offer me real, offer me weird, offer me complex, offer me surprises.

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…She’d Like Bourbon and BBQ

I remember when I first heard about the Beer, Bourbon and BBQ Festival last year and was totally bummed I was working that weekend and really couldn’t afford to take the day off to go.  Now, I’m not nearly as into partying and eating as I used to be back in the day, but I do really like bourbon and really like BBQ, and the thought of spending the afternoon tasting bourbon and eating BBQ, listening to live music and checking in with seminars about how bourbon is made sounded freaking awesome to me.

So when I heard that it was coming up again this year, in June– the month that I’m finally able to not work on Saturdays anymore and can actually have the time and money to go to something like this– I was super-stoked!  My plot was to have everyone pile into my van, go sample bourbon and BBQ all afternoon, and take a taxi back to my house where we can sober-up or just continue the party, depending on whatever mood we were in.  I mean, to me it seemed like a can’t miss, good time right?

Sadly… I’ve not been able to rustle up anyone to go.  I had a couple friends I thought for sure would want to go, but they passed.  I put the event up on Facebook figuring maybe I’d get a surprise nibble of interest.  Zip.  Going alone sounds depressing, so I suppose I’ll be looking for something else to do this Saturday.

Here’s hoping the next woman in my life will enjoy going out to festivals and having fun like this, even spur-of-the-moment, because I’m not sure I’ve got a circle of friends who I can count on to do these sorts of things with.

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My Ideal Woman — One Year and Counting!

Wow, today kinda snuck up on me—My Ideal Woman is one year old!  I’m actually glad I didn’t totally miss it—some of you may have noticed I haven’t really updated in a while.  These past few weeks have been a brutal combination of being insanely busy and insanely stressful, and the combination of mental drain and preoccupation on various worries has left little room for musings on life, love and happiness.  Thankfully, things have finally started falling into place, lists are being checked off, and while I’m still holding my breath a little bit, I think everything’s going to be okay.  One thing I do know—I’m really, REALLY looking forward to the housewarming/birthday throw-down I’ve planned in June.  I really need some epic fun…

So… May 26^th, 2011 I put up my very first blog post.  I was inspired to give blogging a try by two women I’ve never met face-to-face, but had gotten to know over the internet.  The first was Rachel M., who I followed on Livejournal for a while.  A superb writer, I found her posts engaging—sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking.  In her I saw a bit of a kindred-spirit, and I always found myself cheering her on, hoping for things to go her way, and hitting the comment button to offer condolences when they didn’t.  Eventually she left Livejournal and started a blog, Toughbunny.

The second was MJ, a woman I met online through our mutual love of a collectible card game.  I write a weekly column about the game, and one day out of the blue she emailed me a sketch of something I’d written about in my column, something I’d imagined and wish I’d had a picture of.  We sent some emails back and forth, followed each other on Twitter, friended each other on Facebook.  Again, I saw in her a bit of a kindred-spirit in things we’d both experienced in life, and then one day she started up a blog as well, Moxy MTG.  Her writing was whip-smart and funny, and I enjoyed reading everything she put up.  She’s also an incredibly artist, and she was sweet enough to draw up the banner art that tops this blog.

It occurred to me after Rachel and then MJ started their blogs that blogging offered a much better way to reach out to a larger audience than Livejournal did.  I’d been doing a ton of writing for a long time about that collectible card game, and while I love writing about it, the audience for that writing is pretty niche.  When friends or family wanted to know if I’d written anything lately, I could show them that stuff, but they wouldn’t understand whether it was funny or interesting unless they were into that game (and most are not).  I make some money on that writing, but if I were ever to get to my goal of writing for a living, I’d very likely need to show that I can write other things as well.

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…She’d Share My Motto

If you’ve clicked on my About Me tab, then you know I’ve got a motto:

LOVE DEEPLY
BE KIND
DO GOOD

I think it’s good to have a motto.  It boils everything down to the primal things that you think are most important in living your life.  It gives you a core idea of who you are, fundamentally, and why you think you’ve been given this life.

If you’re looking for someone to share you life with, it seems ideal that she’d share your motto, or at least be compatible with it.  Not that I think anyone but the most cynical people could really argue with my motto, but I’d want these words to resonate with her, to connect with her on a deeper level.  I want these words to feel right to her.

LOVE DEEPLY

I sprinkle my thoughts on love throughout posts on this blog, and wrote specifically about it in my post …She’d Be a Hopeless Romantic.  For me, love is what living is all about.  Everything else is just superficial bullshit that doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.  Money, possessions, your job, your bills, the daily stresses of living– all that stuff is just window dressing.  None of it is why we’re here, living this life right here and right now.  We’re here to love, to give love and to receive love.  Love is an endless well of feeling that never runs dry, so why be stingy with it?  In fact, the more love you give, the more love you have… so give often and give deeply!

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Flexibility and Forgiveness

While reading various blogs about singledom and dating, I often run across these “non-negotiables” lists.  The bloggers draw out these lines in the sand, and if someone fails to stay within the lines, they are not worth dating or loving.

Really?

My friend Courtney wrote an awesome guest blog on Simply Solo called When He Cheats, about finding the strength to forgive.  In reading the comments, quite a few people said, more or less,  “I would never be able to forgive, I’d never be able to trust him again.”

Seriously?

I have to admit I find this sort of rigidity perplexing.  Yes, I understand having a mental list of what you want in a mate– after all, my blog is called My Ideal Woman, so I’m familiar with the concept!  But I think too many people get what they want in a mate confused with what they need.  Sure, I could picture what I may want my ideal woman to look like physically, and I could even sketch out a laundry list of personality traits that would indicate we’d be perfect soul mates.  I’ve written a ton of blog posts doing just that.  But honestly now, those are just wants.  They are hardly non-negotiables.   What people need are the big ticket items:  someone you love and who loves you, someone who’s relatively sane, someone who’s not wanted by the law.  Things like that.

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…She’d Wanna DO Stuff

One of the most frustrating things about being recently single is trying to get into people’s heads that I’m a) single and b) looking to socialize.  I’m not really in a position right now to be actively dating per se, but I’d like some human interaction outside of work.  Like, it’s so frustrating to hear about a party or get-together that was so much fun and realize that you could have totally been there if anyone had bothered to let you know about it.

A lot of it is my own fault of course.  I was married to woman for many years who withdrew from nearly all social contact in favor of nesting at home with the kids, and while I did my best to keep in touch and do stuff with friends and family whenever I could, it wasn’t nearly enough.  People move on with living life, and if you’re unavailable too many times you get mentally shifted to the basement of their thoughts.

I really, really hate being there, especially now that I’m trying to reach back out and engage again.  It’s like 10 years of muck I’m trying to pull myself out of, desperately waving and trying to get people’s attention.  I’m here!  I’m here!

My life situation right now doesn’t help things either.  I’m living in a house alone while paying child support for two kids, and so I’ve got to work a full and part-time job to make ends meet.  I work a lot, and there’s not much wiggle room for spur-of-the-moment activity except for late at night on the weekends.  I get off work at 11pm, and while I’m usually up for fun afterwards, I can’t seem to plug into anything that might be going on at that time of night, at least not with anyone that I know.

It’s why Quite a Momentous Week was one of my favorite posts, because it details what’s probably the highlight of my pathetic social life over the past decade.  That was back in  August… I’d really like to have those sorts of evenings a little more often!

I am working to change things on my end.  Working on refinancing the house to pull down the monthly payment some will help.  I’m also trying to find a roommate to live in my house with me.  Then I’ll be able to cut back on my part-time hours a bit and actually open up some time to be sociable more in line with people with less insane schedules.

In the meantime… I’m going just a little bit stir crazy…  though it is giving me time for writing eh?

The next woman in my life, I hope we can maintain the desire to go out and do stuff, as well as having people over to just hang out, maintain and build friendships.  While I value that nice alone time you have with the one you love sometimes, I don’t want to ever have to dig out of this sort of hole again.  I want people to feel comfortable dropping by, or calling to extend invitation to stuff going on.  I want to know that I’m a little higher up in people’s thoughts than this dusty old basement.

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…She’d Have a Beautiful Mind

No, not like the movie A Beautiful Mind… I mean a beautiful mind.  One that’s smart, witty, creative, fun, and sometimes twisted.

There are some TV shows that I watch that are so good, I want to watch them with someone, see her reactions, and then discuss her thoughts on what’s going on, what the characters are thinking, and where she thinks the story is going.  I get some of that with my BFF Kim on the shows Fringe and The Walking Dead, but we’ve only got an hour over lunch every other week or so and there are other things to talk about and catch up on (life, etc.), and the waiting between lunches kills me!

There are movies that are that good too, loaded with subtext, where the characters don’t necessarily just blurt out exactly what they’re thinking and feeling.  The kind of movies you want to talk about with someone who’s just seen it too.

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…She’d Two-Step with Me

The other day my iPod shuffled up “Down At The Twist and Shout” by Mary Chapin Carpenter, and it kind of choked me up.  I’m not sure why– there aren’t any particular memories tied in with that song– but it just overwhelmed me with emotion.  Nostalgia, sadness, joy, hopes and dreams…

Saturday night and the moon is out
I wanna head on over to the Twist and Shout
Find a two-step partner and a Cajun beat
When it lifts me up I’m gonna find my feet
Out in the middle of a big dance floor
When I hear that fiddle wanna beg for more
Gonna dance to a band from a-Lou’sian’ tonight

I first became aware of Ellen Barkin in the movie Sea of Love (with Al Pacino), and was totally blown away by her incredible sexiness, so I began watching some of her earlier movies.  I ran across one set in New Orleans called The Big Easy, and for kicks decided to buy some Cajun food — which I’d never had before — to cook up and eat for dinner while watching the movie on the VCR.

As I ate the spicy food and was marveling at the fantastic flavors (even from the store-bought box version of the food), I started the movie– the opening is an aerial shot of the New Orleans bayou as the zydeco band Beausoleil plays “Zydeco Gris Gris.”  I was totally blown away by the unique sound of zydeco and its high energy.  Something about the food and the music just latched into my heart.  Over the next couple years I found local and nearby Cajun festivals to go to, where I could eat real, freshly prepared Cajun food and listen to wonderful zydeco along with all sorts of other great New Orleans music.

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