On Weddings and Funerals

I hate weddings.  Always have.  Maybe it's because the majority of weddings I've attended have had the word "Catholic" attached to it in some way.  For those of you in the unwashed masses category, this tranlates into what I affectionately call, "Church Aerobics".  Stand up, sit down, pray, pray, pray!  It also means long.  Like, REALLY long.  There are candles to be lit, songs to sing, sermons to shout, prayers to pray, wine and little rice cake-like discs to be consumed and then, oh, yeah, there's an actual wedding in there somewhere.

By and large, weddings are awkward, angst-filled events sprinkled with drunken speeches, resentment, fear and sloppy, late-night, desperately sloppy hookups between bridesmaids, jealous that they're not the one being married and groomsmen looking to add a notch to their bedpost. 


As you know, weddings are broken up into two separate events.  There's the ceremony itself, and then there's the reception.  Receptions suck, because it focuses on dancing, particularly dancing with the bride, sometimes pinning money on her dress and drinking...heavily.  The family is usually in attendance so everyone tends to be on good behaviour and friends often sit around and chat uselessly while the couple poses for pictures, smashes cake in each others' faces and tries not to spill champagne so they can get the deposit back on the tux rental.

I want karaoke at my wake, preferably backed by this band.

The Wedding Crasher:

I always feel out of place, and a little sad at weddings.  I keep envisioning the horrible break up that inevitably will come five or ten years down the road and the court fight over who gets to keep the Mac and who gets the flatscreen.  Unless there's an open bar, I rarely see the point of attending most weddings. 

I make an exception for close friends and family members.  But even then...there had better be an open bar.  Perhaps this is why I partake of my own little wedding tradition whenever I have to go to a nuptials gathering.  I wrap up a bottle of Jack Daniels, place it on the wedding gifts table with a little note attached.  I smile as I place it gently between the ill-disguised china setting and new set of knives, just imagining the looks on the faces of my newly married compatriots as they unwrap my present and read the note that says, "Do not open until divorce."

Crude? Yes.  Mean? I don't think so, given the statistics for divorce in the U.S. these days.  Inappropriate?  Maybe.  Cynical?  Oh, hell yes.  I've yet to get a truly angry response from the folks I've given this gift to, and to the best of my knowledge, the bottles remain unopened, so, I guess that's a good thing.

I know a number of friends who actually enjoy going to weddings.  Guy friends.  Bachelor guy friends.  Of course, their primary reasons for going to weddings is, A) The bachelor party and B) hitting on drunk bridesmaids or other random women in attendance.

I get this.  I mean, it makes total sense.  People tend to act desperately at weddings.  A lot of women start to feel the biological clock ticking away at weddings and start looking hungrily at the bevy of bachelors wandering around with a Bud light in one hand and a poor-fitting cumberbund slouching around the midwaist.  Meanwhile, a lot of men start to feel inadequate that they haven't been able to get hitched and beging thinking about a conquest to once again prove their manhood.  The whole scene makes me feel dirty.  Hitting on a woman at a wedding feels sleazy, slimy, like I'm taking advantage or abusing my power or something.

Life and Death:

And then there's the funeral.  I enjoy funerals.  No, I'm not morbid. I don't go crashing funerals looking for kicks.  And generally, because I often know the person who has died, it's a sad day.  But here's the thing.  Whereas weddings seem to represent an ending of sorts, as well as the beginning of something totally uncertain, funerals are final, completely certain, unchanging.  There is a kind of peace that surrounds funerals.  Yes, there is sorrow and there is loss.  But there's none of the desperation I often see at weddings. 

Like weddings, funerals are often divided into two parts, the service and burial, which is where the mourning and rememberances take place.  And then there's the wake.  The wake, I like.  I'm no Goth or necrophiliac, I don't have a death fetish.  I just really, REALLY like wakes.  Because the wake is a time of rejoicing.  No, not rejoicing the death of a friend of loved one, but a time to rejoice the time spent with that individual.  It's a time to tell stories and jokes and remember all the good things about the person who just passed on.  It's a time to laugh and cry and reconnect with others who you might have lost track of over time. 

I find it to be a time of renewal as well.  An opportunity to take stock of your own life and re-energize to do all those things you've wanted to do before you yourself pass away.  It's a reminder that life is short, laughter is beautiful and love is fleeting.  While weddings seem so concocted to me, funerals seem real, with all the warts and happiness and sadness that is real life. 

Perhaps this is why I have picked up an alarming number of dates at funerals.  Well, not exactly AT the funerals, but at the wakes.  At a wake, the defenses are down, the emotions are real and no one is "searching" for a love connection; if it happens, it happens. 

The Hook-Up:

Ten years ago, I attended a funeral of an old friend.  It was someone I used to work with in radio, and he had passed away suddenly.  I had moved on to working in television news at that point, but still had close connections to some of my radio pals. 

We all got dressed up and attended the funeral.  It felt odd being a pallbearer, since many of the people in attendance didn't know me, they were new to the radio station.  We sat glumly through the service and slowly made our way to the burial.  It was a crisp, beautiful fall Colorado day.  The sun was out, but it was cool, almost cold as a breeze ran through the bare branches and played with the leaves scattered across the cemetery grass. 

The shadows were long and the air was light.  It felt like football weather, and I remember thinking that at least my friend got to see the Broncos win the Superbowl, twice, before he died.  That made me smile.

Afterwards, a bunch of us went to a bar that our friend used to frequent regularly.  It's a small little place just on the edge of downtown Denve, bordered by high-rises on one side and parking lots and Five Points on the other side.  20 years ago, it marked the border between the safe part of the city and the part where you wouldn't walk alone after dark.  It was a bar that hand't changed in 30 years and still had pictures of patrons, some famous, most not so famous, some infamous, in cheap frames all over the walls. 

The bar had graciously opened early and gave us the run of the place until it's normal opening hour of 4pm.  We had about three hours to drink toasts and tell stories.  And we did.  We whooped it up.  Journalists are already a hard-drinking lot, give them a REASON to let loose and, well, it can quickly turn into a wake that makes even the Irish green with envy. 

The whiskey and beer flowed.  Stories were told and retold, each time our friends' exploits growing grander and grander.  At some point, I had noticed a young, long-haired brunette sitting at the end of the table, not saying much, laughing a little, drinking even less.  I didn't know her, but my buddy who still worked at the radio station did.  She was a relatively new sales rep and had become good friends with our deceased friend.

She was pretty, had huge brown eyes and long black hair.  I was immediately hypnotized.  I made the regular checks every bachelor makes; no ring, check, no visible scars, check, no slight ticks or odd behaviour, check.  I was curious and on my way back from the bar with my fifth Jack and coke, I took a seat next to her and introduced myself.

She seemed shy, but not elusive.  I asked her how she knew my friend and she told me that he had kind of taken her under his wing when she first started working at the station. 

"That old dog," I thought to myself.  Typical of him to become a mentor to a pretty, young, shy woman.  Why, it's exactly the kind of thing I would do.  I told her how I knew him and proceeded to tell her a story of the first time I met my friend.  It's a funny story and one I've told a few times over the years. 

By the time I was finished, the entire table was listening and we all were having a good laugh, raising our drinks in a heartfelt toast.  Everyone, that is, except for Jennifer, the lovely woman sitting next to me who prompted me to tell the story in the first place.  She raised for a toast and she was smiling, but there was still a sadness to her that was almost heartbreaking.

Within a few minutes, another story was being told at the other end of the table and attention had shifted away.  The two of us sat there, surrounded by people, but feeling very much in our own world, not saying anything, just sipping on our drinks.  Finally, she looked up from her beer and asked me, "Why were you smiling at the funeral?"

The question caught me by surprise.  It's like those moments when you you're singing in your car, and you KNOW that people can see you as you drive down the highway jamming out to Bon Jovi, but you nevr really believe that anyone is really watching you until you look over and see some kid staring at you through the rear passenger window.  It's a little unnerving. 

I immediately started to wonder how many other people had caught me quietly smiling to myself.  I responded the only way I could.

"You saw that?"
"It was hard to miss," she said.

Maybe it was the jack and coke's, maybe I was just feeling a little courageous, but I took that as a signal.  I mean, if she saw me smiling at the funeral, she must have been looking at me, right?  It wasn't like I was front and center at the service or burial.  In fact the only time I was even remotely visible was when I was acting as a pallbearer.  All of this was running through my mind in the matter of about five seconds, a bachelor's mind is amazingly quick under the right circumstances. 

"So, why were you smiling at the funeral?" she asked again.
What could I say?  I told her the truth.  "I was thinking about football."

NOW she laughed.  "The Broncos, right?" she replied, taking a big swig of her beer.
"Of course," I said.  "I was thinking how his timing was perfect, waiting for the Superbowl wins and Elway's retirement.  It was like he planned it."
"I just don't think he waned to see a Broncos team without john," she said, still laughing.

And just like that, the ice was broken.  We hadn't gone to the funeral to meet anyone.  It wasn't on our radar.  But the death of our mutual friend brought us together.  There was a chemistry and a spark and once she relaxed, we started talking.  We talked about everything.  Sales, history, music, sports, our friend, radio, television, news, movies, books.  We spent hours talking.  Before either of us knew it, the wake was over, the crowd grew and then dissipated and then it was time to go home.  Hours had passed and we had lost ourselves in each other.  We found comfort in each others words and presence. 

A Renewing Event:

Saying goodnight in a situation like that can often be awkward.  A couple meets at a funeral, they spend hours talking, getting to know each other, the feeling is relaxed and there's no pressure.  But then you have to make a choice to see where the relationship could go.  Do you let it just simmer and be friends and give a quick peck on the cheek or a "friends" hug where you pat them on the back like a good buddy?  Or do you be bold and ask them out, knowing that because you met at a funeral, it might seem a little crude? 

But there was none of that.  By the time I had walked her back to her car, we both knew there was something there.  Neither one of us was looking for anything serious.  We both knew that there was no pressure.  We wanted to see each other again.  It was unspoken.  We exchanged phone numbers, hugged and then kissed each other goodnight.  It was a long, passionate kiss that made me regret, a little, not asking her back to my place.  And then she drove off.

We saw each other again, and dated for about four months.  It was never serious and we eventually drifted apart.  But we remained friends and I really enjoyed the time I spent with her.  Most of my funeral "hook-ups" are similar in nature.  Just quality conversation that turns into something fun for both parties.  The deal here is that neither party goes to the funeral looking for a hook up.

So invite me to a wedding.  I'll go, I'll partake of the open bar, I might even bring along a date so we can sit in the back and amuse ourselves by making snarky comments about the guests and the happy couple and their overbearing families.  I'll give my "gift" and laugh later that night as I imagine the fury of the bride when she sees the note.

But I'll take a wake, thank you, when I want quality conversation, real emotions and a spirit-reviving experience.  Take note, bachelors, you can't be "on the prowl" at a funeral, that's just not right.  But if you play your cards right at the wake, you can definitely find someone worth spending time with.  Plus, and this is important, funeral sex is way better than drunk bridesmaid sex any day.  Trust me on this one fellas. 

Bachelor Alone-ness

I live in a high-rise.  I've lived here for a while, and, with any luck, I'll be living here for a while longer.  I like living in high rises.  For the past 12 years, I've lived in a high-rise of some sort.  I like high-rises for various reasons.  One, no bugs.  It's not that I'm afraid of bugs, except spiders, I'm terrified of spiders and I hate them.  Truly, I really, really hate them.  But for the most part, high-rises are devoid of bugs in general. 

A lot of high-rises also come with parking, which is good in town with crappy parking and police that hand out tickets like John Wayne Gasey handed out lolipops to underage teen boys.  I also like the fact that most high-rises have balconies.  Just about every apartment I've lived in has had a balcony and was located near a bar.  This is particularly fun around 2am when the bars close and the show begins.

You KNOW you want it baby, Yeah!

Honestly, I'll often just wander out to my balcony around closing time just to watch people stumble around, throw up in the gutter or engage in what I call drunk fights.  These are different from real fights in the fact that, usually, neither party can really stand up straight, keep their balance or throw a real punch.  It's usually a lot of yelling and smack talk, followed up by some shoving or the traditional "drunk male chest bump" which is then usually followed by a slap or a punch.  The great thing about drunk fights is that the punch generally ends up knocking both people down and then they roll around for a minute while their friends come in to break things up.  It's like clockwork. 

Then there's the always fun lovers' spat.  A guy and girl stand on the corner and air all their dirty laundry publicly.  The woman is generally hysterical because the guy, A) looked at another woman, B) forgot something important, or C) is drunk...again.  It doesn't really matter, it's fun to watch, even from 20 stories up.  You'd be surprised how much of a conversation you can hear that high up, especially when they're yelling at the top of their lungs.  Oh, you hear the usual, "WOOO'S" and "HOOOT'S" but it's the drunken spectacle I really enjoy watching.

Sometimes, though living in a high rise has its downside.  For instance, the other day, I was sleeping on my couch, which I often do, and my phone rang.  I was startled out of a deep slumber by its constant ringing.  I looked at my iPhone, the time was just after 4:30 am.  Now, you have to understand, since I left TV and radio, no one calls me that early unless it's something very important.  I didn't recognize the number, so my mind had a million awful thoughts running through it.  Was it the hospital?  Was a family member in trouble?  A friend who needed help?  I had been asleep for just over two hours and suddenly I was faced with something potentially horrible. 

Fortunately, it was none of those things, but it was still pretty horrible.  Dave, the front desk guy was calling to ask me to check my bathroom.  Still a little drunk from sleep, I wasn't sure I understood the question. 

"I need you to check your bathroom to make sure it's not leaking somewhere," Dave said.  Still a little confused, I managed to pull myself off the couch and make my way to my bathroom where I promptly stepped into what felt like a kiddie pool.  I have a ledge between my bedroom and my bathroom, about a two inch ledge.  So any water that manages to leak out onto my floor, it collects.  Well, let me tell you, it had collected...in a big way.

It seems I had a leak coming from my toilet tank.  I didn't know.  But somehow it had started to leak during the night and flood my bathroom floor.  This would be okay if I lived in a house.  In a high-rise, though, it's a minor catastrophe.  My water was leaking through to the floor beneath me and they had called to complain.

In my time living here, the pipes have proven to be the biggest issue, with clogs happening all the time.  As I type this, my garbage disposal is basically useless as my sink is backed up.  But that's okay, you learn to cope with a few setbacks when you live in a high-rise. 

I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking, "What does this have to do with 'bachelor alone-ness?'"  I'll tell you.  One of the hallmarks of being a bachelor is being alone.  Learning to be alone, learning to enjoy being alone, dealing with problems...alone.  I'm not talking about life-changing, world-shattering kind of things, but, my toilet is backed up and my garbage disposal won't work and my microwave is on the blink and for some reason the elevator isn't working again kind of problems. 

Being a bachelor means never having to say, "I can do it."  Seriously.  I hear all the time from my "partnered friends" who are always complaining that their girlfriend or wife is making them put up new shelves in the closets, or fix the plumbing or build a porch.  Men with girlfriends or wives do things they normally would never do because their significant others ask them to do those things. 

As a bachelor, I have no one to ask me to do things I don't want to do, like fix my garbage disposal, or mow the lawn (hell, I don't even have a lawn), or build anything...at all.  I'm not trying to impress anyone or show off my alpha male-ness to anyone.  I can simply call someone up and say, "Hey, I have a problem, come fix it" and someone shows up a few minutes later wit a toolkit and in an hour or so, it's fixed.  Yay for me.

As a bachelor, I often walk around in only my boxers and a t-shirt (although lately I've been wearing my "I"m Working" sweats I got from a friend last Xmas) and I can leave my dirty dishes on my coffee table and I can go months without dusting or mopping.  I was making dinner the other night and I had made chili and burgers.  I whipped it up in about 20 minutes and then I grabbed "the Plate" and served up a meal.  "The Plate" is a particularly bachelor-like phenomenon I believe.  I have a single plate that I eat just about every meal on.  I don't wash it, I don't wipe it off, I eat a meal off it, I put it on the counter and then I serve up my next meal on it.

I do this because, first, I hate doing dishes.  And second, I hate doing dishes.  So I use the same plate over and over.  My only other option is to buy paper plates, which I've done in the past, I'm not above that.  So here I am, with my "plate" and I consider pulling out a bowl for my chili.  But then I think, why?  So I pull the pan off the stove, let it cool for a second and eat my chili out of the pan. 


See, this is what bachelors do.  And we do it because we're alone.  We don't have anyone looking over our shoulders telling us NOT to eat off the same plate every single day, or NOT to eat our chili straight out of the pan.  This is why bachelors ENJOY being alone and being bachelors. 


Listen, I love my friends, I love being around them, I miss them when I'm not around them for any length of time.  Just tonight I went out to have a beer for an hour and half with probably my best friend, just because I enjoy being with her.  She makes me laugh and I feel at ease with her.  But then she goes home and I go home and we can both be bachelors in our own little worlds. 


Does it get lonely?  I think most bachelors would say yes, sometimes.  But for the most part, we revel in the alone-ness.  And here's why: the alone-ness also equals freedom.  We don't have anyone to answer to, we don't have anyone looking over our shoulders, we don't have the kind of responsibilities that couples have.  This is the essence of being a bachelor. 


I've heard from several people that the bachelor lifestyle is a kind of Peter-Pan lifestyle.  In other words it's where the person never really grows up.  This confuses me.  I suppose we all have different definitions of what being a "grown up" means.  Yes, I'll admit I act well below my age at times.  And if being a grown up means having a wife and children, a mortgage and a job you hate, well, then, you can keep it.  I know a number of bachelors who are very responsible.  In fact the bachelorette I met tonight, my friend, is one of the most responsible people I know.  She's pretty grown up, even if I'm not sometimes. 


I suppose, in the end, being successful at being alone is a uniquely bachelor trait.  It's part of who we are as bachelors.  We don't want to sit alone at home on a Friday night, we'll normally go out and FIND something to do, people to be with.  But when the bars close, when the lights go up and the drinks are done and the conversation is over, we're perfectly okay making the walk, or drive home alone.  It doesn't fill us with sadness or regret.  On the contrary, we don't mind going home alone, in some cases, we enjoy going home alone.  The alternative is having to answer to someone, or facing the awkward morning after where you're trying to remember the other person's name and help them find their keys and cellphone. 


Of course, sometime we're also the ones throwing up in the gutter or getting involved in some kind of drunk fight.  Either way, it's still better than having a lover's spat on a streetcorner at 2:30 am, to the amusement of every balcony dweller in a three block radius. 


And when faced with those options, bachelor-alone-ness wins again.

The Girl Next Door

Hey folks, I'm back.  It's been a little while, I admit.  I've been busy trying to drum up business and travelling around a bit.  Lest you all think it's all been fun and games, I was doing some work along the way, so it's at least been productive.

I was in Los Angeles last week.  I'm sure you all know of La La Land.  If you've ever been there, you also know it's an...ummm...interesting place.  To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the place.  It's not the size that daunts me.  I like cities.  I like big cities.  I've done a stint in small towns before, and I've lived in the 'burbs.  Neither one are for me.  I like people.  I like to meet new and interesting people.  Plus, I like to talk, so, you know, people are kind of a pre-requisite for that.

Yeah, but can they solve a quadratic equation?

No, I'm not a big fan of L.A. because so much of it seems fake.  Sure, it's cool to see the movie industry everywhere you look.  And the history is pretty cool, what there is of it.  But under the glitz and glamour and the haze, it all seems a bit hollow.  I DO like Santa Monica, but everything else is so criss-crossed with "freeways" and sprawl and palm trees, well, it's just not my style, I guess.

Hootchie Mama:

Now, you might be asking, "What does this have to do with being a bachelor?"  I'll tell you.  Because L.A. is the movie capital of the world, you can imagine that the place is just crawling with beautiful women.  No, that's not really the right word.  As my friend Galloway said, they're not just beautiful, they're amazing, stunning...breathtaking. 

While I was in L.A. I spent a lot of time on Hollwyood Blvd., home of Grumman's Chinese Theater, The Walk of Fame, The Kodak Theater, the L.A. Subway and multitudes of crazy, insane people.  Oh, and it's pretty well stocked with beautiful women.  For me one of the best parts is that women in L.A. appreciate the short skirt and high heel look as well, which is always a winner in my book.

Now, I'm not intimidated by beautiful women, or smart women or confident women.  I find smart and confident attractive, as well as funny...funny is important.  But walking down Hollywood Boulevard, I found myself coming to one very interesting conclusion; As beautiful as these women were and are, I had a hard time finding them attractive.  Confusing?  Let me explain.

Most of the women I saw as I wandered down Hollywood Blvd. were thin, dressed in skirts that hit way up on the upper thight and heels that looked like miniature versions of the boots that KISS used to wear.  The hair was stylish, the clothes were form-fitting and the makeup was laid on thick.  I never spoke to them so my only impression came from their looks.

Listen, there was nothing wrong with the way they looked except for the fact that they looked so...well...L.A.  In other words, they looked fake.  Am I being harsh?  Am I being too judgemental?  Perhaps.  Maybe it's my age.  Maybe I'm becoming like that old man that sits on his front porch, yelling at "those blasted kids" to get off his lawn and reminiscing about the "good ole' days."  Problem is, I hate yardwork and I don't believe in the "good ole' days."

All of the women I saw, and maybe this was just where I was located, seemed way more interested in stuffing themselves into crowded nightclubs, working as waitresses or hoping to be seen by the right people.  As a bachelor in L.A., the competition isn't other men, it's Hollywood itself.

Confidence!

When I was in Boulder, I was a young, good looking, relatively thin man.  I was athletic, participating in sports, even fencing for a number of years.  I dated, I met women, I grew in confidence.  By the time I left Boulder, I have to admit that I was a bit of a cad.  I was confident to the point of arrogance.  I just felt that, hey, I have been in the dating waters in Boulder, where some extraordinarily beautiful women live and I did okay for myself.  I figured if I could be successful in Boulder, then I could have success with women wherever I went.

After I moved to Denver for work, I realized a few things. 

1.  Women in college are simply looking for a good time, which was compatible to me.
2.  College women are basically focused on two things, school and men, not necessarily in that order.
3.  Professional women have different desires and focuses.

In Denver, I wasn't just competing against other men, I was competing against career aspirations, marriage aspirations, family obligations.  I had to change my approach, my own focus and my own ideas on what being a post-school bachelor was like.

I talked to a number of guys while in L.A.  We talked about the town, the work and the women.  These are good looking guys with good jobs and charm.  In Denver, they had no problem finding women to be with.  In L.A., however, being a bachelor means having to take on a whole new skill set.

That's because most of the women they have met are way more interested in being seen by the right people and parlaying that into a modeling or movie gig.  One man I spoke to told me that if you aren't involved with the movies somehow, your chances of hooking up with one of these "stunning" women diminishes greatly.

Now, I have to imagine that maybe it's only that way in Hollywood and the immediate surrounding areas.  It can't possibly be that way all over Los Angeles, could it?  As much as I enjoyed all the eye candy wandering Hollywood Blvd., I will still take the girl next door any day of the week. 

Preferences:

Maybe it's just my personal preference, but the entire town looked so very blond.  Bleach blond, natural blond, dirty blond.  At least there were a number of redheads mixed in.  I like redheads, I think red is sexy.  I think redheads are my blondes.  Of course, though, I'll always be a sucker for brunettes and dark hair.  I'll take a brunette from Chicago over a blonde from L.A. any day.

I think I could be okay if I had to live in L.A.  I wouldn't be overly happy about it.  But I'd probably find a way to live in or near Santa Monica and try to find the women who weren't just looking for a casting couch.  And I think it could be done. 

Being a bachelor in L.A. is all about segmenting, I think.  Yeah, you can make the trip down to Hollywood or Sunset Blvd., but that's probably more for the occassional wild night out on the town.  I think bachelors that have success (those not involved in movies, anyway) find neighborhoods where they are comfortable, where they fit in and where the women aren't as movie-obsessed as the rest of the city.

I will say this, though.  I feel bad for women living in, or growing up in, L.A.  It has to be hard.  Everywhere you look are billboards, thousands of them, featuring hot women in bikinis or in movie promotions or telling you that liposuction is the way to achieve your dreams.  Plus, the competition for women out there is brutal.  You can be the most beautiful girl in your town, but in L.A., you're just another face. 

One night as we drank two-dollar bottles of win on a rooftop in downtown L.A., we met two women who had clearly been partying for hours (on a Wednesday night, btw).  These two women had just met two men, brothers, at a local club.  The men seemed subdued, one of them even left the party early.  We all chatted and had a good time.  Neither woman was involved with movies, but of course, had a secret desire to GET involved in movies.

The women were attractive, bubbly, outgoing, if also a little tipsy.  They just seemed like they wanted to have fun, which is a common theme out there.  If you had asked me when we first met them how old I thought they were, I would have said mid-20's.  Sure, the lighting was low, the wine was flowing and I wasn't paying too much attention.  But I could have sworn they were in their mid-20's.  So imagine my surprise when told that each of them had children in their mid-teens.  They were closer to 40 than they were 21.  I don't get shocked very often, but THAT shocked me.  I was literally speechless.  Once again...brutal competition for the women out there.

In the end, I'll take the girl next door who might not be as pretty as all the women in L.A.  But I prefer substance over plastic surgery and movie aspirations.  Although it WOULD be cool if the girl next door wore short skirts and heels.  I could live with that.