got humped around like a sack of giggling potatoes. On the other hand, my father was my date in the dateless desert of high school. Whenever my mother was out of town, we had dinner at Bug’s Barbecue and went to a movie. He introduced me to Mel Brooks (“It’s twue, it’s twue”), the Marx Brothers (“Booga-booga!”) and Charlie Chaplin. I—and the entire audience in the tiny hippie theater—had never seen anyone laugh harder than my father through Flip the Frog shorts . . . until he began crying with laughter during Chaplin’s dinner of spaghetti and streamers.
So what I missed out on by not sitting on my father’s lap I gained later when he taught me “Minnie the Moocher.”
Take that, Da-Vida.
• • •
Tip: It’s no longer what you do for a living, but when you do it.
People in their fifties fall into one of three work categories: traditional worker bees, freelance, or retired.
What the swinging fifties don’t want to admit, I think, is how much we value a partner who has leisure time. How tied is the fifty-five-year-old worker bee to the office? If he hates his job, he’s too old to remain unsoured and unbowed by it. The full-time job is the equivalent of another ex, and how he feels about his fifty-hour week can create the resentment of a divorce. On the other hand, if he’s too happy at his job, he risks being both boring and unavailable.
At this age, I’m hoping Mr. Extension 6651 can check up on his staff while taking Tuesday off for the Orchid Show.
This is why Mr. Done It is in a lot of demand. The best retiree is the man who made his tick and decided—chose, preferred, elected—to retire early enough to enjoy his [comparative] youth. Mr. Done It is a happy man, pleased with his cleverness and pleased to play in the spare time he created.
Which leaves the hipster-slacker, Mr. Freelance. (A word of caution: The description “self-employed” is very different from “freelance.” Freelancers tend to have thought about and embrace the notion of being a knight errant, Sir Gawain or Walter Raleigh, riding their wits and networks rather than horses or galleons. The self-employed, on the other hand, place more emphasis on “employment” than “self,” making them more steady in their habits but much less available. Getting the next gig is more a matter of tilting at windmills than dashing to battle or sailing for the New World.) The freelancer has a lot of time for dating—or no time. It is always feast or famine, and that goes for the pocket as well. I haven’t mentioned money in the trifecta of graying Mystery Dates because freelancers (as I know all too well) rarely know what their income will be in six months and are too often asking (and re-asking) for money owed. We have every good quality except for predictability, solvency and a tolerance for panty hose.
• • •
The decision to actually go out on a date (i.e., meet and talk) is based on a complicated trading game of résumés in which cachet is based on how many O-Pee-Chee 1968 New York Mets cards I have versus how many Topps 1963 Cincinnati Reds he’s holding.
Is he holding a redundant Eddie Kasko or a knocked-around Pete Rose?
Let me break it down for you.
I’m not mixer material for The Millionaire Matchmaker . On the one hand, my income level and weight should probably have me dating men who are more familiar with wet cement than adjectives, but on the other, a potential date can Google my prose and vitae for hours. Then again, I swing between teaching freshman composition on an adjunct basis and walking dogs to make my advances meet.
I may be fat, but I’m cute. I have good legs, great hair, a big smile and pretty eyes. It’s not hard to see past my weight. Yes, I live in the Bat Cave, but it’s in one of the best neighborhoods in the five boroughs.
What all those subordinating conjunctions mean is that I’m holding a Ryan Nolan, but its condition is questionable.
Guys, being guys, rate themselves on
So what I missed out on by not sitting on my father’s lap I gained later when he taught me “Minnie the Moocher.”
Take that, Da-Vida.
• • •
Tip: It’s no longer what you do for a living, but when you do it.
People in their fifties fall into one of three work categories: traditional worker bees, freelance, or retired.
What the swinging fifties don’t want to admit, I think, is how much we value a partner who has leisure time. How tied is the fifty-five-year-old worker bee to the office? If he hates his job, he’s too old to remain unsoured and unbowed by it. The full-time job is the equivalent of another ex, and how he feels about his fifty-hour week can create the resentment of a divorce. On the other hand, if he’s too happy at his job, he risks being both boring and unavailable.
At this age, I’m hoping Mr. Extension 6651 can check up on his staff while taking Tuesday off for the Orchid Show.
This is why Mr. Done It is in a lot of demand. The best retiree is the man who made his tick and decided—chose, preferred, elected—to retire early enough to enjoy his [comparative] youth. Mr. Done It is a happy man, pleased with his cleverness and pleased to play in the spare time he created.
Which leaves the hipster-slacker, Mr. Freelance. (A word of caution: The description “self-employed” is very different from “freelance.” Freelancers tend to have thought about and embrace the notion of being a knight errant, Sir Gawain or Walter Raleigh, riding their wits and networks rather than horses or galleons. The self-employed, on the other hand, place more emphasis on “employment” than “self,” making them more steady in their habits but much less available. Getting the next gig is more a matter of tilting at windmills than dashing to battle or sailing for the New World.) The freelancer has a lot of time for dating—or no time. It is always feast or famine, and that goes for the pocket as well. I haven’t mentioned money in the trifecta of graying Mystery Dates because freelancers (as I know all too well) rarely know what their income will be in six months and are too often asking (and re-asking) for money owed. We have every good quality except for predictability, solvency and a tolerance for panty hose.
• • •
The decision to actually go out on a date (i.e., meet and talk) is based on a complicated trading game of résumés in which cachet is based on how many O-Pee-Chee 1968 New York Mets cards I have versus how many Topps 1963 Cincinnati Reds he’s holding.
Is he holding a redundant Eddie Kasko or a knocked-around Pete Rose?
Let me break it down for you.
I’m not mixer material for The Millionaire Matchmaker . On the one hand, my income level and weight should probably have me dating men who are more familiar with wet cement than adjectives, but on the other, a potential date can Google my prose and vitae for hours. Then again, I swing between teaching freshman composition on an adjunct basis and walking dogs to make my advances meet.
I may be fat, but I’m cute. I have good legs, great hair, a big smile and pretty eyes. It’s not hard to see past my weight. Yes, I live in the Bat Cave, but it’s in one of the best neighborhoods in the five boroughs.
What all those subordinating conjunctions mean is that I’m holding a Ryan Nolan, but its condition is questionable.
Guys, being guys, rate themselves on
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