Why this, why now?

Living on Cape Cod year-round is quite interesting. And challenging. People have an image of the Cape from brochures, movies, and the Kennedy family. I don't live near the Kennedy compound, and have never seen a member of the illustrious family. I have however on many occasions, driven by the church where Maria and Arnold were married. It isn't too exciting.

I am a 50-year-old single mother or three - two sons - 29 and 24, and a daughter who is 22. I am a journalist - I write columns and features for the Cape Cod Times, (www.capecodonline.com)and other publications as well.

I hear being single here is worse than other places, and I tend to believe that. A quick perusal of who's available at match.com is enough to keep me home with my cat and my knitting.

I did get fixed up a few months ago, and it wasn't good. First, he was a nervous driver. As we jerked our way down the road in search for coffee, I couldn't help but think if he was this nervous steering a car, how could he ever negotiate anything more personal and complex? He wanted to sit outside at a cafe on this cold spring day, so for over an hour I smiled, drank my quickly-cooled tea, and counted the minutes until I could go home. You know a date is bad when you pray the guy doesn't ask to come in. Thankfully he didn't, and I think he was equally unimpressed with me since I never heard from him again.

So now fall is settling in and once again I am looking toward a long, dark winter. The Cape the summer people see is like a starlet with her hair and makeup done, while where I live is the bare-bones unglamourous, albeit beautiful unadorned woman. I shall persevere though, because you never know what's right around the corner. It could be Dermot Mulroney who's been known to visit his mom here, or it could be a Nor'easter like the one we had last weekend. I'm hoping for the hot actor guy.