Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Good Bed Bad Bed






I went through a Feng Shui phase a few years ago, and a part of me still believes in the tenants of properly placed items and keeping clutter at bay. I certainly feel better when I'm not stepping over clothes in my bedroom or rummaging through outdated newspapers and mail on my kitchen counter. Is that good Feng Shui or just an effort to not become one of those people who expires amongst decades worth of newspapers and pizza boxes?

I was thinking about this because sometimes I wonder if my bed is haunted with the ghosts of relationships past. Before you scroll down to quickly see what kind of numbers I'm talking about, it's not a lot. Celibacy has at various periods has beoome something I'm way too familiar with.

Anyway, I did get thinking after talking with a friend about keeping a bed after a divorce. Is it possible that your partner leaves behind more than their dust mites? Can a bed that was the place of passion at best and let-down at worst, ever be the same after a relationship ends?

I thought the bad juju was released when I fell in love with someone else. But when that relationship ended I began to wonder. My Feng Shui'ing friend told me my bed was in the wrong place, so I moved it. And no one has visited it since.

I don't think it's me. I think it's the bed. I wonder if a date would be freaked out if I brought him upstairs to spend some time on my cat's bed? He's never had a failed relationship. His bed must be just fine.

Monday, November 5, 2007

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.