Just to finish out this saga of the emoticon-challenged Hulk, it’s over. We went out and had a nice time. He planned a second outing with me and then cancelled the next day. Two cancellations and we’ve only been out once. I texted him, “I don’t work that way.” He replied, “I understand.”

Honestly, I am beginning to blame women in their 60’s for raising such a bad lot of men. Really they should be ashamed of themselves.

We survived Hurricane Sandy. There was a lot of wind and a lot of rain. Neighbors had issues with trees down and stuff but my mom and I were spared with very little damage. I have a stain on my ceiling from a leak that I have to tell my HOA about and the trunk of my car is acting funny but that’s it.

I spent the storm with my mom and Lisa. There’s was a part of me that wanted to stay at home and get stuff done… stuff like cleaning out my closets. When the power went off at my place and I realized I had no food at all, driving to mom’s seemed like an awesome idea.

Lisa and I walked around the house and secured the property. When the winds picked up, we went inside, and hunkered down. Food and wine and food and wine. It felt quite a bit like a slumber party until the power went off at around 6pm. No more frozen margaritas!

I slept in the guest room and woke up alive. The storm was gone along with power and cable and cell phone reception. It felt odd being so disconnected. Eventually I drove around trying to pick up a stray wifi signal. The roads looked post-apocalyptic. Signs gone, traffic lights askew, branches everywhere.

At around dinner time I decided it was time to check on my place. Not only was it fine but the power was back on. Everything was back to normal. It took my mom until last night to get her power back. I think they are still waiting on cable.

Three posts in one day! Heck, that’s more than I typically post in an entire month! What’s going on??!!

At any rate, the night before I saw Wanda Jackson in concert.

She was AWESOME!

I especially liked her tribute to Elvis. She even talked about their relationship.

This is actual video footage from the show I was at:

The Sellersville Theater is awesome. Already this year I’ve been there to see the Red Elvises, Los Straitjackets, and now Wanda Jackson. Cool place.

Hulk just texted me:

Good afternoon beautiful 😉

UNLESS HE’S TELLING ME I AM UGLY, THAT’S THE INCORRECT USE OF AN EMOTICON!!!

Mr. Winky is used when you are being silly or saying something in a sarcastic, teasing way.

Mr. Smiley should have been used instead. Mr Smiley shows that the comment was meant in an upbeat, friendly way.

Over and over again, the Hulk misuses emoticons and it’s driving me nuts!

How are you? 😉

WRONG!

was thinking of u 😉

WRONG!

Honestly, this whole situation is stressing me out. I think I am over analyzing it. 😉

Okay, so the relationship thing didn’t work out. I blame myself. Clearly it’s a bad sign when the person’s last name is Toxic. Yeah, really.

So now I am being courted by a bodybuilder. Or maybe he’s a weightlifter. I don’t quite know, exactly. Hell, I think I am being courted by him. He was a client of mine years ago and after posting an article on Facebook that must have outed me as a single gal, he sent me a FB message asking if I’d like to go out with him. I said sure and ever since I’ve gotten cryptic text messages from him.

We attempted to schedule a date last week but he cancelled 3 hours before the allotted time. This pissed me off, of course, but I am trying to be nicer, kinder, and gentler so I haven’t made a fuss about it. Actually, I make no fuss at all. He texts me and I respond with the least amount of effort. He hasn’t tried to reschedule anything and he has never picked up the phone.

Honestly, what is going on?

Why does he keep texting me? When I don’t text back he resends the text until I do. I have to admit I like his confidence that he believes the transmission failed rather than I chose not to respond.

I wish he would pick up the phone and call me. It’s been so long since I last had any contact with him, I feel like he’s a stranger. Back when I built his Website, I was in a relationship so I gave him no thought other than as a means to pay my mortgage. In a 5 minute phone call I would know if I liked him and vice versa. Then we could stop this unending back and forth.

I so want to text him back something like: Hulk, I’m not into this texting crap. Call me if you wish to proceed.

The problem is anything more than a simple reply sounds insane.

Oh my gosh, I just had an epiphany! I COULD CALL HIM!

The issue though is suddenly the distribution of power changes… or does it? Clearly I would have the bigger set of balls and that could be problematic. It doesn’t matter… all I want is to get out of this weird limbo land.

An old girlfriend called me the other day to tell me she and her husband were having issues and she was thinking about divorce. Many of my friends are divorced or in the midst of divorce. The funny thing with this latest one is I remember watching her walk down the aisle and feeling like she was just the luckiest girl in the world. At the time, I couldn’t figure out why PB didn’t want to marry me. Hearing her cry, I began to feel that I was the lucky one after all.

Thank goodness there was no shared property or piece of paper binding me to PB. When enough was enough, I simply put his belongings in garbage bags and threw them into the street.

Looking at my life, the one goal I have never been able to achieve is marriage. I wanted to marry Heiko. I wanted to marry Robert (PB). I wanted to marry Ernie. Hell, I wanted to marry Mark Hamill and River Phoenix. How is it that I want something that seems to almost always end badly? It seems insane. Wishing, hoping, thinking, and praying, planning, and dreaming… for something that doesn’t seem to make anyone I know happy.

It then dawned on me. I am the one deeming myself a failure by simply keeping this goal front and center. There are some people out there intent to kill institutions. There are others who are just caught in the undertow of a dying institution. I think I sit in the latter camp and I am tired of fighting it.

It’s a different world out there. I am actually really happy with my life. Does it really matter if I get married? Ultimately we all die. All I want is to have a nice time on my ride on earth– love, be loved, impact people, make a difference. And binding myself to a man doesn’t seem like a necessity to achieve those goals. Besides, why must I limit myself to one man? People change. It doesn’t make sense to stick with someone just because it’s the thing to do.

Today I took down all references to marriage on my vision board. And honestly, I feel it resonates better without that imagery.

When I was young, to be rich meant owning a Coach bag, drinking Pellegrino water, listening to a Bose wave radio, wearing cashmere sweaters, and having hardwood floors in my home. In some ways, I still feel that way.

This weekend I decided to tackle it. I bought a Coach bag and then I went to Best Buy and bought the Sonos multi-room digital music system (Bose is so 20th century). The other items are things I already consumed… I have a number of cashmere sweaters and my house has hardwood flooring. San Pellegrino is a quick trip to the grocery store.

What was I thinking? I decided it was time I move on. These were two items I could easily afford. Now that I owned them, I can move forward and name new goals… new desires, new ways to evaluate wealth.

What is it to be rich now? Gotta figure that out.