Shades of Bridget Jones

On Saturday, I felt a bit like dear Bridget when the neighborhood women and I gathered to ooh and ahh over the newest baby on the street. Cameron's mom got married in her late 30s after a marathon of internet dating, and then needed fertility intervention to have her two kids. The other women, moms all, got married very young and had less than no trouble getting pregnant (more like trouble preventing their pregnancies).

The Young Moms swooned over the baby. Then they started joking about how their ovaries hurt, and speculating on the baby boom that Cameron's arrival would trigger in the neighborhood. Because, you see, everyone can have babies, right? Why, certainly, no one in that very room has had trouble getting pregnant, right? Definitely not half the women in the room at that very moment, RIGHT?!?!

On the verge of tears, I got up to leave. Cameron's mom saw the look on my face and quickly tried to change the subject to something more encouraging and less... insensitive.

"Maggie, I meant to tell you! Remember my friend Camille, the one who had her son by insemination? She's engaged!"

Apparently this friend of hers, who had a child on her own three years ago when she was 39, has been swept up in a whirlwind romance with a 35-year-old she met through work. He loves her, he loves her son, the son is already calling him "Dad," and they're getting married in May.

At which point the traditionally more cluelessly insulting (truly, I don't think she means to be hurtful, I think she's just an idiot) Young Mom chimed in:
"Ooh, it's like some urban myth from Sex and the City; you always hear about women who get married in their 30s but you know they don't really exist. But now you actually know one, so maybe there is hope after all!"

I left. Cam's mom left with me, and let me have a good cry on the sidewalk before I went home. Seriously, it's like a scene from Bridget Jones, where the Smug Marrieds treat us like a different species or something.

Maybe I need more "Sex and the City" after all, and less Bridget. Certainly New York Magazine thinks this is a fine time for Singletons in New York.

Hmm, and George wants to see a movie tonight, how interesting....

(Also, the Captain checked in on me last night, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with marriage and babies, in any order.)

Ko-thario and me -- more banter

He replied! Funny, charming, lots in common, cute. Looks like a tall dark Jewish Michael Cera.
Even though he's made this whole quest public, I'm not going to post his e-mail here without his consent. But I did write back again:

...67 replies -- behold the power of Grub Street! I'm glad you didn't stop counting at 69, too cliché and puerile. That said... the last time I went to a Trivia Night, our team name was "We're Not Gynecologists, But We'll Take a Look." So of course our final, losing, score was 69. The trivia master was at a loss for words.

I'm an omnivore / recipe anthologist / windowbox gardener / online journalist. I have a Master's in Journalism, but beat reporting isn't really my style. It also pays about as well as abstract expressionism, I suspect. So now I run the online events calendar for a major newspaper, as well as all the new-fangled mobile action. If you absolutely need to check the baseball score while we're out to dinner and you have a cell phone handy, I'm your girl.

I also used to edit a magazine for NYU, and my dad was a physics professor, so I still have a soft spot in my heart for academia.

Is there really that much demand for abstract expressionist porn music? Do you have sexy librarian glasses you toss aside just before breaking into a pole dance?

--Maggie

PS: I like your smile.I hope it's not really *that* rare.

And then I saw the latest update on Grub Street. I was one of only five people he wrote back to! (though I was also one of nine people who mentioned Brazilian waxes, alas.)

Grub Street posted the update at 4:15, and I didn't send off my reply until 5 -- I had it open on my desktop since this morning, but it's been a hectic day at work. If I'd finished up a little sooner, I might have more interesting gossip for you.

Stay tuned!

With uni you get two

Grub Street tells of a funny foodie mensch who's looking for a Ko-date on Craigslist. B insisted that I reply (if this works out, he will have only himself to blame...):

Hello, you hysterically funny foodie!

I'm not a Brazilian porn star, but I have gotten an occasional brazilian, and I always find rock star parking. Haven't played Rock Band yet, but my 11-year-old niece got me hooked on Guitar Hero. But I digress...

Baggage -- does my Samsonite wheelie bag count? Because, seriously, it's amazing. Ten years old, travels with me about every other weekend on average, it's been as far as Japan and the Caribbean, doubles as a cat bed whenever I forget to put it away, and it's still going strong. Also, it may have saved my life, as I was dropping it off for repairs instead of commuting down to the WTC on the morning of September 11.

I speak five languages. Unfortunately, Dutch is not one of them. That said, if you're "romantically forking foie gras into [my] mug," I'll let you cop a feel. Left or right breast, your choice -- each is magnificent. Feed me uni too, and you can touch both.

You want a link? Here.
You want a picture? There's one in this post.

Ko ho,
Maggie

Hmm, I might have to make an OK Cupid profile out of that.