Kristine Holmgren - Your Favorite Minnesota Writer
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Only the good die young.

12/5/2009

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Never date a man in
denial.

 

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You meet someone this good looking once in a lifetime.

That's why I could not believe he approached me at the coffee shop.

I am accustomed  to doing my work alone,  unobserved, sitting at the funky table where I go to write my stage plays. It never occurred to me that someone might be watching me write, considering me as a woman.

Of course, I've heard of people meeting at coffee shops, but things like that never happen  to me.  I write with focus; attention to my text.  And I'm sixty-years-old, for heaven's sake.  Those days are over. 

So, imagine my surprise.  Tall, gray at the temples, he resembled Harrison Ford.  Okay, maybe Harrison Ford gone to seed, but the resemblance was there.  No doubt about it.

"I've seen you here before," he said as his eyes moved across my body. "You're always writing.  May I ask about your craft?"

My craft?  My craft?  At that moment, the only crafty thought in my mind was the fastest way to get this man in my life.

We chatted for over three hours about writing, the economy, the situation in Afghanistan.  When we were finished he asked for my phone number. 

I passed my email address; after all, this guy picked me up in a coffee shop, for crying out loud.

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It didn't take him long to be in touch.  By the time I returned to my home, he sent an email asking me to dinner.

This man, I thought, might be the real deal.

Sexy, appealing, intelligent; he seemed to have all the qualities I had stopped expecting in anyone, least of all a male partner.

Since I had gone through my divorce eight years ago, this man  was the first and only man who seemed well rounded, well read, funny and intelligent. The first in a long time to inspire me.

I studied the email.  His syntax was immaculate; his punctuation perfect.  Of course it was.

I decided this was too good to screw up - I would wait.  Wait 24 hours before responding.

For this man, I would play the game again.

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I didn't have a chance

Before I went to bed, he sent two more emails.

"I understand," he wrote, "why you don't want to see me again.  Please don't take my lack of energy as anything other than the effects of chemo therapy.  I'm perfectly fine, except I'm going through treatment, and have occasional flashes of pain.  I hope you didn't think my response to you was anything other than positive.  My apologies."

So - he has cancer.

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I sat with my thoughts for a short, short moment and answered his email. 

I offered that we meet soon.

And so we agreed this time on a new coffee shop, a new location for our next meeting.

"I think you're wonderful," he said when we sat together.  "and I want you to know what's happening here. "

He then proceeded to tell me he had colon cancer; seventeen inches of his colon removed and all his lymph nodes.  He had, he said, six months of chemo therapy before him and three behind him.

My experience as a Presbyterian pastor taught me many things; I knew his prognosis is not good.

"Difficult days behind you, " I said as I reached for his hand.  "Difficult days to come."

"Not all that difficult," he said as his eyes locked into mine.  "The old horn is still blowing strong.  I'm looking for sex."

The old horn?  His words hit me like cold water thrown on your face while sun bathing.

Stunned, I asked him to repeat himself.  Could be I misunderstood.

"Nothing to understand," he said.  "I'm looking for hot times.  I'm not dead yet, you know."

I am open, I aid  to a full-tilt-boogie relationship with a man.   But there's the cart, and there's the horse.  I'm clear about which comes first. 

He rose and picked up his jacket.

"There's nothing more to say," he said, "we want different things."

Speechless, I watched him walk out the cafe door.  He never looked ba

Off he went.

I was shocked when, several days later, he emailed me again.

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He told me wanted to be clear.  He liked me, really liked me.  He wrote that  I didn't have to worry. He had been diagnosed in June - and had sex over ten times since.  He did this, he said with women he met in coffee shops.

Granted, there were concerns.  The open port in his chest, where he received the chemo therapy,  was a bit of a problem.  Other than that, he was hot to trot. None of his women seemed to mind the hole close to his heart, or the threat to his immune system. .

Moreover, he wrote that his doctors all approved of all this sexual shenanigans - his oncologist prescribed Viagra for his post surgical recovery.

In his email, he wrote to assure me I would "have a great time" if I acquiesced. 

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I was devastated.

I wrote back, assuring him that yes indeed, we are on different paths.  I reminded him that I am a pastor; that I have a deep, rich background that he might find useful in a friend.  I reminded him that I cared for him - that there is "a baby in this bathwater."  I told him I was sorry he had been so scattered, so random in his affections. I told him he had a lot more to offer than he understood - and I wished him well in his hunt for his next sex partner.

He wrote back and accused me of thinking I was "too good" for him - and of course, I had to agree.

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I expect he will find someone with whom to have random, meaningless sex. I did the math.  In the four months prior to meeting me, he slept with ten women; that's more than two hook-ups each month. He'll meet his next escape partner; another woman to help him deny the inevitable.

I told him that the kind of woman he hunts is easy to locate.  Men and women who want sex without commitment have always found their way to each other.

He called me a fool.

I don't need to call him anything.  He is a man facing the end of his life.  He is frighted and running.

And who knows if he is not correct and I am indeed, a fool?  The days dwindle down to a precious few.  Most of us choose to spend these last decades with people we trust, love and upon whom we can rely. Facing the end of his journey, he has made another choice.

I am blessed with the sweet ignorance that holds me up and give me artificial courage.  I don't know a thing of my own mortality.  And so  I make my own decision about love, life, my body, my spirit and my energy.

Raised by high-minded Swedes, I've landed here;  if I cannot meet someone to respect, love, join as a partner, I will live alone.

It seems pious to announce.  My decision has not been an easy one to make.  In the beginning, after my ugly divorce I struggled against this solitude - fought against what it means, how it shadows every other part of my life.

My marriage ended because it turned ugly.  But it wasn't always so.  I thought I could find again what I once found.  I believed in the hope. 

Living alone was a shock; the same way in which  entering a tub of bathwater surprises the senses, so does entering this stage of life surprise a person.

In time, the shock softens.  The quiet gifts emerge.  The ability to shape, craft, construct and enjoy one's life rises out of the hot pain of abandonment, the cold sting of loneliness.

 I never expected to be here; never thought I would live as I do, happy in my independence, delighted in the freedom to see, know, think as I will, accommodating no one.

The man in the coffee shop does not have the luxury of lounging in the bathwater of time; negotiating affections, meeting expectations, growing an intimacy. He wants what he wants when he wants.

Me?  I'm floating.  The bath water temperature adapts to my requirements   -  my own form of denial.

The baby doesn't mind at all.

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Chapter 4

10/19/2009

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Never date a man who
asks you to touch
a body part - any body part!



He asked me to meet him at the California Cafe at the Mall of America; my favorite restaurant.

"I hope you don't mind if I insist on buying your dinner," he said.  "I want to make a good first impression.  Will you let me make a good first impression?"

His name was Randy, and the impression thus far was fabulous.

Randy was a retired Vice President from Cargill; a former basketball center from the University of
Michigan and, if true to his emails, a bit of a poet.

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"Tell me what you need from me,
Tell me what to do,
Tell me when your heart is free,
Let me come to you."

That kind of thing.

His profile on Match.Com was brief - Randy wasn't looking for a date, he said.  He was looking for me; a single woman who understands how important it is to be in a real friendship with a good man.

And I was ready.  After three years of accidental meetings with closeted married men, disastrous coffee dates, brunches and dead-end happy hour rendezvous, I no longer wanted anything to do with the dating scene.

No more dates.  I knew what I wanted.  One man.  Perhaps Randy.

"Don't bother trying to charm me," I told him when he phoned. "I don't care about charm.  I want to get on with this thing."

"I'm with you," he said.  "I hate getting acquainted.  I want to know someone.  And if I don't know her, I want to pretend I know her and get to know her while I'm pretending."

It seemed like an ideal arrangement - a man who was ready to fake what I was eager to receive. 

We agreed to meet on
a Wednesday after work.

Of course, we had not yet laid eyes on each other.  Neither one of us knew what the other would look like.

He told me he would wear a sport coat and tie. I laughed and said he would stick out like sore thumb at the Mall. 

I told him I'd wear my new white cotton sundress to match his elegance. 

"Speaking of thumbs," he said, "remind you to tell you about my hands."

It was an odd statement and I ignored it.  Big, big mistake.
  


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Randy was a beefy man, tall and straight in the cafe chair at the California. Bald, with large, thick glasses, he smiled as I sat across from him.

"You're yummy," he licked his lips and I winced. 

"That's a little on the rude side, Randy," I said as I straightened my skirt across my thighs and cleared my throat.

"Oh, sorry," his earnest eyes caught mine. "It's just that you're better looking than I thought you would be.  A little obnoxious, huh?"

I nodded and motioned for the waiter.

"So, what can I say to fix this?  I mean, here I go, screwing this whole thing up at the get-go."

I assured him he was fine, and I suggested we look at the menu. Was he going to buy me a glass of wine?  He nodded.  Of course, he said.  Of course.

"But all that aside," Randy leaned across the table, "you have to know I think you're a babe.  Tell me, what would it take for a woman like you to go out again with a bum like me?"

I suggested he was way ahead of himself.  I tapped the menu and suggested he pick something for dinner.

He looked at the menu cover, never opened it and looked into my eyes.

"You haven't asked about my hands.  Want to see my hands?"he whispered.

"Why would I want to see your hands?" I asked.

"Not see them, I guess," he said.  "Stab them. Want to stab my hands?"

"Stab them?" I slid my napkin to my lap and found the seat of the cafe chair and took hold.  Something solid, under me, for support.

"Yeah," Randy grinned.  "Most women don't believe me when I tell them about my hands."

I was afraid to ask, but of course I did.

And so he told me. 

He fell, he said, two years prior.  On a basketball court, trying to block an opponent during a pick-up game at Linwood Park.

"When I awoke," he said,"I was at St. Mary's in Rochester.  The Mayo Clinic."

Paralyzed at the extremities, Randy entered rehabilitation where he worked for three months to regain use of his arms and legs.

"Can you walk?" I asked.  I glanced around the restaurant, expecting a wheel chair, tucked away,  hidden from immediate view.

"You bet," he said.  "And I can use my hands and feet like anyone else.  Except for one thing."

The waiter approached with two large glasses of water. Thankful for his bright-eyed, friendly presence, I ordered a glass of pinot grigio and held my breath.

"What one thing?" I asked.

"I have no feeling in my hands.  Nothing."

His hands lay on the table, flat and large like two flesh-colored pork chops.

"That's too bad."  I said.

"So," he smiled, "you want to stab one?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Stab one. To prove I can't feel anything."

I declined, downed the glass of water and eyed the exit.

"I'm serious," he said.  "You can if you want."

I waved for the waiter.

"Okay," Randy laughed, "that's okay.  If you don't want, I'll do it for you."  He reached for his silverware, rolled in a linen napkin on our table.

"That won't be necessary, Randy." In my peripheral vision I saw our waiter approach, sensing my anxiety.

"No.  I want to.  Watch this," Randy picked up his fork with his right hand and flattened his left on the table of the California Cafe. 

He lifted the fork over his head like a mad ripper, prongs aimed for a brief moment at me, and then at his other hand.

In one swift, uninterrupted lurch, Randy stabbed his left hand; the blood spurted across the table cloth.  I think I screamed.

"Are you okay?" our waiter rushed to his side.

"Okay? Hell, I'm terrific!" Randy waved his blood-gushing hand into the air, swinging his red cells over my wine glass, my dress, my dinner plate and the white linen of the California Cafe's table.

The waiter's face lost color and I thought he might faint.

 "Oh, my goodness, my goodness," he mopped the blood with his apron. When it was soaked in red, he used the towel across his arm. Randy continued to bleed and laugh.

"Do need any help?  Anything. . . ?" I watched the waiter's young face twist in horror as blood flowed, unclotted, from Randy's left hand.

"Hey, I don't need nothing.  Only one thing, young man." Randy announced. "All I need is love!"

He looked into my eyes and winked.

I stood, reached for my purse, and took the young, pale waiter's arm. 

"Walk me to Bloomingdales," I whispered.  "My car's in the lot.  Please walk me to Bloomingdales."

The stunned waiter took my arm and together we walked away from the California Cafe, from Randy and the gore of that Wednesday afternoon.

The young man did not leave me at the door of the parking lot.  Instead, he escorted me to my Volkswagen Beetle, opened my door, and deposited me inside.

"Lady," his voice trembled, "I thought I'd seen it all . . ."
 
"You haven't seen anything," I assured him, "until you try dating after fifty." 

The ride home took over forty minutes in rush hour.  Two drops of hot-red blood stained my fresh, white summer dress. 

It slid off my shoulders and over my hips for the last time.  Stuffed into the garbage, I sent it packing along with Randy's telephone number and his poetry.

Another close call
.

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Chapter 3

10/12/2009

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Never trust a man over fifty
who wears a mullett


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My children were in their early teens when I started dating.  I waited until the divorce was final for a year, and met Dave on Match.Com.

He combed his hair so it presented an odd fashion statement; the back grown out  six, seven inches longer than the front. 
Balding on top, thinning on the bottom, Dave's hair-do looked a bit like a toilet seat with the lid up.

If Dave had a little less gray and a little more hair, a person might have thought he was trying to emulate Little Joe Cartwright from the early years of the television program, Bonanza.

But Dave was no Michael Landon and we were not living in the 1970's.

Still, underneath the bad hair cut, Dave seemed to me to be a decent, honest fellow. And in those early days following my divorce, I wasn't asking for much more than what he offered. 

He made me a little nervous, however.  From the first date  Dave wanted to marry me.

He loved my cooking, he said.  He thought my kids were terrific.  I raised them, he offered, with the right values, the right approach to being female.  Dave was raised by a single mother and knew, he said, how hard it could be.  

"A lot of women fall apart," he told me. "Drink, do drugs, sex around.  But not you.  You're a terrific woman, Kristine."

No one else called me terrific.  When Dave asked me to the movies week after week, I said yes. 

The more I saw him, the more he talked about marriage.  The more he talked about it, the more I thought marrying him might be a logical solution to my loneliness and impending poverty.

Looking back, I can see how I slid into a relationship with him. Dave was a generous, loving man in basic, caring ways.

When my oldest daughter wanted to visit colleges on the east coast, Dave passed me a credit card and said, "go for it." 

Whenever he visited, Dave bought three, four bags of groceries. When he said good-bye at the door, I always knew that I would find a fifty dollar bill stuffed in my cookie jar for an "ice cream cone with the kids."

And he was kind.  He called each day to check on events at my work, followed up when he knew I had a worry or concern about my children or my home.

I guess that's why I believed him when he said he loved me. I loved being "the sweetest woman in the world." 

Even so, something held me back.  Dave was different from all the other men in my life.  Nothing about him was familiar.  My former husband was elegant, educated and refined. 

Dave faced challenges in those areas.

To start, there was his nasty reoccurring problem with ring-worm.  When his skin wasn't infested with the grubby nibbling parasite, Dave struggled with some weird, invasive brand of body acne.  These unfortunate circumstances put the skids on any discussion of romance.  Worms, disease and his chronic halitosis insured our physical relationship was limited to warm handshakes and an occasional wink at the front door. 

He had an odd living arrangement too.   Dave shared a place with Frank and Jane, two old friends from high school.  Frank and Jane had big hearts.  Stray friends roamed their apartment and so did stray animals. Dave lived in the middle of all of it.  His mullet and beard often smelled of rancid kitty litter and fresh, warm dog dung.

Any one of these horrendous shortcomings would be, to a  rational woman, a reason to dump poor, parasite-laden Dave and call it even.  Why then, did I continue to spend time with him?  Did I consider this a serious relationship?  And if I wasn't serious about Dave, what was I doing?

Sometimes, when I was alone with my thoughts, I struggled with my ambivalence.  Sure, Dave was a little rough on the outside.  But underneath the repelling body odor, his  addiction to fresh, violent tattoos and the missing index finger on his right hand, I saw a good, good man.

When I admitted this to Frank and Jane, they affirmed my judgment.  Dave needed me, they said.  His former wife, was notorious in her neglect of the poor guy.

All he needed, they assured me, was a loving, good woman.  Someone to show him a new path.  My good housekeeping, my excellent mothering, and my terrific social skills would be Dave's ticket to ride.  Sheltered by my affection he would shed the toe fungus, trim his thick nose hair and perhaps learn to shower.


My children?  They hated him.

"Something fishy about a man who wears a mullet," my youngest said.  "Check it out, mom.  The guy combs his hair like some kind of retro biker, for crying out loud."

"You can't take him seriously," my older daughter accused.  "I mean, what if I brought home a guy who looks like that?  Get real..."

I tried to assuage their complaints, but I couldn't.  I too wondered about the weird hair, the tee-shirts ripped at the shoulders, the goatee placed at the center of his chin. I never understood why, when we went to dinner at The Lavender Inn,  he wore steel chains around his ankles; some sort of Jail-Bird chic, I assumed. 

But a lonely, divorced mother of two, trapped in a small Minnesota town can make some odd choices. 

And so I chose to continue to see Dave.

The weeks turned into months.  We celebrated our six month, one year, eighteen month anniversaries. 

When New Year's Eve arrived, I knew we faced a critical point in our relationship.

My daughters watched with disdain as I dressed that  night for dinner and dancing at the Castle Rock Supper Club.

"He's not going to ask you to marry him, is he?" my youngest asked.

"And if he does, you're not going to marry this guy, are you?" her sister sat on my bed and hugged my bed pillow in despair.

Nice-enough guy, I thought.  Good to me.  Good to my kids, in a odd, nice-enough-guy way. 

But would I marry him?

"I don't know," I said as I wrapped my shoulders in my cashmere shawl and touched-up my lipstick."Wouldn't our lives be easier if we had a big, strong man around here to help out?"

"Good lord, no!" my baby said.  "And let's get clear here, right here and now."  My children circled as I mascaraed my right eye one more time. "You marry. this mullet-head, and we're moving in with daddy."

"Oh, my darlings" I assured them both. "I won't marry anyone without your approval."

My daughters sighed and closed in for a hug. 

They loved me, they said.  They wanted the best for me, they assured.  They knew, they proclaimed, that this guy was bad-cheese. 

"Don't let him seduce you," my oldest said. "Give yourself the same advise you give me.  Watch out for this guy."

At the restaurant, Dave ordered a round of stiff, hard, cold martinis and stared at me, love-sick and terrified.

"I have something to tell you," he said. His hand trembled as he held the martini glass.

"I know," I sipped the strong drink and felt my feet tingle.

"You know?"  he asked.  "How could you know?"

"Well," I fluttered the mascara, "I've been paying attention.  I know what's been going on here."

"You do?"  Dave took a long drink of his martini.  "Did Frank tell you?"

"I don't need to hear this from your friends," I said.  "I knew it all along." 

I reached for his hand, certain the diamond ring was somewhere;  dangling on his pinkie perhaps, lurking in his shirt pocket; perhaps all ready slipped into my martini glass when my eyes were averted.

"If it makes it easier, I know what you're going to tell me," I smiled.

"You do?"

"Yes," I glanced at the gin, searching for something shiny.

"Well then, I'll just say it," he cleared his throat.  "I'm married."

"There,"  I said, not missing a beat as I pulled back my hand.  Something in my chest turned cold. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

"No," he said, relieved.  "Thank God that's in the open."

"So, tell me everything," I finished the martini in one gulp.

"I didn't mean this to go so far," he stammered.  "I mean, I was just fooling around on Match.Com, you know?  I didn't ever expect to meet someone classy like you.  You're the best, Kristine.  The best.  I mean, you're the real deal."

"Thank you," I said, and felt my hands begin to shake.  "What about Frank?  Jane?  What about them?"

"They went along with this," he said, "because they like you too.  We all think you're great.  And hey, I'm going to leave her.  I am.  I really am."

I rose from the table, picked up my purse, shawl and cell phone.

"Will you excuse me?"

In the bathroom of the Castle Rock Supper Club, I looked long and hard at the woman in the mirror.

"Kristine," I said, "what in heaven's name were you thinking?  The man wears a mullet, for God's sake." 

Within minutes, my daughters were at the back door of the bar; my waitress standing guard in case Dave discovered my exit. 

My oldest held my hand and the baby patted my knee as we drove the pick-up truck down back roads to our house.

"You'll be fine," my youngest said.  "Chalk it up to another lesson learned."

The hard way.



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Chapter 2

9/2/2009

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Never date a man who calls himself short, fat,
bald and ugly


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'I'm a two bagger,' he said.
He told me he wasn't attractive.  I told him it wouldn't matter. 

He didn't believe me.

"Admit it," he said.  "You're a Harrison Ford type, aren't you?  All women your age are Harrison Ford types."

I admitted to the copy of InStyle next to my bed; the photo of Harrison and Calista on the cover.

"Okay, " he said, "start with Harrison.  Take away his hair, his height, his chin, his body.  Take away his money, his humor and his fame.  What you got?"

A normal man, as far as I could calculate.

"How bad can it be?" I coaxed. "I mean, we're none of us as pretty as we were when we were in our twenties."

"I'm a dog," his voice on the phone was self-mocking and I knew he was teasing me.

"So, what does that mean?"

"A real dog," he said.  "Think, Lassie on steroids."

"Lassie is darling," I cooed. 

"Well, then think Sargent Preston's dog.  King.  On steroids."

"You're not kind to yourself, " I preached.  "If you're a dog, you need to dig for a little self esteem."

"I got nothing to esteem," he said.

"So, what are you trying to tell me?"

"I'm trying to tell you - if you're shallow, insincere and caught up in looks, you won't like me," he said.  It was a challenge any good woman would rise to accept.

"I don't believe you," I said.  "You're much too hard on yourself.  Are you telling me you are short, fat, bald and ugly?"  I laughed.

"Yes."

"No," I said. "You can't be all that."

"Wait and see," he warned.  "Wait."

I waited two days. 

We agreed to meet on the patio at W.A. Frost for a mojito. The agreement was this; if I thought he was too ugly for a serious relationship, we would try to be friends.  If he was too repulsive for friendship, it would be our last time together.

This was all new to me. Most fifty-something men take a different approach to dating.  They toot a horn louder than anything Louis Armstrong ever played.  They're all tall, strong, fit, active. 

They send photos taken ten, twenty years prior to your phone conversation and swear they were shot Christmas, last year.

This guy was different.  That's why I wanted to meet him.

The patio at Frost's was empty except for a little man, perched on a cocktail stool, sipping a tall mojito and frowning.

I couldn't tell how short he was. A man seated on a stool can fool a good woman.

He was bald. That didn't surprise me.  They're all bald.

He had a huge, red nose that took over most of his face; the kind of nose a man acquires from years of hard drinking, bad personal hygiene and too much sun.

His feet were tiny;  his hands were tiny; his eyes were beady, his complexion like the flip side of a Nestle Crunch bar.

It was true.  He was an ugly, ugly man.

But he was funny. 

"See?" he said as I approached.  "I didn't lie.  I'm a two bagger."

"Two bagger?"

"So ugly I wear two bags over my head.  If the first one falls off, the second one does the job."

We agreed we would go to the movies the following Friday.

He didn't have much money, he said, and so I agreed to  pay my own admission.  He called me a "good sport" and told me to meet him in the second row of the middle section of the dollar theatre on Lexington.

"I'll take you out for pizza if we still like each other," he promised.

The movie was old; something with Will Ferrell and I'd seen it on video six months earlier. The popcorn was stale, the seats in the dollar theater were broken and stained.  And my date reeked with powerful body odor.

"This is going well, don't you think?" he asked during the trailers. I smiled.  Nothing seemed to be going anywhere from where I sat.

The film ended and he asked if I would drive us to Pizza Hut in my Volkswagen.  His truck was low on gas. 

I was numb, shocked by a sense of entrapment. This man was smelly, grotesque in appearance, and I could not remember how I thought him charming at all.

 Worse, when we stood to exit the theater I realized how short he was. 

His forehead came to my elbow.  The guy needed four, five inches to reach five feet. He was short like the Munchkins are short.  Short like that little guy on Chelsea Lately's show. He was a short, short, short man; shorter than anyone I'd ever seen in public on the streets of St. Paul, Minnesota.

I stepped into the parking lot, looked down at his tiny, scuffed shoes walking next to mine and knew the date had to be over.

He knew it too, and sense of ugly doom hung over us.

 I reached to open the door of the Volkswagen when he jumped me.

Like a toddler, trying to leap into his mother's arms, he threw himself at my chest.

"Good lord!" I said as I pushed him away. "What are you doing?"

"I'm getting what I want," he murmered as he pushed his face into my stomach and clawed my bosom.  "I spent good money on you, Kristine, You owe me a little something."

"You spent nothing!" I shouted.

"That mojito at Frost's was over eight bucks!" he snarled.

Holding his shoulders and thrusting him away from me, I screamed for help.  He stopped, shocked. 

"I swear, I'll scream again if you come anywhere near me."

"What the hell?" he shouted.  "You're all alike, you know it?  Every last one  of you."

Later, before I went to bed, I checked my email.  I found a note from him.

"There's a reason you're alone," he wrote. "You're a cold, cold bitch.  If you want a relationship with a real man you're going to have to give up being frigid."

Two key strokes and he was deleted and blocked.

I picked up my copy of InStyle and reconsidered.  Take everything tall, charming, sophisticated, beautiful and elegant away from Harrison Ford and what do you have?

A creepy, horny little man. 



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Chapter 1

8/31/2009

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Never date a man who imagines
ways to rape you


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''I'd rape you in a heartbeat,' he said.


He sounded great on the phone.  Urbane, sophisticated, and most important, the man was funny.  He called himself "Clark" and me he called "Lois."  He promised me he couldn't leap tall buildings but he assured me that when I saw what he could achieve during our fist meeting, I wouldn't be disappointed. 

An architect, he hinted that some of his most recent designs were in the Bandanna Square neighborhood of St. Paul.  He  asked if I like jazz, and offered to meet me at the Dakota, an upscale bar where people our age gather for drinks, excellent aperitifs and the cool sounds of our generation.

I spent two hours getting ready.  The day before I stopped at the salon for a quick touch-up on my hair color. I told my children that I may have met a man I could take seriously; a fellow with a sense of humor and light touch.

"Be home before midnight," my fourteen-year-old daughter warned. "You don't know this guy, mom."

Didn't know him?  Nonsense.  His laugh was as familiar as my own; his quiet "good night" before he hung up after our late-night calls was as comforting as a father's promise that all would be well.

I arrived a bit late; not on purpose but I decided a dramatic entrance wouldn't hurt. I looked pretty good for a fifty-one-year-old woman. My short navy skirt accentuated my tan legs, and my striped tank top complimented my recent weight loss to showcase my waist, trim arms and straight shoulders.

He was a big man - he told me in advance, so I was prepared.  When I saw him I was surprised; he was taller than anyone else in the room.  Other men lied to me about their height; this guy was well over six-and-a-half feet.  His large, elegant head was covered with white-gray hair that I could tell had once been blond; perhaps strawberry.  His eyebrows were large, bushy, his eyes bright blue and his smile was broad.

I stared at him, I'm sure.  I know I stared at him when we first met, face-to-face. It seemed, I thought, too good to be true.  Too good and too easy.  After three, four years of dating I was at last in the presence of a man who was amusing, bright, and attractive.  I felt intoxicated, hopeful.   

We sat at a round bistro table on two tall, tipsy stools and ordered old fashions.

Then it happened.

"I'm worried about you, Kristine," he said. 

"Whatever for?" I asked and felt my eyelashes flutter. A tall, attractive, successful architect was worried about me.  Oh, my.

"You're too attractive to be dating online."

"That's sweet," I said as I twirled the ice cubes in my drink.  "But I'm average." I lied.  "Plain old Minnesota Scandinavian.  Blond, blue, tall. . . variations on a theme."

"You're going to get hurt," he said.

:My glass froze on the way to my lips.

"What ever do you mean?"

"Raped." he said. He sat back in his chair and his eyes connected, dead and cold, with mine. I shivered.

"I'm not getting raped," I laughed and tossed my head.  "Who would want to rape me?  I'm an old woman, for God's sake. A feeble, lonely old woman."

"You're not old," he hissed and leaned across the table. My right foot, perched on the tippy rung slipped.  I banged my foot the floor and the table slid with me.   As I struggled to regain my balance on the cafe stool he continued. 

"You're hot," he whispered; loud enough for the two women at the table next  us to hear.  Their heads rotated in unison at the word.  "Too hot for this kind of stuff."

"What kind of stuff?" I asked, my heart pounding in my chest, my face growing hot with a wild, frightened blush.

He gestured to my chest, my legs, my face.  "This," he said. "This kind of stuff.  The great legs, the blond hair.  This is what will get you raped."

"You're creeping me out," I laughed and took a deep gulp of my cocktail.  This could not be happening to me. But of course, it was.  Of course.  It was.

"I don't mean to creep you out," he leaned back and licked his lips.  "I only mean to tell you what's bound to happen.  You're taking too many chances for a beautiful woman.  You shouldn't be doing this, Kristine.  You're bound to get raped."

"Ridiculous," I said and finished the old fashioned.  The cold booze lodged in the back of my throat and I coughed. "Look where we are. Surrounded by people. What self-respecting rapist would jump a woman in a classy place like this."

"That don't mean shit," he said.

"It don't?"

"Nope.  Anyone could get you.  If I wanted to rape you tonight, I'd rape you in a heart beat.  No one would stop me."

I glanced around the night club, filled with baby-boomer and their partners. The women next to me were wide-eyed, shocked at this conversation.  No one else seemed aware of the fact that I was across the table from a full-blown psycho.

Who, I thought, would rise to help me if this pig pounced?

"Ridiculous," I coughed. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't I?" he smiled. "Let's assume after two, maybe three of these drinks, you decide to use the ladies' room."

"Okay. . . "

"Check it out," he said. "Check where it is."

I glanced, and saw the icon of a woman's form on a door to the left.

"So?" I said. "So what? So, there's the bathroom. So what about it?"

"Shadows.," he whispered.

"Pardon?" I leaned closer, reluctant but curious to catch every word.

:"It's in the shadows.  You didn't even notice, did you?" He laughed the same delightful giggle I'd heard on the phone the night before.  Why didn't I recognize the sinister sounds underneath? " I'd hide, right there," he pointed to a dark corner beside the restroom door, "you'd come out of the bathroom, and you wouldn't suspect a thing."

"But what would you. . ."

"I'd wrap your mouth so you couldn't scream, and drag you. It wouldn't be any trouble at all.  You're what, 140 pounds at the most?"

"One thirty, but that's neither here nor. . ."

"The parking lot is eight steps from that shadow.  I counted."

"You did?"

"Damn right."

I slammed down the rest of my drink and stood beside my chair, shoulders back, stretching to my full height.

"Well,  then," I announced, glaring into his face. "I think this evening has come to an end."

"What do you mean?" he rose, and his full height dominated me as I remembered  how big he was.

"I'm off," my voice was louder than I intended. "Must get home.  It's been a pleasure."

"Wait," he reached for my arm and I felt the force behind his grip. "Let me walk you to your car."

The bouncer at the Dakota is smaller than the architect who wanted to rape me.  The bouncer has a face peppered with acne scars and his shoes were scuffed.  He needs a hair cut and a good teeth cleaning. If he had been my date at the nightclub, I would have taken one look at him and left.

But that night, as the short, stocky Dakota bouncer opened the door to my car, deposited me behind the wheel and waited until I was locked and safe, I looked into his milky, be-speckled blue eyes and began to cry.

He was beautiful; the most powerful, decent and handsome man in all of St. Paul. And I was on my way home, long before midnight.


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Introduction

8/28/2009

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The Uppity Woman's Guide to Dating After Fifty

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I was almost fifty years old when I divorced the father of my children. Still cute, I thought all I had to do was pick up the phone, make a few calls to get the word out, and get ready to start dating again.

For some odd reason I forgot I wasn't twenty-something anymore.  Dating at fifty was not the same as dating before I married, had children, and figured out the meaning of life. 

Over the next five years, I managed to have dinner, coffee, drinks and serious conversations about love, marriage, divorce and loneliness with over fifty men.

In the days to come, I will write a story about the highlights of that experience.

I'm sixty years old today - still single.  You fill in the blanks.

Hopefully  these stories will help other women (and men) as they make their way through the landmines and disaster areas prevalent in the territory of love and romance after fifty.

Stay tuned!! 



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First Post!

8/28/2009

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Start blogging by creating a new post. You can edit or delete me by clicking under the comments. You can also customize your sidebar by dragging in elements from the top bar.
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    Leaves From the Notebook of a True Romantic



    I hope you enjoy these true stories, based on my dating experiences as a romantic, older woman. 

    This collection has a publication goal of 2010.  Let me know what you think!

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Writing for the theatre requires imagination, enthusiasm and stamina.  Working in the gardens of the Cozy Cottage provides all three.  If you're ever in St. Paul, Minnesota, stop by to see me.  I'll be certain to pick a bouquet for you to take on the road, and pour you a cup of the coffee that makes Como Park famous. 
                    - Kristine 

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Some folks think that color detracts from language.  I feel the opposite.  Throwing the delight of nature into the center of a story deepens the appeal of the plot.  Listen for the way in which the environment explodes in my work - you'll appreciate the power of the peony and the quiet trust of the new tulip. 

                                  -Kristine 

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