word of the day: choosy

I've been reading David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day, and this afternoon I was feeling defiant. Dunno why, but reading DS does that to me. However, I'm unemployed and not in a relationship right now, so these days I'm sort of limited in what I have to be defiant about - mostly it's my adherence, or lack thereof, to the SB diet...sooooo...in my defiant/bad woman mode I went to Gloria's and, defiantly eschewing the sub-thermal AC temperature inside the restaurant, I sat outside, at a granite-topped table near a potted palm, in the 96-degree, ozone-alert Dallas weather (which I kinda like), and downed a frozen margarita (defiantly drinking alone) with some spinach quesadillas (definitely, defiantly, not the SB lunch I was supposed to have, and therefore, in my frame of mind, a very satisfying lunch).

I was reading a chapter DS had written about hooking up (my phrase, not his). He wrote that he'd begun to wonder if he was going to be alone for the rest of his life, in part because of his long list of standards. That made perfect sense to me (having a long list of standards for Potential Boyfriends) and it got me to thinking about my own long list of standards. Recently I had a date with a guy who sounded promising, but 5 minutes into the date he asked me to tell him something "a little crazy" about myself. Of course, in retrospect I realize that my response should have been to ask him to tell me something a little crazy about himself, "so I can understand what you mean", but I'm not that smooth, so I answered honestly. I said, "Well, I'm not sure if this is what you mean, but when I was going out to my car this morning, I saw an almost-dead dragonfly on my doorstep..." I explained, "It was moving a little, but it was covered with a zillion tiny ants, so I picked it up and took it inside and rinsed the ants off with cool water, and then I put it in a glass bowl with some saran wrap on the top, so I could look at it later, because it's really beautiful...so if we were in my kitchen right now, that bowl with a dragonfly would be there, on the countertop...and I guess a lot of people might think that's a little crazy." He smiled at me and said, "That's CUTE! That's REALLY CUTE!" Aaaaarrrgggghhhh!!! Just like that, he went from Potential Boyfriend to Toast. He could have said it was interesting, or weird, or made any other number of comments, but I agree with DS, speech IS important, and like DS, I have a list of Disqualifying Words, and cute is on that list. Other Disqualifying Words on my list include (but aren't limited to) feminazi, paradigm, irregardless, world-class; Disqualifying Phrases include, I-don't-have-any-baggage, I-don't-have-much-time-for-reading; also, although age, race and weight are unimportant, they can't listen to smooth jazz or drink zinfandel or quote the Second Amendment...