Internet Dating Round 2

By Anna

"Curiosity may have killed the cat but it also got a lot of pussies in trouble." - unknown

So, if living with my mother at age 32 isn’t bad enough, we’re both single, sharing a computer and on the same dating site. At least she didn’t show up as a match for me like she did for my brother. Yuck!

So after the mother hurdle, my next online dating challenge is the full-of-myself, dim-witted, pound-my-chest screen names. Let me just say, if your screen name is Hardcock8tulsa, Rockstarpimp69, Filmgod420 or KenDollExtraodinaire – sorry - not interested.

My very first match seemed to be Dexter. Yes, from Showtime Television (see picture). Uh, I sense a problem.

Some of the other matches were also … uh … less than desirable. See illustrations below:

Illustration #1 

PM_HairFetish69 was ALL about some hair. He mentioned doing hair SEVEN times in his profile. The site asks, “What do you typically do on a Friday night?” His response, “Getting some rest so I can rock out some hair on Saturdays!” 

He messaged me, “Hey, I’m Paul, I do hair for a living, would you want to chat? Message me.” When I responded I simply asked him if he did anything or thought about anything other than hair. No response.

Illustration #2

TallCountry36’s message: “Hi.”

Wow, you blew me away, Cowboy. Where do I meet you for another intense and intellectually stimulating conversation?!

Illustration #3

HardSwingingCock messaged me daily because he wanted a threesome with me and his wife.

Yes, Mr. SwingingCock, I did get your message the first time and I’m ignoring you for a reason.

Illustration #4

It’s been interesting to read profiles that are so honest and raw, like this guy’s: “Message me if you are a whiny bitter shrew with a misplaced sense of entitlement and unrealistic expectations. I know that in time you will become coolly hostile as I fail to meet your every need you’ve ever had.” This same man went on to say that age was unimportant  “but will condescend to women under 30 and rehash mother issues with women over 40.”

This man, I will say, deserved a response. Here was mine:

"Seeking a 30s male that will make me laugh, be my friend and turn me on sexually. After a year I will convince myself that there is someone better out there and drop you like my iphone off the ski lift. I will continue to date you casually for another year in order to make us both completely miserable. Men in their 20s need not apply. I will only rehash my father issues with men over 39."

This conversation went on for a couple days until I realized we were both total assholes. Another internet dating account deleted. So, for now, I'm sticking with my girlfriends. Here is a recipe for you to share with your girlfriends at your next get-together. Enjoy the Fruit Loop Vodka!

Loopy Nights 

1 part Three Olives Loopy Vodka

1 part Champagne

2 parts Ginger Ale

Mix in glass with ice.

OPTIONAL: Garnish with raspberries

Soup-er Bowl Exchange

By Tonia

“My idea of a super bowl is a self-cleaning toilet.” - ecard

Super Bowl Sunday is approaching - the most watched TV show in the US. Must be the Power of the Pointy Ball. In Oklahoma the pointy ball is so mighty that couples use football schedules to plan their wedding dates. I kid you not.

When I accidently catch a little football on TV, I shudder at those tackles with visions of Flat Stanley. For a homophobic nation, we sure like to watch guys lay on top of each other and slap each others’ asses. And, I want to know, how is it that the last 30 seconds of this game can take 2 hours? Grrrrrr…..

Personally I’d rather stab my eye out with a sharp knife than watch football. Or jump out of an airplane without a parachute. Well … unless Johnnie Depp was coming over to watch. And then I’d happily watch with him. But I’d be hoping he’d make a pass at me with lots of instant foreplays. I’d let him sack me, of course, with a whole lot of touchdown there. Sigh. Well, back to reality…

If you’ll be avoiding the game this year like I'll be, try having a girlfriends’ party instead. Call it the SOUP-ER BOWL EXCHANGE. Whatever number of girlfriends you invite, ask them each bring that number of 6-cup freezer containers of their most delicious homemade soup. When guests arrive, open and heat one of each person’s containers and set them out as samples. Serve wine, salad and bread with the soup tasting. Then at the end of the evening make sure that everyone takes home one of everyone’s containers of soup (like a cookie exchange). Fun night with a practical take-home goodie!

Humor: The Super Glue of Friendships

by Tonia

"Friends are God's ways of apologizing for our families." 

I love my girlfriends. Their love, support and hilarity have kept me out of psychiatric institutions. I tell them crazy-ass stories and they don’t judge me. I tell them about my stressful situations and, after they try to be empathic, they poke fun at them. Our shared humor brings me deep comfort because I know they “get me.” When they turn my angst/ fears/ heartbreaks/ disappointments into laughter, they turn my stinkin' straw into gold.

Women bond with laughter (both with and without eye-rolling). It’s our way of saying, "OMG, I know!" We share stories of midnight rendezvous with Ben & Jerry; of wrap-around skirt failings; of fake orgasms and mind-bending orgasms; of screaming babies with comatose partners; of incinerating, hell-preparatory hot flashes; of evil plots of revenge on exes….

If one of us complains about a husband’s irritating habit of rolling his eyes at her, someone responds, “Who does he think he is – a teenager?” Bingo. Girlfriend validated.

If one of us has morning sickness, someone says, “Yea, getting knocked up means a hangover every morning ... but without the shit-faced fun the night before.” Bingo. Girlfriend validated.

If one of us has a cooking disaster, someone has a similar story, “Hey! I tried to use Fruity Pebbles instead of Rice Krispies for snowballs - looked like balls of puke.” Bingo. Girlfriend validated.

It’s hard for girlfriends to get together for more than five minutes and not exchange some kind of personal information and start to laugh. It’s ‘estrogenergy’ – special female chemistry that has inspired quilting bees, garden parties, teas, sororities, bridge clubs, bridal showers, and baby showers for centuries. WE call them ‘estrofests!’

In honor of ‘estrofests,’ here are some hilarious woman-honoring games for your next girlfriends’ get-together:

FAKE ORGASM OLYMPICS – Ask three girlfriends to be judges. Equip each of them with five (5) pieces of paper with the numbers 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 written separately on each one. Then ask three participants to sit in chairs in front of the judges. Instruct the participants one at a time to spend 30 seconds doing their best imitation of an orgasm (think Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally). When the demonstration is complete, ask the three judges to hold up their “scores” (one of the five numbers). Add the score and then repeat with the second and third participants. Highest score wins.

SUPERMOM RELAY – Set up two identical mommy task/obstacle courses (described below). Form two teams of 3-5 women. Have each team create a line; give each team three  (3) dolls (representing children). Explain that each team member must run through a Mommy Task/Obstacle Course and complete each chore while holding on to her “children” (team members who drop children will be reported to Child Protective Services – this can be whatever you’d like it to be: starting over again, running a lap around the yard, etc.). When a team member has completed the course, she should return to the line and hand off the “children” to the next teammate so that she too can run the course. The first team to have all team members complete the task/obstacle course and return to the line wins. You can set out as many or as few tasks/obstacles as you like (just make sure that you set out two identical ones – one for each team). We have used some of the following:

(1) Grocery sacks with 5 (five) canned goods. Participants must put unload sacks and then load them again.

(2) Children’s books on chairs. Participants must sit down and read the first page out loud.

(3) Pans of water with a stack of 3 (three) plates. Participants must dip each plate in the water and restack.

(4) Lipsticks and mirrors. Participants must put lipstick on.

(5) Unfolded towels (as many as you have participants). Participants must fold one towel.

(6) Suit jackets. Participants must put jacket on and then take it off.

GET THAT MAN OFF YOUR BACK CONTEST – Using three male blow-up dolls and three game participants, tie one blowup doll to each participant’s back. To increase the level of difficulty you can also handcuff the participants. When the hostess says “Go!” the participants make every effort and gyration to try to get the “man off their backs.” First one to successfully do so wins.

Share with us some of your women-honoring games below!

Fellatio in Aisle Three

Estrofests is thrilled to have Candace Walsh as a guest blogger to share her most inglorious maternal moment. She's the author of Licking the Spoon: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Identity (Seal Press, 2012), which shares several generations of motherhood's indignities, along with other heartwarming, hilarious, riveting stories…plus, recipes. Follow her on Twitter @candacewalsh; keep up with her on Facebook at Facebook.com/WriterCandaceWalsh

Fellatio in Aisle Three

by Candace Walsh 

Becoming a mother is both hard and delightful in all of the expected ways. I expected to sleep less, for my body to change, and when I was pregnant, I even had the distinct feeling that my second baby would hate the 20-minute drive back and forth to town. He did, screaming bloody murder for months, until we stumbled upon the solution of singing "The Wheels on the Bus" to him, with infinite variations (a certain kind of torture). Delight was found in waking to see my baby daughter's eyes trained on mine, as she grinned adoringly, or the sensation of my son playing with my hair as gently as if it were a strand of cotton candy he didn't want to break. 

One unexpectedly hard thing was noticing how the entire population (except for most other moms) stopped seeing me as an individual, a vector in space. I became a kind of coiled rug, the kind that's oval and spirals inward and outward. When that rug is in a room, it makes the room seem cozier, more homey and comforting--or maybe it just seems dowdy and passé. People saw me--or rather, the silhouette of a woman with a child, and their thoughts turned to their associations of all mothers, their eyes got soft and unfocused, or hard and snide, depending on their issues. 

It wasn't just people who didn't know the old me. I was at a wedding when my daughter was six months old, a cute dumpling in a lavender dress. I was around all of these people I used to party with in New York City, and one guy was talking about some edgy sexual practice, trying to turn on a girl much younger than him. I said something offhand and irreverent, and he looked at me balefully. "Okay, mom," he sneered, as if I had as much to contribute to a conversation about sex as a Mary Kay lady would to a room of neurosurgeons. 

How did he think I got pregnant? 

As my children grew older and more independent, I notice that I was rebirthed in others' eyes as an individual. I also spent more time with other parents, who didn't cleave the world so neatly into parents/people worth paying attention to. The feeling of being dismissed and unseen faded away. 

Until I was waiting in line for the restroom at Trader Joe's. On the wall: a bulletin board with photographs of happy customers. One: a vaguely familiar mother with a baby in a sling, wearing an ugly calico nursing shirt. The baby was pulling her hair. Her toddler was doing her best to fall out of the wagon, as she reached for a glass jar. The woman looked run-down and frumpy, but she was smiling gamely for the camera. 

Oh. My. God. 

That woman was me. 

The memories came flooding back--I'd made sure to come to Trader Joe's on its opening day (despite what I'm about to tell you, I love that place). Without dolling myself up, I finger-combed my short sensible hair, I piled the kids into the car (my son screamed, we sang "The Wheels on the Bus"), pried, plopped my daughter in the shopping cart seat, put on the sling, slid my son into it, grabbed my big, lumpy mom purse, and entered the store, hoping not to run into anyone. As we walked down aisle three, some happy staffer in a Hawaiian shirt told me to smile, because he was taking pictures on their opening day. He caught me mid-pose, my mouth kind of open as it smiled, half a "you've got to be kidding me" grimace. 

And now I stood looking at the photo. No one would think we were the same person. My hair was long again, my figure was trim, and my kids were tall and lanky, bounding around the store. There was the ghost of motherhood past, staring back at me with bleary eyes. And then I saw something else. To the right of my face, someone had drawn graffiti on the photo: a big cartoon penis, complete with hairy scrotum, swooping toward my open mouth. 

For years, my maternal likeness had been hanging there, visible for all to see, with a crude sketch of a big dong next to my mouth. Not one customer took it down. Not one team member thought to remove the impugned mother of two from the bulletin board. It reminded me of how vulnerable young motherhood is, how it oddly makes you public property, visible, a tableau to judge, a person to advise or criticize, well-meaningly or not. It reminded me of how my formerly predictable life became startlingly unpredictable: my children had minds and bodies of their own, screaming, laughing, sleeping, waking, pooping, regardless of when it was convenient for me. And it reminded me of how submerged I used to feel, as lumpy as my mom purse, breasts swollen with milk, baby weight riding along on my back, my thighs. 

It was so shocking that I continued on into the bathroom. My first impulse was to leave the image there on the bulletin board for another five years. I didn't want to claim it, emblazoned with evidence of the lack of respect--beyond lip service, pardon the pun--motherhood is afforded. And then I began to laugh. Vulgar or not, the image was both funny and true. Despite our best intentions and expectations, hopes, dreams, and efforts, between the repetitive drudgeries and society's condescensions, motherhood can really suck. 

On the way out, I took the photo down, not sure what I would do with it. But I ended up saving it, along with photos and other mementos (lock of hair, hospital bracelet, first crayoned portraits), a time capsule with items representing the full spectrum of my experience. Along with the sweetness of early motherhood--the kissing of a belly peeking out from a duckie undershirt, the shampoo horns I formed as my son sat in the sink with room to spare, the glee my daughter felt throwing her spoon from the high chair for the umpteenth time--there were the countless bendings down to get it, the dashes of bitter.

Since this story took place in Trader Joe's, I feel led to include a related recipe. All of the ingredients come from TJ's. The pie is a family favorite. It's low in sugar and only has one crust, and it's so darn easy! 

Shameless Short Cut Pie

1 frozen pie crust
1 jar chunky applesauce
1 bag frozen mixed berries
1 box light vanilla almond granola

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Place pie crust in pie plate. 
In a bowl, mix together applesauce and unthawed berries. 
Transfer mixture to pie plate. 
Pour granola over the top until it completely covers the fruit. Pat down a tad.
Bake until done, about 45 minutes. 

Candace Walsh is managing editor of New Mexico magazine & the author of Licking the Spoon: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Identity. She edited Seal Press anthologies Dear John, I Love Jane: Women Write About Leaving Men for Women, and Ask Me About My Divorce: Women Open Up About Moving On. Her writing has also appeared in Newsday, Travel + Leisure, Sunset, Mademoiselle, & Huffington Post.