Chapter Seventy Nine; My Dream Guy and Susie's Love List

I have been thinking a lot lately about a phone conversation Susie and I had last winter when we were both in the midst of post-divorce drama.

And wondering what our new undefined life would hold.

And what the heck it really meant to be divorced.

And single.

Scary.

But we glossed over that scary with total pain bonding. And a whole lot of laughing.

We bantered by cell often and one of our more memorable conversations has floated to the top of my consciousness this past week. One where Susie, breathless with excitement, proclaimed her newest plan for our gettin' on with the movin' on.

“Get this!" she blurts before I can even get to the lo of my hello. "I gotta tell you this!"

She doesn't even wait for me to say okay. In true Suze style she simply unleashes her latest Divorce Land revelation into my ear drum, "So I am standing in the Wal-Mart checkout tonight, running around like a mad woman after piano and football, argh, crazy day, and I see this Oprah magazine and I can’t stand Oprah but I see this article on the cover about a love list and I think to myself, oh well, I love love, and I love lists so let’s read this baby while I am in line!”

She rambles on and I just do what I always do in a Susie cell phone ambush.

Say, “Uh huh,” and “Really."

A lot.

And let’er fly.

She continues, “So this article, seriously, it’s amazing. It’s about a woman who, like us, went through a divorce. And she was alone for a long time and then one day she went to see this guru or this someone or this fortune woman, I don’t know what the hell, some lady who is some love expert chick,” she stops for one tenth of a nanosecond to catch her breath and then rushes on, “Who tells her, if you want to find love you have to make a list.”

“Okay . . .” I finally interject into her verbal hurricane.

She surges on. (Maybe I can sneak in a "Really?" here in a minute . . .)

“So it’s just so cool but check this out, the love chick lady says you have to make a list of a hundred things you are looking for in a guy and the woman is like what? A hundred? No way!"

(Alright, forget my "Really" aspirations, she's on a roll.)

"And the lady says yes, a hundred. List the traits of your dream man, from what color socks he wears to his favorite foods, to his personality, to his looks, to his values, all of it. Just list it all.”

“And you’re reading this whole article in the Wal-Mart checkout?” I finally managed to squeeze in a complete sentence, miracle of miracles.

“Uh huh, and I was speed reading man, kinda sorta skimming because I was so inta this list idea but the line was moving super fast.”

I laugh,“You could have bought the magazine, Suze.”

“Oh yuck, I hate Oprah, I would never buy Oprah,” she announces, as if the mere suggestion of her purchasing an O magazine proves I have lost my blonde mind, “But so," she continues, "I am checking out and I am reading super fast but I got the gist of the story so I had to call you and tell you because it’s just so cool and I am so excited!”

She breathes again and then goes on to explain the rest of the article, “So the woman follows the instructions and writes the list. She is amazed that she could come up with 100 things so effortlessly but she does. And then she does what the guru/love lady tells her to do, she puts the list away. “You are to just put the list away, don’t think about it again,” were her instructions. So she does. She writes the list. She puts it away. And then she forgets about it. Then a year goes by and -”

I interject, “A year goes by? What the hell? How is this inspiring?”

“Shut up! Stop interrupting, it’s cool!”

“Hey, this is my first time interrupting,” I say, giggling defensively and then add, “But I am thinking three-hundred-sixty-five days with no development is not selling me on the list deal.”

“Oh whatever, shut up and listen, year shcmear, you’re missing the point!”

Suze continues to yap about her love list discovery as if she has just discovered the 8th wonder of the world and I listen intently waiting for that climactic ah ha moment that this, please God tell me, story should lead up to.

She is still talking.

“And so, like I said, a year goes by, and she meets this wonderful man. And they date and they fall in love and he is amazing. But then something goes wrong and they are going to break up…and it’s awful, and they’re having a fight and she thinks it’s over but then, then!” Suze screeches for dramatic effect, “She remembers the list! She goes to her bedroom, gets out the list and throws it at him and says, “You can’t leave me, you are everything I ever dreamed of! I wrote this list a year ago and you hit it all, you hit it all!”

She finally stops.

And I articulate the only thought that comes to my mind in the wake of this story synopsis.

“Wait a minute, she didn’t get out the list until after they’d been together that long? What was the freaking hold up?”

“Argh!” Susie sighs in aggravation, “Shut up, point misser of the universe, I’m not done. So he opens up the pages and he reads the list and he sits down and begins to cry. He reads the whole thing and then he looks up at her and says,

“You got everything but two. I hit all of these but two.”

By this time Suzie is practically screaming in my ear, “98! He was 98 of the qualities on her list of 100! Can you even believe it?”

“Are you done now?”

“What do you mean am I done now? That is some cool ass shit, I thought you’d be so excited!”

“Oh, come on," I whine, "If you build him he will come? Gimme a break already. This is fabricated crap."

(Let's just say I was a little bit of a pessimist last winter. Okay a lot a bit.)

“Fine, be a boy buzz killer. I am going to be positive and inspired. I am driving home right now from Wal-Mart as we speak and as soon as I get these munchkins of mine off to bed I am writing down my 100."

And then.

She adds dramatically:

You.

Are.

Too.

I just chuckle and think to myself, yeah, whatever. I am too.

Not.

Lame.

Never.

Four days go by and the woman is relentless on this list shit. Freakin' possessed by the list nazi.

I get inquisitive voicemails.

“Have you written your list yet?"

I get demanding voicemails.

“Write your list!”

I get text messages. That say simply:

"List!"

Oh good gawd.

Fine.

A week later I sit down at my computer.

Open up Microsoft Word.

And type.

1. Funny

And then . . .

2. 6’ Tall, Dark hair (What? Hello? Call me crazy but my fantasy man is not 4'11" with a pink faux hawk. I know, so shallow of me . . .)

And then the rest just comes.

And I type away.

3. Likes to dance
4. Catholic
5. Comes from a big family
6. Likes and supports my writing
7. Sings to me
8. Understands Sarcasm
9. Cool but nerdy underneath
10. Grew up on a farm like I did

And in about ten minutes I was at 100.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t that hard. Once I started thinking about it, I realized, I knew exactly what I wanted.

Huh.

Perty kewl.

I fold up my dream man and put him in the glove compartment of my mid-life crisis sports car.

Seemed like a good place for him. Maybe someday he'll magically show up in my front seat and we can make out.

Fast forward to today.

One year later.

Almost exactly.

Susie has been dating her love list dude, my friend, Brian, for ten months. I shit you not. And I think he's about a 92 on her list. It's freaking nuts.

They met at a party I threw at my house last January. Next to my fridge, actually. And this summer, I joked to Susie that I would like to add, “Meet the man of my dreams in my kitchen” to my list. Hey, as long as I was aiming for what seemed like the impossible in the first place, why not?

Um.

Be careful what you wish for.

Because I threw another party a few weeks ago, and a dark haired six foot sarcastically funny Catholic guy sauntered into . . .

. . . you guessed it.

My kitchen.

Damn.

And over the course of the next few weeks?

He pretty much was the list.

Nailing it, actually. One by one. The more I got to know him.

The scarier it got.

Now stop reading right here if you are breathlessly anticipating some happily ever after. Because this is me, remember? Yeah. Exactly.

Because unfortunately . . .

I forgot to put one important item on that list of mine:

Birthday.

Me and my list man version 1.0 don’t align well with conventional cultural norms. In other words we'd have to start referring to each other as Ashton and Demi if this were really going to work.

Sigh.

So goes my life.

(And oh yeah, trust me, it was all I could do not to step out into my front yard and shake my fist at the sky cursing God for the taunting already.)

So maybe he wasn’t my love list guy after all. I don’t know. Who knows. Doesn’t appear likely and I am a firm believer in not forcing life but letting it unfold. But sweet mother of France . . . was he amazing. Is amazing. Are you kidding me? My list come to life? Uh, yeah. I think I could survive the cougar ridicule if he decided to give my crazy life a try. But I also had "smart" on my list and, yeah, well, he hit that too. Nuff said.

(Did I mention "hot" was also on my list?...damn...oh, and "good kisser?", actually make that "melt me into a puddle with a kiss kisser" . . . oh . . . my . . .)

Oh. Sorry.

Drifted off there for a minute.

(Excuse me while I just sit here and sigh for a second or ten.)

. . . Ahhh . . .

Um, where was I, again?

Oh yeah, as I was saying (typing), for whatever its worth, I am realizing that even if he was not the one I am waiting for, Susie was absolutely right to insist that I write that list.

This is my life. And these are my dreams and my standards. And far too important to be compromised.

The last real boyfriend I had? Yeah, he didn’t really hit that list. I confess. I am actually pretty sure his score would have been something like 40/100, which is a big fat F if I were going to grade him.

And I am not going to settle for a failing grade when it comes to love.

So I’ll keep looking. And if and when my list guy arrives?

I will know.

Because if he is the one the only letter grade he'll score.

Is an A.

For Audra's . . . dream come true.