I'm back...I hope you're still there. I still love you.

I'm ashamed. I started this blog to share about my digruntled life as a single working mother and, I had thought, some cougar escapades, and what happens? I fall for the very first match.com guy I ever went on a date with who is the same age as me. What's with that? He's a professional suit-wearing man. Yes, the man I mentioned in my last posting..the against type dude.

This whole experience has brought old questions to mind. These questions are older than the hills. Life questions we have all contemplated.

"What is love?"...anyway??

When do I know I'm in it? Out of it? Is it just for money? Sex? Out of desperation? At least I know it's not for babies' sake, what with my thousand-year-old eggs (courtesy of dear friend, Mark, love you!)

Why do some people fear it? Why do some people search for it all their life the Holy freakin' Grail? I've always found being in love a pain-in-the-ass, actually. Particularly in my former 30-year marriage...there was love, for sure, passion and a lot of emotional pain. A LOT of it. Since day one.

I actually told the new bf I loved him last night. He's been sheepishly been telling me for a while. I avoided it until my therapist, who I LOVE, prompted me to say it as soon as I could (she knows how I feel about him) since the longer you wait the bigger the "word" becomes. She was SO right! There is simply nothing NOT to love about this man.

What it actually means, not sure I'll ever know. Kind of like answering the other question,"What is happiness?"

Please share your, "I love you!" , stories. And if you're going to tell me you said it while ejaculating, or bemoaning, "Don't stop...right THERE", you simply just don't count. I don't want to hear it...

lately I've been looking at the work "type" and it's true meaning. it is still being used to describe the action when we hit letters on our computer keyboards though I think the word was developed in the days when we actually typed on a typewriter.

actors are always seeking roles to widen and develop their skills that are against type, as masterfully as Meryl does. single men and women deny potential mates because they are just not their type. yep, that's where I'm going...

these dating websites are the ideal place to meet your anti-type. when I get a wink or message I equate it as a wrapped gift box. I see the message in my inbox and excitedly click to open or unwrap it, hoping that inside is a note and picture of the PERFECT man.( now those of us that have been around the block a few times know that I'm not meaning George Clooney, 'cause he really does not exist. some women may think they have a George Clooney, but they're just blind. he only exists safely in our fantasies...) needless to say, 98% of the wrapped gift boxes are filled with lumps of coal. twenty three year-old lumps of coal who are looking to settle down, third world country lumps of coal who propose marriage, and many, waaay too many, anti-types lumps of coal.

I quickly developed a more open approach. men without three heads,

five chins and Coke-bottle glasses, I actually take a quick gander at their profile.

the guy I mentioned last time emailed me first. again, not George, but there was something very honest, humbling and kind in his email. we did have a second date and as I sat across the table from him listening to him talk, I still wondered where, if anyplace, this would lead. I am experimenting with the anti-type for sure. he dresses like a suburban insurance salesman. he's not very tall. he owns three homes and two cars, one of them being a Porsche Boxster. nothing there is my type. he's kind, funny, and has his shit together. gross. where is the poor musician who needs help and a shoulder and wallet to lean on?

I am working hard at looking at my "type" and what joys it has brought me over the past fifty years. drama and pain come to mind a lot, and of course my two amazing daughters, of which I could not live without.

the children I am blessed to have, the drama and pain I am seriously considering giving up. look at Meryl's success with the anti-type.

oh, and one more thing, never underestimate the power of a kiss. I went for it when he dropped me off in his fancy sports car knowing this would be a sign to see if there would ever be a third date. there will be, since now the definition of my "type"seems more blurred than ever.

I did it. had my first date with a guy from match.com

he's no looker. decided to go against type. a very smart 24 year-old young woman advised me to go out with the "ugly" guys since they're nicer and more grateful. mean as it sounds, it's true. it also give you the upper hand. ok, "ugly" is a bit ruthless. it really means to skew lower. the stylish good looking gay man, he is not. brad pitt? nope. ed harris? hardly. ted koppel? now we're talking. good looking enough to be an anchorman but soooo not good looking. i think you get the picture.

his profile had a few good things going for it: he had pictures of adorable dogs (the breed I grew up with and loved...and coincidently ate off my face as a teenager) without having to hug them to show us his sensitive side, he wasn't showing his taut man boobs, he wasn't caressing a guitar, he didn't have his profile picture set in a halo special effect, and he didn't say he had a sense of humor. he did politely say he thought my profile was the most refreshing profile he had come across in a while and said if I didn't respond to him, that too would be fine. i liked him immediately.

he chose a fairly hip restaurant downtown and I could tell he was more nervous than I was. he was dressed in classic date clothes for an un-stylish straight man, navy blazer, button-front shirt tucked in his pants, he rested his overcoat on his forearm when I met him at the bar.

he said he was attracted to strong independent women. when I finally questioned him as to why we weren't sitting down to eat dinner, he eased up. when I said the menu was a "reading glass" menu he said he was glad I had said that as he reached out to get his. when I told him his dessert choice tasted disgusting he was in love.

Hello all!

it's been a while...here's a quick update:

1. I never cut my hair off

2. I signed up with match.com

3. I have yet to actually have a REAL-live date on match.com

4. I have really become one of those single people

5. I have gotten no where, essentially.

I have to say, though, that joining match has actually freed me in a way. I can chat with men, ok, even flirt with men and feel good about it. it does make you self-reflect on rejections too. the Daniel Craig look-a-like winked ME first, so why isn't he communicating with me anymore? The 41 year-old who loves "women of other cultures" doesn't respond to MY emails??!! I thought there were men out there who are looking for some cougar action...don't you see I'm putting myself out there for you??

Oh, yeah, there are guys that respond too, trust me. the white guy warrior with the pot belly and horizontal striped polo shirt, the guy whose pictures show him as a cameraman posing with random celebrities, the middle-aged man on the Harley. even a wealthy man, successful filmmaker, who lives in the Time Warner Center. and those were the good ones. wait a minute...people actually HAVE met on-line and ended up happily ever after??

what have I learned from all this? how much I love my friends...they rally behind me, give me LOTS of advice and take none for themselves, they make me laugh, they tell me I'm" hot", "pretty","smart", "beautiful", "a great mom", "an amazing person", "a great catch". my family and friends are what truly give me joy.

do I really need anything else?

you know...I really embrace the gross and unusual. I do. the grosser the story the better. tell me a bathroom joke or better yet, a personal tale of your bathroom experience, and I am rolling on the floor, crying my ass off. I am SO immature. proudly I can say my daughters have followed suit. one of my saddest days as a mother was when I had to tell them that farting and burping in public was just not acceptable. doesn't everyone do it, they asked?

many of you know about my christmas tree incident. every year, usually toward the END of january , when the tree is nice and dry, I throw it out my courtyard window. I climb out onto my fire escape as my two daughters push and pull the tree toward me in their work gloves. I suspend myself on my fire escape just so, so I don't find myself tumbling down with the tree. I give it a big heave-ho and over it goes. The girls and I have found it a cleansing ritual, our ringing in of the new year. getting rid of the old and welcoming in the new...we laugh so hard every year as they complain how crazy their mom is. they LOVE it!!!! this year I was busted by my downstairs neighbor whose garden was littered with those bastard needles that threaded the berber of my carpet, and her ivy! she left a nasty note over the mailbox saying "dear neighbor". the rest of the note was as about as nasty as it could get, given she is a God-fearing Christian. long story short, that weekend I brought her flowers and swept up the mess. damn, that was EXACTLY what I avoiding doing in the first place in my apartment.

yesterday, Princess emailed me saying she found a split end in her hair that "belonged in the Guinness Book of World Records". She actually stored it in an envelope and brought it home to show me like a 5-year-old doing show 'n tell. BTW, she is 19. she was so proud. i told her i'd seen better...

her sister, Queenie, has taken a liking to the of prying open of my eyes with her fingers in the morning when they are glued shut with sleep crust. she makes a sound with her mouth like a creaking door as she does it. how genius is that??!!

motherhood, WHAT a joy!!!

I am finding it amazing that people actually miss me when I don't write enough...people are actually interested in This Is Your Life, Mona Changstein.

after nearly a staged intervention (seriously) in my domicile, I mean office, I decided to give a short wig a shot instead. (hey, I can embrace my inner black woman fantasy.( Didn't all Asian and white women fantasize about being a black Afro-haired woman when they were kids?) hey, if they can make it a daily occurrence, I can too. funny how people are so passionate about other people's hair, I had no idea. Chris Rock knew.

I dress very, how shall I say, dyke-y. sneakers and turtleneck sweaters are my season-less wardrobe of choice. I had the Ellen DeGeneres style before ELLEN had it. though some would love to see me "go downtown"at this stage in my life, it is simple not in the cards for me. it would take a lot more effort on my part to girl-up. applying red lipstick at every dry-lipped, coffee cup-stained opportunity and wearing heels with ever-growing old lady bunions (now THAT'S sexy!). it is not my idea of ease, comfort and carefree living. funny how people are so concerned that I wouldn't get a man with short hair. that is probably the most irritating part. who the FUCK cares about what men think?? my intention was not to have a short pixie do to attract men! it was for myself, my reality, not a man's for godsake. sad how people findthat hard to believe.

I really am happy and truly free these days. my life is on the upswing, I can feel it. free of the emotional shit that a relationship undoubtedly brings, free of the compromises one inevitably has to make when there are two, free of the sadness and insecurity of when it's all over. the George Clooney character in Up In The Air had it right all along. We ALL die alone. really not as creepy as it sounds, it's real.

sorry, my dear followers, it's been a while. I really am trying to get you updates on my life more regularly.

I'm cutting my hair, off, I've decided. Off, all off, embracing my Tina Chow, Jean Seberg, OK, even Jamie Lee Curtis (for lack of a better short-haired icon). I have consulted with my co-workers and ever-so-critical boss who asks me, "what are you looking for, a man or a woman?"...like long hair has worked well for me so far???? I am so over this long-hair-for-a-man thing. so over the woman-on-top whipping-the-hair-around fantasy. if some man wants to judge me by the length of my hair then fuck him, he'll need to get passed it. the women i've referenced above have had no problem finding good men. Princess HATES the idea. The more people that say no to the idea and give their shallow reasonings why, the more I am into doing it! I will need to be hyper aware, admittedly, to reapply a more red lipstick and heels more often. those things I have already embraced more of late anyway. just need to keep the lesbos at bay...

watch me be a man magnet..I CANNOT WAIT for the new me!!!

(hmmm, could the negativity from my friends, family and co-workers mean that I am just too ugly and fat to pull off that look??)

you know what I love about growing older? how roles shift. I am not going through a mid-life crisis, I'm going through a mid-life SHIFT. my role as a mom shifts, my daughter's roles shifts, my sep-husband's role shifts for me.

my sep-husband has become the brother I never had. after living together and being husband and wife for thirty years, we share fond memories of when we were young together, we give each other tips on dealing with or dating the opposite sex, we pride ourselves in our daughter's successes like a new pet puppy's successes on a wee-wee pad. (pet owners can relate to this sense of love and adoration), he witnesses changes in my physical body from an over-the-clothes point of view (inflating and deflating, sagging and stretching, though, in different ways). we have actually, on occasion, caught each other in our underwear and had found ourselves about as un-aroused as we were two years before we split up. there will be no mercy fuck here. no passionate, horny, why-the-hell not sex here. that was never our forte anyway. jeez, what the hell WAS our forte anyway?? though we don't share the same blood, he is like a brother to me, and like all loving, dysfunctional families, I will always love him no matter what stupid choices he makes for himself. He is my daughter's blood family, therefore he is mine. having said that, I will struggle with these thoughts, like any family member, when his actions drag us along or down with him. Thanks, Dad, I got that from you!

I'm going to post this on my "things about me" when I eventually succumb to dating websites. Men that run? shallow assholes anyway. men that respond? hmmm could be my future sep- husband!!

Next up...if it ain't stiff, it ain't worth a...and other matters of the over 50 male.

friday night is the new sunday night. so here I am.

what is it about a native New Yorker when they are stopped on the street for directions from poor, lost souls?? something about knowing the answer to the question gives us such glee. on the way home tonight I was asked TWICE for directions and I knew exactly where they were going. one man startled me Alex Trebek-style, and interjected, "WHAT STREET IS THIS?", (he could easily have said, "stick 'em up.."). without even looking up for a street sign, I spat out, "CORNELIA ST!". he scurried down the street like a late-night rat (not talking Leno, here...you're welcome Coco). a few moments later on Bleecker a woman asked where Grove St was. I haughtily asked her if she was looking for the Pink Teacup...it has, after all, been saved from termination. I told her it was about four blocks down on the right...

and don't you always want to stop and help a lost tourist when they mistakenly ask the wrong person who tells them the wrong directions? oh, I have.

so, my sister's architect...

I snuck uptown "to have coffee with my sister". when I entered the kitchen, the plumber was under the sink (sans crack), the architect, dressed in suit, tie and waxed Barbour jacket was standing next to the attractive, blue-eyed contractor. my thoughts on said architect? let's put it this way, if I was playing a game of Mystery Date (ok, credit colleague), I'd hope the door opened to the plumber. I am pathetic. a man with a career and job is all I need. money and power, really not a turn-on for me. not what my sister had in mind. within 20 minutes I was back at my glorious office in the sky. talk about speed dating...it's not over yet, we shall see.

my sister wants me to come and "check out" her architect tomorrow as he works on her family's pied-a-terre on the upper west side. she thinks he's single, she googled him and sent his picture to me and is considering a set-up. what am I supposed to do... leave work in the middle of the day and just... drop in? does she think I have nothing better to do in the middle of a workday?? I suppose people have done worse. hey, with my endless refusals to join dating sites, I need to make any effort that is put in front of me at all times! his picture isn't bad actually, and the thought of dating an architect sends fantasies racing through my mind of him re-doing my large, cheap but desperately-in-need-of-a-makeover apartment. (certainly I can please a man to get at least to that done for me.) maybe he has yellow fever, prefers the submissive asian every now and again. I will be sure to wear my hottest fashion editor ensemble. I have been lucky with genetically blessed calves so I will be sure to work them in my black-tights-and ankle-boots-best.

ladies, if you're single, in your fifties, and looking for a man who you think will complete you, please don't come to new york. he might be here, but the women who live here already have first dibs. I mean, really. it's no secret there is a severe shortage of available and stylish (very important) straight men here in this fine city. new york seems to be getting gay-er and gay-er every day! now don't get me wrong. I LOVE gay men, really and truly ADORE!! they can be the best friend and confidant you will ever have. come on, now...we've all seen Will and Grace. it's the true life story of many, many single women in new york. gay men are magnificent...as friends. I feel sorry for the girls who have lived through the trials and tribulations of the gay man as lover (I can change him) challenge. for me, a big bust. for others, a temporary fix. so stay in des moines, it would be better for all of us.

when I was happily married, let me correct that. when I thought I was happily married, I always thought desperately single women are single for reasons they can't see themselves. that it is something they put out, what they generate, what they will upon themselves in some way. there is a large part of me that still believes that. one has to remember, and be present to the fact that a relationship, unto its self, will not make you happier. that saying, you need to love yourself first, I don't really get. but I do truly believe that you need to be happy, just plain and simple happy, and that that energy is what will bring someone special to you. ( beware that men who are also not ideal are also drawn to this energy) I do try to live by that when I can remember. practice what you preach, Mona.

(I know what you're all thinking..what does that mean for of all of us masochistic new yorkers who LOVE to be miserable. I guess we're just shit out of luck...)

gotta go and watch men of a certain age. great show.

will edit later...

Mrs Robinson Is A Fictional Character: why the hell not?

Mrs Robinson Is A Fictional Character: why the hell not?

laugh, cry, share, bitch, comment here...

why the hell not?

after much support from my friends, therapist and psychic, here I am. blogging. my nineteen-year-old daughter, ("honey, do you want to be anonymous in my blog?"), who wants to be known as Princess (for christssake), is appalled and supportive in that way only teenagers can be.

"why, Mom, why???"

why? because I turned fifty AND lost my adored father in june, have a unique marriage/non-marriage with my husband/non-husband, I have a crazy, demanding career as a fashion editor in new york, and last but certainly not least, I am mother to two of the most gorgeous mixed asian daughters you'll ever lay your eyes on. (spoken like a true mom, huh?)

I have a lot to think about, write, feel, write...

oh, I forgot one other thing. I am learning to date again...AGAIN!!!! I never knew how!!

I have recently been unceremoniously dumped by a man (that word needs to be redefined) who is 51 and never married, hello...a major sign I was in denial of, about a week after my dad passed away. the black and blue marks he left on my heart (and ego) have finally turned back to a healthy shade of pink, pumping blood in haste. you live and learn, so they say, time heals everything. yep.

getting naked again at fifty is not fun, and I'm talking about when I'm alone, never mind in front of someone else! it wasn't even fun in my teens and twenties when one was taut, for god's sake. one thing my daughter's have picked up early on in their lives from me is the hatred of their body...great. all my doing. the stares in the mirror complaining of my fat stomach, flat ass, and tiny boobs are so etched in their brains that years of therapy won't erase them. all my doing.

today I am having a lazy day, one I rarely take, thanks to the efficiency of a chinese-restauranteur father, who instilled a sometimes needless sense of urgency in his daughters. still in my pj's with my girls by my side (that's my daughters, not by boobs) at 4:00 in the afternoon, allows me to begin my new life as blogger...