Success In Love Leaves Clues

I once heard some dumb "personality" on TV saying that The New York Times wedding section is the women's equivalent of the sports page for men. She claimed that competitive females scour it to keep score on who made it to the altar before they did.

Well, I don't know any woman who reads it for that reason, but I'll tell you why I do: It's fun to find out how people met and fell in love.

On Sunday, I enjoyed several stories, including Sophia Chaknis and Joseph Levy's. They met just as Sophia's online dating account was about to expire. She had planned to let it lapse and "take the summer off from dating."

On their first evening out together, Joseph ordered calamari.

"I had never been on a date with a guy who had eaten, much less voluntarily eaten, calamari," the bride recalled thinking. She said to him, "I love calamari. I'm going to have to marry you."

And she did.

I also got a kick out of Alexandra Guarnaschelli and Brandon Clark's story. Romance blossomed between them when the groom took a class the bride, a chef, taught about cooking fish.

Dating Tip From a Reader

"I heard a simple little expression that really changed my attitude toward men. I used to cry and get upset all the time over men who treated me poorly...[The expression] goes: 'No boy is worth crying over, and the one who is won't make you cry.' Enough said."

-Leslie

After the VH1 Debacle, He Gives Me Hope

Once upon a time when I was in college, I met a fine, well-built, and handsome fellow. We discovered that his mother and mine taught Religious Ed together years before. They'd remained friends. He and I also became friends and shared a fondness for going out for lunch, discussing politics, and goofing on various professors.

We took a fiction writing workshop together, and I could always count on him to give me an honest (sometimes blistering) opinion on one of my characters, or their behavior (let's put it this way, they didn't believe in the double standard. I learned later that my friend hadn't been sexist; he just didn't believe that people should carry on as if life was a giant episode of Grey's Anatomy).

Our fiction workshop included a man who once served as Editor-in-Chief of the school newspaper and had publicly drawn and quartered me over a piece I'd written lampooning celebrity culture. As this former editor earnestly read his latest story to our class, my friend muttered, "I can see Scatman Crothers playing that role."

This resulted in shoulder-quaking hysteria. We could not stop cackling and snorting and hooting to save our lives, which earned us sharp looks from both the editor and our esteemed professor, William S. Wilson, III (recipient of a Best American Short Stories award in 1975 and the author of Why I Don't Write Like Franz Kafka).

Since then, my friend and I have kept in touch loosely. No romance ever existed between us, and we've since married other people. Yesterday, he responded to my email wishing him a happy birthday by saying he'd recently passed the bar. Fourteen months ago, he and his wife adopted not one--or two--but three girls ranging in age from eight to 10 from Russia.

He attached photos from their baptism, which took place last month.

When women tell me that decent men don't exist, I always think of this guy. He was funny, handsome, smart, and definitely decent. If he exists, surely others like him exist, as well.

Kill Your Television (Before It Kills You)

I happened to stay up the other night, really late, and I put down Searching for the Sound: My Life with the Grateful Dead and turned on the TV, hoping to catch a repeat of The Best Week Ever, which I'd missed on Friday. This turned out to be an unfortunate move.

Instead, I found The Fabulous Life Of: Celebrity Sex, which probably qualifies (after Grey's Anatomy) as the most depressing show in the world. In it, I learned that Penn of Penn & Teller fame once had an S&M room in his apartment, which was converted to a nursery after his daughter, Moxie CrimeFighter was born (yeah, "Moxie CrimeFighter" really is the poor kid's name; it must be great having morons for parents).

I also found out celebrities love vibrators (as long as they're platinum or 24K gold, that is), and that there are plenty of merchants who are willing to discuss with the media who digs what and why.

Check out this sad little detail from the show, which also appears on the VH1 website:

"...a mere plaything compared to the sexy gift David Beckham bestowed upon his posh wife, Victoria. Because nothing says, 'I love you' like a $2 million platinum vibrator with a 10-carat diamond encrusted base linked to a 16-carat diamond necklace-one of only 10 in existence in the entire world."

Gross.

A smarter person would have snapped the TV off at that point, but like any good tragedy, I had a hard time turning away from it. After a 30 minutes (or 60; I really can't remember), I felt oddly bored (and maybe a bit scared, in the case the mental picture of Penn Jillette wearing nipple clamps) by the very idea of sex.

As for Grey's Anatomy, it's flown so far off the rails, it's at the bottom of the ocean. If real people slept around the way they do on that show, they'd be too busy nursing running sores to continue taking on new sex partners.

I, for one, may sue ABC for the murder of millions of my innocent brain cells during the season finale of Grey's Anatomy.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert--One Sweet Presidential Ticket

We could do worse. Hell, we've already done worse.

The Law of Attraction, Norman Vincent Peale, and the Grateful Dead

Today's USA Weekend includes an interview with Bernie Siegel, M.D., the renowned author of the classic Love, Medicine & Miracles.

Dr. Siegel, along with Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life co-author Mary Ann Brussat, lists five books that have inspired legions--and will continue to do so for years to come. "Each generation thinks somebody new is starting the process," says Siegel, "but we keep repeating the wisdom of the sages and ages."

Siegel includes Norman Vincent Peale among those sages and recommends his book, The Power of Positive Thinking . You may already know I'm a big fan of Dr. Peale's; his Positive Imaging is a great primer on the Law of Attraction, especially for those who fear it's New Age or "not of God."

You may also know that I believe the Law of Attraction is key in attracting the love and romance (and every other good thing) you deserve.

After lunch on Tuesday, E. and I popped into the Marble Collegiate Church on 5th and 29th Street, where Peale used to be a pastor. I used to walk past it every single day on my way to work and always meant to stop in but never did. On Tuesday, the Director of Media Relations took us around the lovely old church and gave us its history.

As for my own book recommendations, right now I'm reading Searching for the Sound: My Life with the Grateful Dead. I bought it for Peter for Father's Day 2005, and he loved it.

I never liked The Dead when I was in high school; years later, when I met Peter, his passion for them gave me pause. I'd stepped over hundreds of Dead Heads in Penn Station over the years. Few of them appeared to be on the frequent bather's program.

Peter took me to my first Dead show at Madison Square Garden in 1990, and I 'got' them. They were more than "Casey Jones" and "Shakedown Street" and the crap they kept in constant rotation at WNEW-FM. "Terrapin Station," which I heard for the very first time on April 7, 1991, blew my mind.

I've since become a fan of The Dead, especially Phil Lesh. Aside from the amazing music he makes, he comes off as a generous, kind, and genuinely good man.

Our friend, Mike, made a CD of one of Phil's recent shows (historically, The Dead couldn't care less about their fans recording and distributing their music, although I read that some of Jerry Garcia's heirs aren't thrilled about it).

I had it on yesterday at the gas station while Peter filled his ecologically unfriendly beast with petrol. Phil went into his frequently repeated plea for the crowd to consider organ donation. He added, "Every day I pray for the soul of the young man," whose liver now resides in his body.

Brought tears to my eyes.

Peter has just come back from dropping Child One off at a Bat Mitzvah; the other child and I will see Beauty and the Beast at a birthday party at the Downtown Cabaret Theatre this afternoon.

We'll carpool with the Amazing V and her offspring as soon as they get home from church.

A Clear Sign He's Not a Good Prospect

Today's Connecticut Post states that almost three of every four battered women report that their animals are beaten, killed, or threatened by their abusers. Three out of four!

During my early 20s, a guy kept coming around who had a habit of throwing small animals against walls. I refused to date him, and for the life of him, he couldn't understand why.

About 12 years later, I read in the New York Daily News that he'd stabbed his latest girlfriend to death, rolled her up in a rug, and left her on the side of the Clearview Expressway.

Yeah, he's in prison.

Losers like this are more prevalent than you'd think: When I was a teenager, a local high school coach bragged to me that, as a kid, he liked to flush kittens down toilets and watch them scramble for their lives. After I had my first daughter, Peter and I met a guy who crowed about befriending a pig ("I had the thing eating out of the palm of mah hand"), and then putting a bullet to its head.

Sure, I was eating plently of ham sandwiches myself at the time, but the story--and the glee with which the jerk told it--made me kind of sick. Oh, and by the way, this guy always had a girlfriend.

It may seem like common sense, but I'm going to say it anyway: Animal abusers don't make good boyfriend material.

Overheard At the Big Y Supermarket in Monroe, Connecticut

Man to three-year-old daughter in book and toy aisle: "Hey, stop touching that. Those toys aren't for you! Those toys are for boys!"

What I Learned Today

If you eat meat after not having eaten it for three months, you will wake up the next morning looking and feeling like crap.

Yesterday, I showed up at a monthly luncheon I'd given up in January and consumed various meat products with a limp salad in a chemical dressing. Between the food and the boring speeches, I've concluded that I'm better off using the time to write.

Overheard In Manhattan

Yesterday I met E. for lunch to celebrate my birthday (which was April 26th. Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends). We went for sushi in the Flatiron district, in a restaurant conveniently located near two buildings where I once toiled in the publishing and advertising industries.

Our tiny table put us shoulder-to-shoulder with two publishing people in their 20s and early 30s, who were meeting for the first time. After the preliminaries ("Did you have a hard time finding the place?" and establishing they both had parents who grew up in the Bronx), the elder asked the younger, "Do you really think TV sells books?"

The younger responded with an anecdote about a book she'd worked on that had been featured on Today (I'd seen the segment but didn't buy the book).

Then the elder went in for the kill:

-How old are you?
-Do you have a boyfriend?
-How long have you been seeing him?
-Do you think you'll get married?

Such a strange line of questioning, particularly for a first meeting! Particularly for a business meeting. Trust me, the two guys sitting to my right did not mention their love lives. After having a laugh about one guy's two-and-a-half hour commute to Manhattan, they talked about getting customers, keeping customers, and making money. At no point did Wally inquire of Sam, "Do you have a girlfriend? Do you think you'll marry her?"

And I doubt that if Wally were lunching with the younger woman (who we learned will be 26 next month), he'd ever subject her to questions about plans for marriage. He would have been pegged a creep.

At one point, the older woman (who could not have been older than 31, if that) lamented that she wished she'd taken more time with her wedding. I'm not sure if she meant the event or the union.

Perhaps, when she was just a tender sprout, some woman (or gang of women) made her sit through inquisitions about her plans for marriage. Maybe she couldn't take the heat. Maybe she jumped too soon.

I really wish women would stop pressuring each other about this crap. Half the married couples in the world are bored out of their minds, so what's the hurry? Better to take your time and marry a guy you can have a laugh with.

Later on, E. and I popped into El Rio Grande for margaritas and spotted columnist Liz Smith. She's over 80, but you'd never know it. She looks exactly like her picture.

Fix a Broken Heart

Check it out, and when you're finished, download the free manual.

According to EFT practitioner Alison Held :

"As a single woman, I know the emotional challenges that come with breaking up with a boyfriend. These traumatic events can impact future relationships and hold us back from being the powerful women that we are! EFT works wonders on resolving past hurts by using the power of forgiveness, love and more.

It is my recommendation that we forgive anyone who may have done us wrong in the past yet many times we aren’t ready or willing to forgive these people. Luckily, in using EFT there are ways to work around any resistance related to forgiveness.

Also, when we notice repetitive negative patterns in our relationships or find ourselves drifting off and thinking about past lovers this may be a signal that our emotional body needs our undivided attention. I have found EFT to be a quick, simple way to aid in our emotional discomfort and release some of the negative stuff that we are holding onto. I always encourage everyone to give it a try on their own, with a friend, or by hiring a practitioner because there is absolutely nothing you can lose!"

I've had great success using EFT for a variety of issues. Get the free manual and decide for yourself.

Faith For Love and Romance

"By believing passionately in something that does not yet exist, we create it."
-Nikos Kazantzakis

Online Dating Works

According to Karl Fisch, one out of every eight couples who got married last year in the U.S. met online.

For more fascinating facts, check out this video.

glumbert.com - Shift Happens

Self-Acceptance

"You will not always feel confident; sometimes your stomach will be tied up in knots and perspiration will break out all over your face. Your nervousness will be visible to other people; they may look at you curiously. Or, you may do something rash, injuring your own interests or rudely stepping on someones else's toes. Your imperfections are many--everyone is imperfect, really--and your must learn to accept this. You must understand that your blunders are not your total personality; they are just a part of you, and this is a part which you must accept to be successful. Otherwise you will dedicate your days to an avalanche of self-castigation which will leave you miserable, head bowed, a failure at almost anything you try. You must not look to others for acceptance; this is something you must give yourself."

--Maxwell Maltz, M.D., Creative Living For Today, Pocket Books, 1967

How to Meet New People Without Leaving the House

You know I recommend Irish Penpals as a means to make a new friend of either sex. It's free, and the friend you make doesn't have to be Irish. The site boasts members from all over the world.

But another site that caught my attention is TUT's Village, from Mike Dooley, who calls it a spiritual community for friends or for dating. It's also free. Click here. Once you get there, click 'Resources,' and finally, 'Village.'

Glen Colello recommends GreenFriends.com, which bills itself as the "best and largest site in the world for progressive singles and friends interested in vegetarianism, environmental protection, peace, and animal rights."

Worth a look.

Catching a Healthy Habit

Had a great time with Alison and Kristen at The Dressing Room Restaurant. I had a sashimi salad for lunch, which included mixed greens and a bed of quinoa, cooked just so. Really good. It's a cozy place, too.

Alison demonstrated the new kinesiology technique. That was fun, and I've seen benefits already. Her goal is to replace limiting beliefs with better ones; people usually work on self-esteem, health, and prosperity issues.

Peter is still in South Carolina with his family. His father is not doing well. Peter's not so hot, either; he's not saying it, but I can hear it in his voice. He always looked up to his father, and it must be difficult to see him helpless.

On Saturday night, I went to dinner at Kristen's. Her brother, Glen Colello, is a raw food chef, so he and his partner, Lisa Storch, provided the meal. I never knew raw food could be something you'd crave after eating it just once. I certainly didn't know I could get full on it.

They served a caesar salad, and then a pasta made from zucchini and covered with an out-of-this-world tomato and pesto sauce. We had a chocolate pudding for dessert. Everything was organic and vegan.

Some people, like my friend, B, don't understand my interest in healthful living. "You gotta die of something," he says. But my goal is to die happily in my own bed at an advanced age, instead of hooked up to an IV in a hospital full of strangers. I don't want to die of cancer, a stroke, or heart disease. They're horrible ways to go.

And the more I read about meat production, the less I want to be party to it. So I gave up meat for Lent and haven't looked back. I don't ever use the word "vegetarian." I just avoid meat. Peter made lamb for Easter, and I just ate the potatoes and the green bean casserole (prepared with Campbell's cream-of-whatever soup and Durkee onions; healthful indeed!). I didn't feel it necessary to make an announcement about it.

It's not like I'm a card-carrying member of PETA, either. While growing up, I made a point to avoid TV shows about animals, like Wild Kingdom. Even today, if I'm up late with Jay Leno, and a guest turns out to be one of those guys who hangs out with monkeys, I change the channel. It's not that I don't like animals. I'm just not particularly interested in them.

But when I worked for Routledge, Chapman & Hall, we distributed a book about the connection between meat consumption and violence. At Kristen's house, the vegans agreed that they react differently to situations since giving up meat.

Glen reports a 100% improvement in his once-troubled back since giving up dairy (a pretty daunting prospect for an Italian kid brought up on ricotta and mozzarella) because it's highly inflammatory. I'd like to summon the courage to give up dairy. I've tried once or twice before.

Yeah, I know this post has nothing at all to do with dating. Moving along now.

Visualization Is Key to the Love You Want

Just realized that the trip to Ireland I wrote about in the previous post occurred 19 years ago last week. The reason for that trip was a wedding in Clare.

Kristen Colello, who will have lunch with Alison and me tomorrow, is writing a book about healthful eating entitled, No Strawberries, Please. She dropped over yesterday with Living Nutrition, a magazine she reads.

In it, an interview conducted by David Klein, Ph.D. included a lovely testimonial about the power of visualization by an author named Susan Smith Jones:

"I recommend that people start with very easy-to-achieve goals so they an experience success and feel empowered. Visualization is a very important part of the process. You must be able to see yourself achieving your goal.

When I am visualizing a goal, I accept it and give thanks that it is already part of my reality. Simply put, act 'as if.' You don't want to push your goal into the future. And I always end my visualizations with, 'This or something better I now accept in my life.' I do that because even thought I may be clear on what I want, I am always living in the presence of a Higher Power that knows my highest good."

Visualization is integral to success in all aspects of your life, especially relationships. Please do not ever discount it.

Matt Lauer, an Aran Sweater, and Clearing Limiting Beliefs

Matt Lauer of Today reports from Ireland today, and it's hard to pull myself away from the television. I haven't been to Ireland in years, but I hope to go again soon. I'd like for Peter to see Scotland, too, since that's where his family emigrated from when they settled in Nova Scotia.

Tomorrow, I'm going to see Alison Held at her new office. She's going to demonstrate a kinesiology technique she recently studied. I'm to bring along a limiting belief I'd like to release.

I have two in mind:

-I suffer from the metabolism of a caterpillar

-I will never enjoy clear vision again without contact lenses

I'm sure if I think hard enough, I can come up with a couple of others, but Alison says we must concentrate on just one. I believe wholeheartedly that uncovering and evaporating limiting beliefs is the key to success in every area in one's life.

If you believe that every man you date will ultimately disappoint you, guess what? He will.

After Alison and I succeed at puncturing the belief of my choice, we'll be off to the Dressing Room restaurant. I do not know the owners personally, but they are my heroes (along with Stephen Colbert and Julia Butterfly Hill).

Tomorrow Peter and I will celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary. He wants to go out for dinner; the plan is to ditch the offspring. Since we take them out for dinner once a week, it shouldn't traumatize them.

Prayer request: Peter's father was diagnosed with cancer last week. Peter will fly to South Carolina on Friday to be with him and his mother.

Matt Lauer is now discussing Aran sweaters with the people in Galway. I had an Aran sweater once; a man named Dan Flaherty drove my friends and me in his Michael Hernon tour van to Michael Hernon's pub. Dan then steered us to his house to meet his wife, Sarah, who made Aran sweaters for a living. I bought one for not much and wore it every day to my job at Routledge, Chapman & Hall in New York, where they kept the temperature around 40 degrees.

And then, one morning, I went into my office drawer and found it had been stolen.

More About the Imus Flap

Yeah, by now it is old news, but this is the most intelligent piece on the subject I've read so far.

Why I Won't Introduce Him to My Single Friends

I know a guy who most women would find desirable if they saw him listed on a dating website. He's not bad looking, is educated, has a well-paying job, and owns primo real estate.

He's always asking me, "Don't you know any nice single women?" Of course I do. They're everywhere. But I'm reluctant to introduce him to any of them.

He's stuck in a groove of work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, complain about being single, work, eat, sleep, quick vacation, work, eat, sleep, buy a new car, work, eat, sleep, complain...

The dude needs to climb out of it. Take more than one vacation a year, for instance, and stop taking it with the same lame-o friend who hates women. Put yourself in a place where you'll make some new friends who'll introduce you to other new friends and new experiences.

The guy always drives a beautiful car, but he never goes anywhere. He lives in an incredible house, but he rarely invites anyone over. He did have an excellent party (he's a great cook and a good host) several years ago, but everybody on the guest list was married. Surely some of those married people had a single friend or two they could have brought along.

He should take a little more initiative. It would make him more attractive, for one thing. What woman wants to date a guy she has to drag around like a sack of bricks?

The other thing that holds me back from introducing him around: He's moody as hell. If his basketball team loses, he goes into a funk. He's just ridiculous to be around. Other things, little things, set him off as well.

I'm just not willing to take responsibility for hooking a friend up with a landmine. Maybe if he ever decides to stop being so willing to be bummed out, I'll reconsider.

A friend of mine did introduce him to a lovely woman, but he rejected her for not being "good-looking enough." This set the friend who'd made the connection on fire. The lovely woman, while not a great beauty, hardly qualified as repellent. She fit safely into the average category, as does this guy. My friend vowed never to set him up again.