It is raining in California. Eleven days of it with just a couple of breaks. The word incessant is on the tip of my tongue but I’m trying not to say it out loud, because everyone around me is using words like blessed and miraculous and, most irritating of all, aren’t you loving this rain?
I know that I don’t have to love the rain. But my home state has just been parched and fire-stormed for 6 years so we all really need to be grateful for life-saving precipitation. And honestly, I am. I am not a mean, bitter, bad, rain-hating person. California’s severe drought was only downgraded to moderate-to-severe last Winter, so nobody needs me to drone on about how I grew up in Ireland where it rains 300+ days a year and is also windy so there is no point owning an umbrella.
Apparently growing up in perpetual rain and then moving to the Golden State does not mean you are exempt from wet weather for the rest of your life. And now I live in a place where every time it rains, people bow down and kiss the ground. No matter that wet leaves stick to them as they do so. It’s elemental. It’s sacred. I understand it, and I succeed in keeping my big Irish mouth shut. But sometimes I secretly, and very briefly, want all native Californians to go live in Ireland, just for a couple of months, so they could fly back to San Francisco and bow down and kiss the parched dry earth and look upward to the frighteningly sunny skies and give endless thanks for the big yellow orb they see there. It’s very conflicting being an immigrant.
But wonderfully, it turns out that a rainy Sunday hard on the heels of a rainy Saturday provoked exactly the stir-craziness I needed to propel me onto an online dating site. I was out Saturday night with friends who met on OK Cupid. My careful questioning revealed that this may be the site for me because it allows for a more in-depth profile than Bumble or Tinder. As we parted ways on a sparkly Christmas-lit Mill Valley street, I decided: I do not care if the name of this dating site rhymes with stupid! Because it’s...OK!
So Sunday morning, over my first two cups of coffee, I downloaded the app and commenced setting up my profile. It was a lot less torturous than I had feared because they ask a lot of helpful questions. Plus I had Buddy curled up on the end of my bed, and as you know he is an excellent love coach. However, it turns out that when it comes to dating site profiles, he sucks. Who would have guessed?
[Me] Buddy, what is my current goal?
[Buddy, perking up, suddenly hopeful] To take me for a walk?
[Me] Buddy, focus. We’re working on my OK Cupid profile. What is my perfect day?
[Buddy, still perked up] You wake up, you take your dog for a walk...
[Me] Buddy! Snap out of it! Ok, here’s an interesting one. The most private thing I’m willing to admit?
[Buddy, ears back now, mouth open in silly dog grin] Remember that time we met that guy with the pitbull and I attacked him to protect you and then the guy called you a mad rat-owning bitch and you hit him with a rolled-up newspaper?
[Me] And we are ON to the next question! Without coffee I would probably never...
[Buddy] Take your dog for a walk?
[Me] Oh for goodness sake, just go back to sleep. I’ve got this.
I wrote my profile and then I got up and took Buddy out for a walk. Ten feet up the road, in the driving rain, he looked up at me, meh! and we went back inside. I’m not the kind of dog owner to ignore his signs. He doesn’t liking being out in the rain? That is only a small part of his excellence.
Over the very long, very very long rainy day, I busily added to my profile. Buddy busily wandered around the house choosing new spots for naps. What a productive day for both of us. I could get a boyfriend out of that day. Buddy got...more sleep. Both important missions!
I have a confession. I’m liking OK Cupid. Their questions are quirky and funny. I could probably beat you at? Six things I can’t do without? Pick one artist to soundtrack your life? Jessie and I are constantly fine-tuning the soundtracks to our lives, so this last was a no-brainer. As the wind whipped all the ornaments off my Christmas tree out on the patio (more on this later), I had some serious fun compiling a soundtrack to my life. First track that came to mind, a surprise: Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto #2 in F Major, Op.102:II Andante. If you have never heard it, now is the moment. Do not delay. It is melancholy, but you could be hit by a bus tomorrow.
Next up: Caamp. Don’t throw your heart out, baby, you’re good for another round. Not melancholy. I think we’ve discussed this song already. There is also Florence and the Machine. A tad dramatic, but some of her lyrics are directed straight at me: I’m not scared to jump, I’m not scared to fall, if there was nowhere to land I wouldn’t be scared at all.
The Christmas tree thing. It has been on the patio since my New Year’s Eve party, when it was discovered that there was no room for it in the house due to the excessive number of party guests. So I moved it out there and it actually looked really good, with all its lights twinkling by the firepit. New Year’s came and went, and I made it a resolution that the tree would stay up until my teen took it down. It’s the 9th. She knows about this challenge. Watch this space, but do not hold your breath.
As for the title of this post? It’s from a message I sent someone on OK Cupid on Sunday. One of the guys I thought looked really interesting had recently had a haircut and he was asking prospective partners what they thought of it. Since I had no idea what his hair looked like before the cut, it was a little difficult to give him a considered opinion, but I thought it looked really good. I wanted to let him know this fact, but for some reason the words I typed were mad props on the hair, dude! What? Who? I don’t usually say anything remotely like this. For one thing, I am not thirteen. In her tutorial, OK Cupid helper Alice specifically advises users to just be themselves. I have no trouble being myself in the rest of my life. Why did I suddenly become someone else entirely to haircut guy? I have a theory, but no time to go into it right now.
He did not respond, and who on earth could blame him. Next time I message someone, I’m going to attempt to be myself. As Oscar Wilde said, everyone else is already taken. Clearly, he never downloaded OK Cupid.
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