Dating – Sex & The Single Vicar

RETRACTION:READY TO BE A CAT LADY (sort of)

A month or so ago, I wrote this:

Then this happened. Two orange aliens from outer space invaded my place.

Not quite a week ago, Cheshire and Charlie came home from the Fairfax County Humane Society.

$200

Since, I have made, at least, six trips to PetSmart for:

2 litter boxes, 2 kinds of litter, litter box liners, litter scooper, dry food, canned food, food dishes, cat carrier, pet gate, food bowls, half a dozen cardboard scratching things, cat toys, cat bed, catnip spray, don’t-pee-here spray, don’t-scratch-here spray, no-odor spray, cat-stain spray, cat brush, kitten collars.

$1,000,000 (approximately)

One trip to PetCo for:

Litter box #3, Kitty Attract Litter, Litter Scooper.

$50

One trip to Target for:

2 stainless steel lidded kitty proof trashcans, trashcan liners, 12 cans of gourmet kitten food.

$75

So, all totaled about a bazillion dollars.

A bazillion dollars spent in just five days.

The world, as we know it, seems to be ending. I wish I could save it — but I can’t. So, I decided to save Cheshire and Charlie. As Trump Nation implodes, it seems the least I could do.

So, I guess I am ready to be a cat lady (sort of).

Five days in. Feline companionship. So far, so good.

Hu(man) companionship. Working on it. Stay tuned.

Singularly yours:

Rev:Joani

Not Ready to Be a Cat Lady

In a weak moment, I posted on FB a week or two ago:

“I am not a cat person. I am thinking of getting a cat. Please, advise.”

Well, truth be told I am not really much an animal person of any kind.

Bailey, my youngest son’s half-Collie/half-Golden, lived out the latter of his fifteen years under my roof. My divorce decreed me all three animals – my children’s pets. Along with Bailey, there were two cats: Lucy and Katrina who preceded him to heaven.

And at each pet’s passing, I had to admit that I was a whole lot more attached to these fur-coated creatures than I imagined. Well, not nearly so much to the cats as to Bailey.

Bailey and I had this quiet comfortable roommate thing going on. And then he was gone.

It has been three years now. It is Bailey I miss. That particular golden-haired member of my household. Bailey who was afraid of soda cans and squeaky toys. Bailey who I used to drag around the block. Bailey, the dog who barely knew his name.

But with Bailey’s departure, I have discovered the particular pleasures of the single life.

After work, I now go wherever I please. No need to rush home. On rainy mornings, I stay dry in my pajamas. No need to get drenched outdoors. Wardrobe wise, I can wear black and no longer need to stash lint rollers all over the place. No vet bills. No boarding costs. I have both the freedom and the funds to travel as I please.

Yes, I still get a little misty eyed when I think about Bailey.

But I do not miss having a dog.

Well, mostly I do not miss having a dog.

Rebounding from the election, I briefly reconsidered. I was tempted by a little Bichon Frise pup named “Posh.” But someone else rescued him before I got there. The timing of which may have rescued us both from the canine equivalent of a one night stand.

My desire dissipated like vapor. Faded in the blink of an eye.

You see, I delight in the solitude of my sacred space. The freedom to walk through every room dressed as I please. Curled up on my couch, befriended by books and accompanied by thoughts delicious and dark. And visitors of the human kind, are welcomed from time to time.

I live on my own but that does mean that I am lonesome.

Living alone is not the same thing as being lonely.

Yet even the Queen in her Castle, craves companionship of the intimate kind from time to time.

On the human side of this equation, for the past year, I have posted my endeavors here at Sex & the Single Vicar. Blog worthy. Humorous, disastrous and less than successful.

Meanwhile, well-meaning people, keep encouraging me to get a companion of the four-footed kind.

“Get a cat. They are so easy!”

“A cat to keep you warm!”

So, a couple of weeks ago, I surfed the SPCA sites looking for a cat. Maybe a cat would better fit my “swinging singles” lifestyle. Ha!

Crowdsourcing feedback on Facebook, I posted:

“I am not a cat person. I am thinking of getting a cat. Please, advise.”

And friends I did not know were friends – or friends I did not even know I had – commented, reacted, liked, and commented on the comments.

There was no shortage of replies:

Adopt a kitten.
No, kittens tear up your house.
Adopt a rescue cat.
Adopt a two year-old cat, already housebroken.
No adopt an old cat.
No, they have urinary tract problems.
Adopt a black cat because they get left behind.
No, adopt a special needs cat.
A deaf cat, a blind cat.
A cat with FIV (poor thing).
Better yet, get two cats. To keep each other company.
(Uh, aren’t two cats twice as expensive as one?)
Or adopt a Maine Coon cat, it’s almost like a dog.
Or a British Short Hair, Alice in Wonderland’s Cheshire cat.
Or maybe, just take my cat.
No, for heavens’ sake just get a kitten.
So cute.
So cuddly.

Hmmmm, no I don’t think so.

That’s really not the kind of cuddling I had in mind.

Apologies to all my cat loving friends BUT — getting a cat, feels kind of like giving up.

And I am cautiously confident that it is way, way, way too soon to give up.

So, One Fish. Two Fish. I might get a gold fish.

Or I might borrow a dog to walk once in a while – so that I can flirt with guys at the park.

Or I might just ask my friends to fix me up with a stray brother or coworker or a reasonably handsome (and stable) male friend they might recommend.

Such creatures have to exist somewhere, right? Though rare they might be.

If you find one, please send him to me.

I am not ready to be a cat lady.

Yet.

Singularly Yours:

Rev:Joani

The Last Man on the Plan(et)

“Do I have to go?” I plaintively ask.

“Yes,” Colleen, my life coach, says. “You have to give him a chance.”

“Him” is “Don” — the last man on my six man plan with DCSingles.

My matchmaker, Kelly gives me a heads up.

“He didn’t go to college.”

“That’s okay,” I say. “I like a man who works with his hands.”

“For politics he checked ‘other'”.

“‘Other’ indicates an open mind,” I opine.

“But just beware,” Kelly warns me. “He’s just a tad overly enthusiastic.”

“Okay, what the hey! I am game.”

Bring him on!

First phone call, Don describes in great detail his bout with the flu. So totally whoa is he, his world is just a nose blow away from coming to an end. Recovering in his recliner, he binge watches game shows in his basement.

(Hmmmm, not exactly intellectually curious, is he? But I do confess I have a Hulu binge habit myself.)

And so whiny. Why are men so whiny when they are sick? A doctor’s daughter, I have zero desire to play nursemaid to this guy.

Second phone call goes to message. I call him back. Not there to answer, his recording plays: Big Bad John possibly from an old eight track tape.

Sort of humorous, right?

Feeling better, his voice brighter, he asks me out to brunch. Maybe a walk in the city?

That’s better, right?

Okay. Sunday next. 2:00 PM, we will meet in the middle at the Eastern Market LPQ.

Saturday I text: “I’ll be wearing red glasses. And my hand is decorated! Will explain tomorrow.” Against the rules, I send him my red spectacled, right handed henna selfie — so he will recognize me.

“Such pretty red nails,” he texts back. “All the better to scratch my back” to which I have no response.

Creepy, right?

Unsolicited he sends me his: a framed photo of half a dozen clowns.

“Hysterical! Will you be the one with the red rubber nose?” I kid him, thinking this is a joke.

“Would you like me to wear my clown suit?

OMG, he is serious. This clown really is a real live clown!

“Uh, no,” I reply.

“Funny, right? I am funny, right?”

“Uh, no. Not funny,” I reply silently to myself.

Weird, but harmless. Right?

I guess I will still go. So I text simply: “See you at two at LPQ.”

But then it gets weirder still.

Out of the blue, a late night text: “Take a bubble bath. Have a glass of wine. Put on your PJ’s. Relax.”

Ew, right?

I make an emergency call to my life coach, Colleen. She puts me on speaker phone along with housemate and assistant coach Katie.

“Hmmmm, yes, that does sound inappropriate,” the two concur. “But maybe just out of practice? You should give him the benefit of the doubt. It’s just brunch, right?”

“Okay, I’ll go.”

So today, up at sunrise, Sunday came. After a Holy Eucharist or two, I plopped myself down in the rector’s office: exhausted, hungry, and caffeine deprived. I was feeling nothing but dread for the date ahead.

Chuck, my colleague, listened to my litany of complaints: “He’s whiny. He’s goofy. A bit creepy. And quite literally, he’s a clown.”

“Hmmmm,” Chuck says. “Sounds like you don’t want to go.”

“NOOOOOOO, I don’t want to go.”

“Listen to your gut,” Chuck says.

“YES, my gut screams NO.”

Sorry, Don,

Last Man on the Plan,

I text:

“I am canceling.

I can’t go out with you.”

And even if Don were the Last Man on the Plan(et), I still would not want to go.

I far prefer my own company and conversation, the comforts of my sacred space and the singular luxury of the time I call my own.

It’s really quite splendid, you see.

But I am still quite open to find just the right man who might like to share this with me.

So stay tuned to S&TSV! Maybe crowd sourcing next? We’ll see!

Singularly yours:

The Rev: Joani

The Man on the Plan & The Uber Driver

DCSingles.

Six man plan.

Expensive.

Man #5.

Mark with a “k”, not to be confused with Marc with a “c” – who was Man #4.

Confusing, I know. As texts for coffee flew back and forth, I nearly blew off the fifth before I had even met him.

“Ooooooooo! January Mark with a ‘k’. Sorry, I got you mixed up with December Marc with a ‘c’ — a Debbie Downer, who I had decided, did not merit date #2.

(Date #2 is a planet, I have yet to visit.)

Now here is the wisdom of DCSingles — for a woman of my alluring demographic.

They match you with an actual man, who has an actual job, who has no actual felonies on his actual record, and he is actually the guy pictured on his actual driver’s license.

Background checked. Actually.

BUT, no photos, are exchanged, so we meet sight unseen for coffee after a friendly phone call and a text or two.

So Mark with a “k”, Man #5 on my six man plan: Funny. New Yorker. Proud father of three. Catholic. Volunteer. Top secret clearance. Homeland Security.

Did I mention funny?

What’s not to like?

Poor guy, his right hand is in a cast and being right handed, he tells me he is not able to drive.

“No problem,” I say, “I will come your way! It’s on my calendar for Sunday next.”

The night before, he confirms with a funny little text message about the dress code: “Casual/neat. I’ll be the one in the overalls with a straw hat. My goat will be parked out front.”

Double, double points for making me laugh.

Psyched, a little. Decked out in adorable Anthropologie red, I Uber over, to the other side of town, for Sunday brunch. Twenty minutes early, I take a seat in a corner booth with a clear view of the front door. I order sparkling water and a cup of decaf coffee.

Waiting coquettishly for Man #5.

Please, please, please, be easy on my eyes!

Hmmmm…..

The hostess escorts Mark with a “k” to my table.

He’s short. He’s round. He’s bald.

Hmmmm…

But so was George Constanza on Seinfeld, I tell myself. And I LOVED George Constanza. So let the conversation begin.

Mark with a “k” settles into the booth, adjusting the table for his girth. For some bizarre reason, he unbuttons and buttons the middle button on his button down shirt — no undershirt — flashing his hairy, pink midriff.

Looking anywhere but there, I avert my eyes, as he tells me, he just came from working out at the gym.

Hmmmm. Really? Yuck! Let’s move on.

“Walking is my exercise,” I tell him. “I’ve done a couple of half marathons. I am planning on signing up for another one soon.”

The waitress takes his drink order.

“I’ll have an Irish coffee with Jamison whiskey – the good stuff.” He pauses. “But maybe I shouldn’t?” he says.

“Well, you didn’t drive, so no problem, right?” I say.

“Well, I actually did,” he tells me. “So maybe just one.”

Hmmm. Okay. Fib number one.Let the small talk begin.

He tells me about his three children. I tell him about mine. Catholic, he tells me about his parish. Episcopal priest, I tell him about my job.

We order food: breakfast burrito for him, scrambled eggs for me.

He tells me about his ex: bipolar, alcoholic, a mess!

“I am really sorry to hear about that, I am. I know all about that. Because — surprise, surprise, I am bipolar too! The healthy, bouncy, balanced, and non-alcoholic kind.”

He orders his second Irish coffee with Jamison whisky.

The waitress tops off my decaf.

“Sooooo? Homeland Security? Top Secret clearance? I guess, you can’t tell me what you do? But with the Muslim ban and the craziness at the airports, it must be very challenging.”

“Well, I am in procurement,” he tells me.

So Mark with a “k” is not an actual spy or intelligence guy.

Sigh.

“So what about that award you received for your volunteer service? Wow! What an honor!”

Hmmmm….

Turns out he got an honorable mention in the company newsletter and a lapel pin for his lapel — later misplaced in a taxicab long ago.

Not exactly the august accolades he had boasted of. Fib number two.

My scrambled eggs have grown very cold. The hour is up. I pay my half of the check.

It is definitely time to go.

He wonders aloud if he can take his second Irish coffee, with Jamison whisky, with him in a to-go cup.

People don’t do that, do they? Take their leftover alcohol home with them? That’s not a thing, is it?

He sinks back into the booth to finish his drink.

It is definitely time to go.

I pull out my phone and tap on the app.

UBER DRIVER!

TAKE ME AWAY!

Four minutes later, I climb into the backseat of Alfredo’s Toyota.

THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

“Thank you for picking me up, Alfredo! I just love Uber. You know actually who is picking you up. You know actually who is getting in your car. And I have met so many interesting Uber drivers: artists, entrepreneurs, students.”

Buckling up in the back seat, I can see from the rear view mirror, that Alfredo is long and lean, bearded and distinguished.

Yes, Alfredo is easy on my eyes.

Let the conversation begin.

He tells me about his three children. I tell him about mine. All the same ages. What a surprise.

Just three years in the States and from the Dominican Republic, his accented English is easy on my ears. I use the Spanish, I learned from three year olds, to flirt with him in his native tongue.

My life sounds almost exotic — described in a foreign language.

“Yo soy una sacerdote de la iglesia Episcopal.”

“Yo trabajo en Alexandria.”

“Me gusta leer libros.”

“Me gusta mucho bibliotecas.”

“Me gusta caminar en la ciudad.”

“Esta casado?”

“No.” he answers.

“Esta divorciado?”

“Si,” he answers.

“Yes! I say and in English he flirts in return.

Alfredo tells me, he is a retired engineer, a university professor in the DR, and a professional photographer, a reader, a tennis player, who loves the theater and drinking coffee.

What’s not to like?

(“What the hell!” I say silently to myself. “Go ahead and ask him out!)

“How about a cup of coffee with me sometime, Alfredo?”

I give him my card with my cell number scribbled on the back.

He gives me his, listing his website, email, and phone.

“Alfredo Marquez Rodriguez, Photographer.”

I like the sound of that.

So coffee, at Starbucks, this Friday, 10 o’clock sharp!

ALL — thanks to Uber —

the ride sharing,

friend making,

man locating,

latest, greatest,

dating app.

Singularly yours,

The Rev: Joani

Four Weddings & a Christening

Hatch. Match. Dispatch.

Twenty-two years, I have been in the baptizing, marrying, and burying business.

Ordained an Episcopal priest in 1994, I have long lost count of how many people I have sprinkled, laid to rest, or joined in Holy Matrimony. It is a rare privilege to be with people at such junctures – both the most joyous and the most grief filled times in their lives.

Married, myself, most happily for twenty-eight years, and happily divorced for thirteen, wedding bells do not in the least bit tempt me. I would much rather wear cassock and surplice than a wedding gown at a wedding, any day.

Three weeks ago, a picture of priestly me doing just this – presiding at someone else’s wedding – showed up in the Sunday morning Washington Post! Where? In the LOVE section, of course, on page E14. A total surprise to me!

At Saint Paul’s Memorial, in Charlottesville, Virginia, there I am vested and standing at the altar between Andrew and Kelly: in the photo beneath the fold.

I LOVE presiding over LOVE.

Andrew and Kelly’s ceremony, though large, was intimate, lovely, and tender. Having written their own vows and being close friends of my daughter Colleen, it felt very personal to me.

And personal is that mystical and magical word that describes the most meaningful weddings I have done – regardless of the number of bridesmaids, or guests, or dinner courses at the reception. Weddings with a personal and intimate touch are the ones that I cherish.

Sarah and Nate’s wedding, Valentine’s Day a year ago was a parish wedding. Together with my rocking colleague, Chuck, we celebrated the “SOHO” marriage, at a lovely little Virginia golf club. So many Emmanuel friends were gathered round the tables, it felt like family.

At least, the way I think family weddings should feel:

The way, very much, my brother. Joseph and his partner, John’s wedding felt three brief weeks ago. Quite a love story, Joseph and John reconnected on Facebook after having dated way back in the ‘70’s and again in the 80’s.

Deeply touched, I was invited to officiate. They set the date for June 3^rd, 2017 – what would have been our Mary Lou and Bernard’s – our parents’ — 66th wedding anniversary.

But then November 8^th happened. The election results bode the possibility that newly won LGBTQ rights to marry might be overturned. So on December 18^th, in Hyattsville, Maryland, in my baby brother’s dining room, in his adorable little house, I joined Joseph and his beloved partner John in Holy Matrimony.

Just seven (a very biblical number!) people in attendance, it is just about the loveliest wedding I have been a part of — so far.

And now, my own firstborn son, Zachariah, over Thanksgiving, proposed to his seven-year beloved, Jen. (Again, a biblical number!) The date has been set for the Saturday after Thanksgiving next.

It too, will be a very small and intimate affair, maybe on a boat at sunset, somewhere on the water. Defying tradition, it will still be a sacred occasion but of a more secular kind.

Zach is an atheist who does not darken the door of a church (though he is very proud of his mom!)

Home over Christmas, I ask him gingerly,

“So, Zach, what kind of ceremony are you going to have?”

And I get a most unexpected answer:

“Well, mom, we were wondering if you could do it. But with two conditions.”

Knowing him well, I blurt out,

“No mention of God, right? YES! I can say whatever you want me to say!”

“And the second condition, mom, is can you do it without crying?”

“Whoa! That will be really hard. But, YES, YES, of course, I can!”

And now, of course, I am crying like a baby; happy, crazy tears.

So, by my count, that is four weddings. And this week, I have a Christening.

Misty eyed, I am jumping on an Amtrak train to New York City, to baptize my first great-niece – little Virginia – firstborn daughter of my niece, Lauren and her husband, Gordon; firstborn granddaughter of my brother, Tim and his wife, Martha.

I LOVE presiding over LOVE.

The love of these four weddings and this Christening blesses me. It blesses all who share in the celebration. It blesses all the souls connected by these sacred (and sometimes secular) rituals.

Be it in good times or bad times. Be it in hello times or goodbye times. In all the ups and downs, of this mystical magical thing we call life, such love can bless us all.

At little Virginia’s baptism, we will read the same sacred scripture that was read at her parents’ wedding: good old First Corinthians 13 – read at thousands of weddings for hundreds of years.

And though, I have heard it a million times, I pray, I never tire of hearing it or reading it.

God bless you, Saint Paul.

Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrong but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Faith, hope, and love abide. And the greatest of these is love.

Yes, the greatest of these is love.

Singularly yours:

The Rev: Joani

Broken Hearts’ Club Dance

Once upon a time, I had a crush on Raymond Podany.

Two seventh graders at Holy Family School, we danced our first dance in the school auditorium. I remember the first kiss, in the bleachers sitting in his lap.

Collegiate and cool, he was also awkward and shy.

Brainy and bold, I was anything but.

We went steady.

It didn’t work out.
Our 13 year old hearts broken,

we broke up.

Never to kiss in the bleachers again.

Once upon a time,

I asked the high school boy next door to the Queen of Hearts Dance, a Valentine’s Day affair at my all girls school.

He accepted.

We went to the movies.

We went steady.

We got married.

Had three children.

Twenty-eight years later, we broke each others’ hearts.

In the end, we got divorced.

It didn’t work out.

Hardly ever to see the other in person again.

Once upon a time,

I fell in love with a knight.
He shimmered in his armor,

chivalrous and polite.

Once in a blue moon, riding his white horse,

he would charge into my life.

Camelot, Camelot, we would pretend for an hour or two,

Or maybe a day, if I was lucky.

Then the knight on his stallion

would disappear into the mist,

with no promise of return.

Dysfuntionally ever loyal,

to his helpless damsel in distress,

the man was never really mine.

Hearts broken, it didn’t work out.

And now, I have learned to dance backwards and alone,

for a very long time.

Once upon a time,

I fell in love with my country,

in my pajamas,

watching Apollo moon shots VII through XI,

on my parents’ Trinitron TV.

My universe expanded. It seemed even the stars posed no limit to what Americans could do.

And so at seventeen, not old enough to vote, I worked on my very first campaign: McGovern & Shriver, 1972. The Democrats went down in a landslide. My patriotic fervor was badly bruised and damaged but far from destroyed.

May Day, I marched on the Mall, for Private First Class Michael St. Onge, my friend’s twenty-year old brother who died in Vietnam.

Michael died for our country, as have too many men and women to number, since 1776. They died for the liberty we take for granted, defending the integrity of the ballot, defending a fragile, free and just democracy.

And since The Bicentennial of 1976, I have not missed going to the polls on a single election (well maybe a primary in 2005😔). My candidates have won and my candidates have lost. And regardless of who won, on Inauguration Day, that gentleman (Sad, that this has not changed.😔) whoever that might be has has been my president.

But with Donald Trump’s election, my heart breaks for my country — the country I love and thought I knew. The United States of America, united and defined as Thomas Jefferson wrote, at our founding in the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self evident,

that all men are created equal,

that they are endowed by their Creator,

with certain unalienable rights,

that among these are Life,

Liberty,

and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Emphasis on ALL MEN, in the universal sense of the words as our founding fathers and mothers intended.

Yes, my heart is broken. But I will never break up with the country I love.

So January 21st, 2017, I am going dancing and marching on The Mall once again. Dancing with my brothers and sisters of every description in The Women’s March on Washington.

Inauguration Day, Donald Trump, as much as I hate to say it will be the president. That I cannot change.

And I know that some people I know and care about voted for the man. I will never understand that but I care for them still.

But Trumpism’s appeal to and normalization of our basest instincts, I will endeavor my best not ever to abide.

Bigotry, misogyny, Islamophobia, anti-semitism, homophobia, White supremacy and nationalism are antithetical to the American way.

January 21st Donald Trump, president-elect will swear on the Holy Bible to protect, defend and uphold the Constitution of these United States.

And with a broken heart, for the country I love,

daily, emphatically, fervently,

I will vow to do the same.

How about you?

Singularly yours,

The Rev: Joani

Clueless

clue-game-cards Catching my therapist up on my not so successful DCSingles dates, Sondra pauses and thoughtfully poses the obvious question:

“So, Joani, what do you want?”

“What do I want?”

Well, not Bernie Sanders. I already wrote about him.

And not the guy who is afraid of his own shadow — who I met for coffee on Friday — who has barely been out of his neighborhood for the past forty years.

And not the thrice married widower of just one year who I met last week. A sixty-eight year old guy who has no idea how to be on his own.

My social experiments — so far — are a net negative — negatively defining what I desire in a date.

I am not looking for Friday evenings at home in front of the TV.

I am not looking for someone to keep me company.

I am not hoping to set up house.

I am not looking to couple up monogamously anytime soon.

I am just looking for someone who can keep up with me.

And there is nothing I find sexier and more attractive in a man than the organ found between the ears.

So, let me describe an acceptable gentleman.

Intellectually curious, reads real books.

Forward looking, hope filled, expansive world view.

Funny, laughs freely, and delights in the absurd.

Earthy and unorthodox.

Open to surprise.

Hungry for life.

Someone who can light up all of my little gray cells,

and for whom I can do likewise,

like fireflies.

“Go on,” says my therapist.

Not a spouse.

Not a housemate.

Not a guy friend.

Not all the time.

Someone with their own house, their own life.

Happy and whole.

An intimate,

available for adventure,

available for dinner,

available for a weekend.

Someone who loves a good argument.

Someone who makes me very happy behind closed doors.

Someone who gets back in his car and goes home —

until I summon him back again.

Yes, that sounds heavenly.

“Hmmmm,” Sondra says. “Is that really possible? Most ‘older’ men are looking for something more comfy and conventional.”

“Well, someone younger then! But how crazy is that?”

Sondra is not telling me to settle but she does encourage me to think this through.

The depths of my desire add up to having a mad affair — while dates in my demographic double down on domestic bliss.

Which leaves me feeling clueless, somewhat unsettled, and unsure of myself.

I definitely don’t want “that”.

Maybe I don’t want “this” at all.

And I will be damned — if I ever let some nonexistent man — make me second guess myself.

Matchmaking is madness!

It makes my manic mind spiral and spin, trying to puzzle this f*ing thing out.

The smartest girl in the class waves her hands in the air but she has no answers.

Navigating an ocean of emotion.

Unmoored.

Without a compass.

At sea.

And I guess for now, that is just how it has to be.

For now, I remain

incredibly

clueless.

Singularly yours,

The Rev: Joani

The Pseudo-Librarian, the Priest & Her Wardrobe

1963. Open my wardrobe and what do you see?

Brown courdouroy smocked dress and white puffy blouse. Navy blue polka dot shift and striped Danskins. Parochial school uniform and Peter Pan collars. Mary Janes, saddle shoes, and Keds.

1973. Open my wardrobe and what do you see?

Peasant dresses, halter tops, and army jacket. Denim cutoffs, bellbottom pants, and macrame belts. Parochial school uniform and Oxford cloth shirts. Platforms, flip flops, and saddle shoes.

1983. Open my wardrobe and what do you see?

Pleated skirts and cardigan sweaters. Padded shoulders and tailored slacks. Designer jeans, and tasteful flats.

1993. Open my wardrobe and what do you see?

Khaki trousers, corduroy jumpers, and denim overalls. Cotton turtlenecks, kilts and tights. Embroidered vests and cable knit sweaters. Black flats, brown flats, and tennis shoes.

2003. Open my wardrobe and what do you see?

Target basics and Talbot’s work clothes. Cotton sweats and running suits. Clergy shirts and clerical collars. Random flats, Birkenstocks, and flip flops — in every color under the sun.

And thirteen years on.

2016. Open my wardrobe and what do you see?

Funky tunics and interesting tops. Comfy leggings and skinny jeans. Prints, patterns, and primary colors. Autumn hues and basic black. Dressy dresses and dresses just for fun. Lululemon trousers and button down shirts. Bits of ribbon and bits of lace. TOMS, saddle shoes, ASICS, and a multitude of multicolored flats.

I have both lost and found myself in my wardrobe.

Middle child, parochial school girl, head of the class.

Flower child, high school nerd, and rebel without a cause.

Computer programmer, working mom, sometimes a wife.

Seminary student, kindergarten volunteer, and Del Ray mom.

Parish priest, divorcee, and mostly manic.

Half marathoner, storyteller, blogger, irreverent reverend, and pseudo-libarian.

I have lost and found myself in my wardrobe.

Clothes are the window dressing of the soul. Spiritual expressions of our psyches and personalities. Creative expressions of our passions and our moods.

In my darker days, my wardrobe was all solid colors. No prints. Basic and boring. I would buy three colors of the same pants and the same sweater.

All the better to hide in. All the better to disappear.

Those dark days are long — and hopefully forever — gone.

How do I know?

Because my wardrobe therapist tells me so.

My therapeutic fashion consultant, Stephanie Hernandez, helped me work through my closet issues.

Stephie is a very good friend of my awesome daughter Colleen. Stephie is a young LCSW with a passion for style and an entrepreneurial spirit. She’s the founder of “Look Good, Feel Good”— “a therapeutic approach to finding your personal style.”

A brilliant idea! This bipolar soul signed herself up right away!

Personable, warm, and observant, Stephie first sat down on my couch and we had a chat. I walked her through a “regular day” so she could learn about my bipolar life — both at work and at play. I gave her a one minute tour of my condo and then we took a thirty minute walk through my wardrobe.

And then for the next half hour, we played dress up. Mixing and matching funky and flattering combos, Stephie helped me come up with outfits that I can wear just about anywhere: @LOC, @EEC, walking Del Ray, or strolling DC.

Working with Stephie made me feel so much cooler and so much cuter than I actually am!

It was very therapeutic.

It was so much fun.

“Look Good, Feel Good Style”

It’s not just a catchy slogan, it’s fashion philosophy.

I recommend Stephanie Hernandez and her new enterprise most happily!

So friends, what’s in your wardrobe?

Singularly yours:

The Rev: Joani

Note: Also posted on Unorthodox & Unhinged: Tales of a Manic Christian

My Lover is an Open Book

bookish heart pages folded

My lover is an open book.

Quite literally.

Currently I am intimate with three:

White Noise by Don DeLillo. Hilarious, beautiful, and strange.

Rain: A Natural and Cultural History by Cynthia Barnett. “Lovely, lyrical, and deeply informative”.

and…

The Invention of Nature: Alexander Von Humboldt’s New World by Andrea Wulf. “A big, magnificent, and adventurous book”.

Each is easy on the eyes, lovely to hold, and stimulating to my gray cells.

It depends on my mood which one I take to my bed.

I love a good conversation with a good book before falling asleep. Pillow talk is both provocative and conducive to interesting dreams.

My intimates are most passionate, as am I.

I am good with words. I make my living with words, but they often best me. Words drip like honey from their pens: quotable things describing intimate things — like this brief delight from Don DeLillo.

Babette and I have turned our lives for each other’s thoughtful regard, turned them in the moonlight in our pale hands, spoken deep into the night about our fathers and mothers, childhoods, friendships, awakenings, old loves, fears (except for fear of death). No detail must be left out, not even a dog with ticks or a neighbor’s boy who ate an insect on a dare. The smell of pantries, the sense of empty afternoons, the feel of things as they rained across our skin, things as facts and passions, the feel of pain, loss, disappointment, breathless delight. In these night recitations, we create a space between things as we felt them at the time and as we speak them now. This is the space reserved for irony, sympathy, and fond amusement, the means by which we rescue ourselves from the past.

Such language, it makes me jealous.

Books are also a sensual thing to hold in the hand: smooth pages, ragged edges, the whiff of oak trees and earth.

And there is something evocative about the printed word, being engaged in black and white. As sentences slither from left to right, my moods shift from dark to light.

And books are a perpetual tease. Turn the page! Turn the page! Breathless, I dream of what is on the other side. It is so tantalizing to believe that if I just get to end of this chapter, I will be satisfied.

Deeply satisfied.

And the best of books, of course, make me think. They not only get into my bed; they get into my head. They puzzle me, challenge me. They expand my inner space and widen my outer world.

I will never be an astronaut but I have explored the cosmos. I will never be a philosopher but I have pondered by Walden Pond. I will never be a botanist but flowers and weeds both grow wild in my head.

All for the love of a good book.

Tumbled between the sheets, my lovers lie spent. Their covers lost. Their spines broken. Their pages torn. Their corners bent.

No man can possibly compete.

Or can he?

Next week I take the plunge and dive in deep. I start sixteen weeks of intensive training at the Library of Congress — where I will get to hear, see, and taste all of the delights this great Temple of Learning has to offer: its collections and its history; its rumors and its secrets.

Who knows who I might bump into in the hallways or meet up with behind the stacks?

There’s nothing like a sexy librarian to make me weak in the knees. The possibility of a literary assignation in the corridors of the LOC — lights me up like a firefly.

Yes, a bibliophile’s dream.

Just one more week on S&TSV.

Singularly yours

The Rev: Joani

Politics Makes for Strange Bedfellows

Looking for bromance?

It seems Trump and Putin have been playing footsie under the table.

Putin flirts with Trump and Trump’s heart is all aflutter.

Tweet, tweet, Vladimir, strong leader. So handsome, shirtless and mounted on your horse.

Of course, we have much in common.

So Trump, a rank neophyte narcissistically plays the game — courting the love of a KGB thug.

Don’t cry over me, Crimea. The Ukraine? Take it. It’s yours!

NATO? You’re right. Too expensive. We don’t need it. Where is Estonia anyway?

The DNC and Hillary? Hack away, hack away. The server is in the basement.

What we won’t do for love.

Setting up my dating profile, my matchmaker asks me about my politics.

Liberal.

Definitely liberal.

Bleeding heart liberal.

Definitely a Democrat.

And in a mate, what would I find simpatico?

Definitely similar but not necessarily the same.

So in addition to all the above I add:

Moderates.

Centrists.

Slightly right of center.

Libertarians and reasonable Republicans are also welcome to apply.

“But NO Trump supporters,” I emphatically reply.

That would be a bridge too far, beyond the pale. A Hillary-Donald ticket is bound to fail.

My religious preferences, I should note, were broader than my political ones. This lady vicar checked “yes” next to:

Jewish. Check.

Buddhist. Check.

Christian. Check.

Muslim. Check.

Mormon. Check.

Spiritual but not religious. Check.

Atheist and/or Agnostic. Check.

I drew the line, however, at what I considered the outer limits.

Fundamentalist. No check.

It seemed best to steer clear of extremes.

Which, of course, leads me back to Trump — or should I say “Trumpism” – a blind faith that many embrace with xenophobic zeal.

Here I draw my line in the sand, so gentleman, please, play the political card early in the game. In this election cycle, there is no easier way for me to separate the sheep from the goats.

But my own choices make me wonder (Mary Matlin and James Carville aside) how is this election season going down for all of those already coupled people out there.

The Civil War drove families apart: father against son; brother against brother; husband against wife.

Certainly the Hillary-Donald divide is putting a strain on relationships.

My therapist, without telling tales, of course, has confirmed that this is true. So who can I talk to? Who can I interview? It’s not like I am an actual journalist.

So, thank you New York Times for putting a real reporter on the job. In the August 13th edition there was a great piece by Sridihar Pappu: He Likes Trump. She Doesn’t. Can This Marriage Be Saved?

This is the divisive tale of Dr. Stossel and Dr Maguire — husband and wife.

“If you vote for Trump, I will divorce you and move to Canada,” she tells her husband.

“He tried to laugh it off.”

“I am serious,” she replies.

“Before this spat for nearly twenty years of marriage, politics had never caused such friction. Then came the 2016 election, a political season that has made for some hot debates in the pubic arena has also seeped into private lives…”

In 2012, Dr. Maguire and Dr. Stossel planted opposing placards on their front lawn: one for Obama; one for Romney.

No problem.

“Politics were very low on the list of priorities when we met,” Dr. Stossel says.”Therapists say you have the best relationships when you are clearly separate people. And I like to think we are emotionally centered, so that we can have a major disagreement and it’s not a big problem.”

But Trump? Trump is proving to be an insurmountable problem — a downright deal breaker, you might say, relationally speaking.

(I am pretty sure the supposed author of The Art of the Deal would not like being called “a deal breaker”.)

As a woman, I cannot even entertain the thought of dating a man who would vote for a man so misogynistic and vile. A man who reduces women to their physical features. A man who has hurled at women the ugliest of epithets. A man who has alluded “to doing his daughter” if she were not his daughter. A man who belittles his opponent as “not sounding presidential” or “not looking presidential” or “playing the woman card.”

This week Kellyanne Conway, a Republican pollster, was promoted to the top tier of Trump’s campaign. Part of her impossible job is to increase Trump’s desirability to women voters.

“The more people keep repeating the same insults, the more it invites him to very legitimately defend himself. Women, look at the full measure of the man and not just one comment.”

So a New York Times commentator, Anna North in Taking Note, did just that.

“In the last month, Mr. Trump has not publicly called women ‘pigs’ or insinuated that they treated him poorly because they were menstruating.”

“He has, however, asked Russian hackers to break into Hillary Clinton’s email, doubled down on the insinuation that Ted Cruz’s father was friends with Lee Harvey Oswald, implied that gun-rights activists could respond with armed rebellion (or assassination) if they don’t like Clinton’s Supreme Court picks, and called President Obama the founder of ISIS.”

“It’s not that Mr. Trump’s insulting remarks about women don’t matter anymore. Rather they now look like evidence, not only of sexism, but of a broader tendency to malign anyone he sees as standing in his way — with no regard for the truth or the consequences of his statements.”

Trump is most definitely a deal breaker for both myself and my country.

Politics makes for the strangest of bedfellows…

or no bedfellows at all.

Singularly yours,

The Rev: Joani

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