Oct. 28, 2003: Pre-audition prep work

It's kind of ridiculous that my spirits are still abuzz from Barry's call the other day. Then again, I am in the virtual starvation phase of a crash diet right now, so maybe I'm just woozy from insufficient calories. I realize the diet thing chalks me up as pretty stereotypical, again, but I've gained almost 10 pounds since I broke my rib this summer. That's not too stereotypical. If my life was a chick lit book, I'd have fallen in love with someone at the accident scene, maybe a witness, a paramedic, or the doctor in the ER, or maybe the truck driver himself. It didn't happen, although I did develop a brief love affair with Vicodin.

My audition with Ray is scheduled for tonight, and he sent another funny email last night. I'm not going to reply, though—I don't want appear overeager, when we're meeting tonight anyway. I might be in a danger zone here because of our email exchange. We've been writing regularly for almost two weeks. Every email has run fairly long, and his have cracked me up almost every time. We have a great rapport going online, so it'll be disappointing if the audition brings it all to an end.

Of course, the real issue right now is what to wear. Should I wear the ribbed yellow shirt, which now is "lucky" because I wore it on the audition with Barry, or the hot pink blouse, which isn't particularly revealing or flatteringly cut, but I'm always told the color looks great on me? I don't think I've ever worn the blouse on an audition, primarily because I'm wearing it in a photo on my profiles. How silly is that? Like some guy is going to remember that.

An Emode Icebreaker came in from safarisam. What do you know—I'm exactly what he's looking for. He has a cheesy mustache (is that redundant?), a sparse profile, and I suspect he's lying about his age. Not at all what I'm looking for.

MM has been very quiet lately. MARK784 must have given up. Presumably, he found our meager exchange as tiresome as I did and wasn't willing to step up to the plate to expand it or talk on the phone. Whatever.

I'm thinking about sending Barry a short email later, just to touch base and see if his schedule has opened up at all. He said it might, so I'm thinking that won't seem too "stalker-y."
***
I emailed Barry this afternoon—a mere two lines, wondering about his schedule this week (which wasn't even necessarily a plea for a date, but could simply have been a polite inquiry about how his week is going) and hoping he's enjoying his rest days from training. In my first draft (yes—I'm doing drafts), I mentioned that I should be free Wednesday and Thursday nights, but I deleted that because I don't want to look like I'm living or dying for our next meeting.

I received an Emode email today from marshallmarshall. He lives in Houston but will be in Chicago for business next Wednesday and wondered if I'd like to get together for dinner, happy hour, or something that night. He includes his phone number and full name (allegedly). Do women actually accept these invitations? And does my profile make it seem like I'd be up for something like that? I think not, at least not to the second question. What's odd is that this guy's profile makes him appear normal. Not like the bisexual guy from yesterday. Anyway, I have plans with the girls that night. Otherwise … not.

Emode sent me another email with 10 guys who want to "meet" me. I'm not sure what the point of subscribing was—the activity level hasn't decreased much since I dropped my subscription. Marshall is one of the 10 and indicative of my level of interest in the whole crew, particularly as most of them are from out of state and/or short.

I've settled on the hot pink blouse for tonight with Ray. I usually go for the more form-fitting tops for auditions, but what the hell, I’ll shake things up a bit. I'm wild like that. Now if I can only stop myself from talking too much and try to be a bit flirtatious. It's so hard for me to remember to treat potential love interests differently than I do everyone else. Of course, Ray and I have emailed so much, he already knows a fair amount about me. Quite different from Barry and me.

As always pre-audition, I took care today to shave extensively and think about my choice of undergarments. Why, I don't know, because I rarely get that far on the first date, let alone audition. I'm lucky to get a good kiss (that may well be due to my poor signal-sending, yet another of my dating inadequacies, but that's a topic for another day). My other ritual, artfully painting my chin and upper lip with hair removal cream, is much more practical.

I just received another Icebreaker from an Emoder, yourfutureexboyfriend. He's selected three of the optional lines Emode provides these wimps, which means that his "message" uses the proclamation "Wow" twice. According to this guy, we have a really high compatibility score and the same outlook on life, and I'm exactly what he's looking for. Sadly for him, he's 5'8”, bearded, and lives in Libertyville. Not at all what I'm looking for.

Over on EH, I haven't heard from Rob since I sent my phone number and suggested he email a photo to my personal email address. What’s he hiding? Joe from Evanston finally got a clue and closed me out.