In the early years of the 20^th Century, cement was all the rage. And the idea of making your own cinder blocks (for fun and profit) apparently also became quite popular. The back pages of the 1905 issues of American Carpenter and Builder (a building magazine from that era) were filled with advertisements for block-making machines and cement-stirring machines.

Sears offered the Wizard Block Making machine which retailed for $57.50 (a bargain at twice the price!). And Sears suggested that a man could save a lot of money on building a new home if he made his own blocks. Now if a man devoted himself to making nothing but blocks and if a man had someone else preparing the cement for pouring, he could make about one every two minutes. To do this, the poured cement was loaded into a form, pressed down in this contraption and then removed. The form was not removed until the concrete had hardened a bit. That meant if you were serious about making blocks, you had to have several forms on hand.

The ad below suggests that the block could be removed immediately from the form. I’d love to know if that was accurate. Having never made a block in the Sears Roebuck Wizard Block Making Machine, I can’t say for sure.

Sears estimated that 1,300 blocks were needed for the basement of The Chelsea (one of their kit homes). The Chelsea was a modest foursquare on a short cellar. It’d be safe to assume that a Chelsea made of nothing but block would require more than 4,000 blocks. If you devoted yourself to the creation of those blocks and really hustled, you’d need about 17 eight-hour days to do nothing but work like a dog making blocks and setting forms in the sun and breaking open the forms and placing the forms back into the machine. And that’s if he had someone else preparing the cement. That’s a lot of work.

When I give talks on Sears Homes, I get a surprising number of questions about the Wizard Block Making Machine. Apparently this labor-intensive, cinder-block maker was quite a popular item for Sears.

Close-up of The Wizard

The Wizard Block Making Machine from an early 1900s Sears specialty catalogue

In what looks like a backwards evolution graphic, a man demonstrates how to use the "easy-to-use" Wizard block-making machine.

A gorgeous 25-year-old woman named America Ferrera plays “Betty Suarez” on the popular ABC sitcom “Ugly Betty.”  The Hollywood-inflicted “uglying” of this Hispanic beauty is a paper-thin veneer, and really does little to hide Miss Ferrera’s natural good looks. It’s not hard to look beyond the extra-bushy eyebrows, gray-metal braces, uncoiffed hair and unattractive glass frames, and see that Ms. Ferrera is quite beautiful.

In addition to her lovely facial features, Ms. Ferrara has a well toned, shapely, feminine form. Slap on some braces and stir up the extra-bushy eyebrows and voila, you’ve got instant ugly? If that’s the case, there’s little hope for the rest of us.

If “Ugly Betty” is the measure of an ugly woman, we’re all in trouble deep. We “average women” are in trouble. Mainstream media is constantly force-feeding us the crazy notion that we have to be beautiful to be worthy, or even worse, to be loved.

In the powerful book, Flesh Wounds author Virginia L. Blum talks about an interview she had with a famous plastic surgeon. He told her,

The way you look has a lot to do with whether you’re going to attract somebody else. Let’s be pragmatic about the fact that if a woman cease to be attractive physically, it affects the physical, intimate relationship. I’ve seen women who have not had particularly good relationships or haven’t had a relationship with men for a long time and I make them look younger and prettier and they go on to get married and have wonderful, stable relationships. There’s absolutely no question that the face-lift helped them. We live in a real physical world (p. 127).

Ms. Blum responds to this with her own insights:

[The plastic surgeon] spoke with such authority. Yoked to his honesty is a kind of fiction about the transformative possibilities of plastic surgery. You can change her life. You can make her someone whom someone else would be willing to love. More to the point, if she isn’t succeeding on the dating/marriage market, it must be because she’s not attractive enough. That’s the most unsettling part of his account, isn’t it?

The self-evident undesirability of the woman who isn’t young and pretty. Young and pretty. You can’t have pretty without the young. As a feminist, I am indignant. Outraged (Flesh Wounds: The Culture of Cosmetic Surgery, Virginia L. Blum, p. 127).

Like Ms. Blum, I also feel indignant and outraged. And Ugly Betty may be an award-winning sitcom, but the problem with it is, it perpetuates the tiresome message that’s been drilled into women’s heads for decades now. Ugly is a problem. Fix ugly with money. Spend money. Get pretty and then you’ll get love, because then you’ll be worthy of love.

In other words, money buys love.

In The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf writes that women’s magazines make their money by selling women on the idea that they’re suffering from a disease of “terminal ugliness,” and that this opens the to sell billions of dollars of “cures.”

And that seems to be the subtle message of Ugly Betty. We “less-than-beautiful” women need to spend a little more money on better glasses and better haircuts and invisible braces and electrolysis and then - only then - will the burdensome mantle of “ugly” be lifted off our shoulders and our true beauty will be revealed. And then, maybe then, we’ll find true love.

We just need to spend a little more money to be cured of that horrible disease of “terminal ugliness.”

I live for that happy day when I turn on the evening news and find that the male news anchors are young, svelte, well-coiffed and gorgeous, and the women news anchors are pudgy, untanned, hairless and unkempt. That’ll be my proof that the age of enlightenment has begun.

On May 20, 2006, I met my 70th first date at a coffee shop in Portsmouth, Virginia. Less than 90 days later, we were officially engaged to be married. Our wedding date was set for January 1st. Those were some of the happiest days of my life. Being mired in romantic love was every bit as delicious as I’d imagined it would be.

The best part was knowing that my dating days were behind me and also knowing that I’d survived my last lonely Christmas. In years prior, I’d gone to desperate measures to avoid the emotional pain of being utterly alone on Christmas Day. One especially memorable Christmas, I asked my ex in-laws if I could come to their house and watch my children unwrap their many presents. It was awkward and odd, but it was the best I could do that particular year and frankly, it was far better than being alone. (In another post, I wrote about the culture of loneliness.)

And then came Christmas 2006, my first post-divorce, pair-bonded Christmas event. A few days before Christmas, my soon-to-be husband and I walked through Macarthur Mall on our way to the movies. Our youngest daughters (his and mine) walked side-by-side in front of us. He and I held hands as we walked and I leaned over to him and said, “Isn’t it nice to be here with our little girls and be a family again?”

With his voice cracking with emotion he said, “I was just thinking the same thing.”
This man, my 70th first date, my fiance, had been single for 10 years after his divorce. I’m sure he knew about lonely holidays, too.

A few days before Christmas he sent me a text message that said, “It is a sheer joy to have this holiday season with you.”

Ditto.

Christmas 2008 at our home in Virginia

If I’d known how much fun it was to have my own website, I would have done this years ago. As “Administrator” of my own site, I can look at the day’s stats and figure out what search terms people are using to find me. Studying the daily statistics is wholly fascinating and ever-so-slightly addicting.

More than a few people are landing here after doing a key word search with terms such as “Dating Sears Homes.” That always makes me smile. This website was created to promote my newest book, The Ugly Woman’s Guide to Internet Dating: What I Learned from 70 First Dates.”

However, I’m also the author of several books on Sears kit homes so when some lucky duck googles “Dating Sears Homes” it is this website that pops up first.  I surmise these folks are not trying to figure out how to get a Sears Home to go out for dinner and drinks, but rather, they’re trying to figure out how to determine the age of a kit home.

I suppose I should answer that question. Sears homes were offered from 1908-1940, but their main years were the 1920s and early 1930s. Sears Homes were rare before WW1 (aka The War To End All Wars), and sales plummeted about four years into the Great Depression (1933).  In other words, probably 80% of sales occurred between 1919 and 1933.

If you want to learn more about the topic “dating Sears Homes” post something in the comment section (below) and I’ll do what I can to answer your question(s).

Sears Modern Homes were most popular in the 1920s

The older I get, the more I yearn to know something of our family history. My timing for all this  has turned out to be rather poor. My mother and her siblings passed on years ago. My father is still around, but his long-term memory is not. We recently looked at an old picture album together and I remembered more than he did about relatives I’d never met. After I was born in 1959, I became extremely ill and required a three-week hospitalization. My elderly father had no memory of any of this.

After my Aunt Engie passed away a few years ago, I went through an old shoe box I found buried in her closet and found several photographs from the 1920s and 30s. Sadly, there was no information scribbled on the back of the black and white snapshots. Now I can only make educated guesses as to who these people were.

During the years my children were growing up, I faithfully maintained photo albums, replete with names and dates and places. These many years later, those photo albums are the source of much joy. My oldest daughter Crystal told me recently, “If the house catches fire, and you can only save one thing, save the photo albums first! Everything else can be replaced!”

But what to do with all these early 20th Century photos that I found stuffed in a shoe box? These were my ancestors - I think. These were people my mother and her sister loved - I think.

Back in the day, photographs required an investment of time, effort and money. Photos were reserved for important days and special events. Who were these people? And what were the stories? All I know is that these pictures were taken in Rockford, Illinois (early 20s) and then sometime in 1925 or 1926, my grandfather (Edward Brown) moved his children to Alameda, California.

I wish I knew more.

The only person I recognize in this photo is my late mother (center on bottom row).

This is a photo of my mother (youngest girl) with her sister (Engie) and older brother Harry.

This is probably a picture of my maternal grandmother with her first son, Harry. It was probably taken in early 1910s.

Mom (the younger girl) and Aunt Engie with unknown person, perhaps a nanny?

Unknown person at unknown house in unknown place (house is late 1910s or early 20s)

I believe this is my Uncle Harry with his father (my maternal grandfather).

So reads a large advertisement in the 1912 issue of American Carpenter and Builder. I own a number of these architectural magazines from the early 1900s and the majority of advertisers offered products with a connection to the new and modern building miracle:  Concrete.

In 1867, Parisian gardener Joseph Monier was awarded a patent for reinforced concrete, which is concrete with embedded metal.

By the early 1900s, concrete became a hot item in the building trade. The rear pages of American Carpenter and Builder were filled with concrete products and concrete dry mixes and concrete mixers and concrete block makers. Concrete was big money. One of its biggest selling points was the fact that concrete was fireproof. In a time when fire was one of the great threats facing city residents and farm owners alike, creating a fireproof building was a big selling point.

As someone who loves to read old architectural magazines, I thought I’d seen it all - until I found this ad for concrete pine boxes. The ad promises, “Wooden boxes are rapidly becoming a thing of the past.”

Uh, it’s been almost 100 years since that statement was made and it hasn’t proven true.  “Wooden boxes” still abound.

I’d love to know how many contractors made money selling concrete caskets during the slow seasons of their building business.

Concrete pine boxes offer big profits (from 1912 American Carpenter and Builder Magazine)

Conscious worth satisfies the hungry heart, and nothing else can. - Mary Baker Eddy

In the 1995 remake of the movie A Little Princess, there’s a scene where Miss Minchin, the black-hearted school marm, is confronted by Sara (the little princess). With an astonishing measure of boldness, Sara tells Miss Minchin that she is a princess and that all girls are princesses regardless of their station in life, their physical appearance, their intelligence or even their age. With innocent eyes, Sara stares into Miss Minchin’s hardscrabble face and asks her, “Didn’t your father ever tell you that? Didn’t he?”

Judging by the look in Miss Minchin’s eyes, she never heard those words or even that sentiment expressed by dear old Dad. And judging by the current epidemic of low self-esteem among women, I’d venture to guess that most of today’s fathers follow the parenting model of Miss Minchin’s dad, rather than Sara’s.

I have four basic theories regarding beauty and self-esteem, and the first is The Little Princess Theory of Beauty.

You are miles ahead of most of us if you were raised on a steady diet of compliments and kind words. Bonus points for hearing these compliments and kind words from a man with an important position in your life.  If your father (or a suitable alternate) told you that you were beautiful, you’re going to act, feel and behave like someone who is beautiful.

The self-confidence that has its roots in childhood is like the tap-root of an old, established tree, which in time, has grown down to the water table. Such a tree will not be adversely affected by the summer’s heat or prolonged drought or the other storms of life. Self-confidence that’s nurtured and developed in the early years is a powerful, enduring quality that lives on, completely independent of the mean-spirited opinion of others.

If I were queen of the world (and it shouldn’t be long now), I’d tell all the fathers of the world this one thing: “You possess the ability to make your daughter - your little girl - feel good and confident about herself and you wield a powerful influence over her ability to attract a desirable partner. Further, the man that she selects as her life partner - good, bad or horrific - will be determined largely by your words and actions. You’re teaching her what kind of man she should select, accept, or settle for. You have the potential to make her adult life perfectly lovely or unspeakably hellish. Open your eyes and your heart before you open your mouth and think about the far-reaching implications of your word choices.”

Read the rest of Rose’s book here.

In 1912, this vehicle (see photo below) was apparently considered “modern” transportation. It was offered by International Harvester and it was promoted as a device for “saving time” and tooling around town.

The solid-rubber wheels offered two benefits: One, as the ad promised, there’d never be a “blow out.”

The other benefit was the molar-jarring ride that’d jiggle you senseless and probably leave the badly bounced rider in a mental state that was akin to a bad trip on LSD. Perhaps this 1912 International Scooter with its hard-rubber wheels and ultra-primitive suspension system are the very source of that phrase, “bad trip.“  (Those of us who are less than 60 years old and riding around happily on our Michelin Tires don’t realize that there’s a reason that old cars carried TWO spare tires! Early tires were extremely unreliable and suffered catastrophic failure and blow outs on a regular basis.)

But I digress. This interesting “vehicle” (and I use that term loosely) was promoted as an “international auto wagon.” Now I realize that the name “International” is part of the company’s title, but labeling this inter-farm transportation device with the heavy moniker “international” is generous to say the least. I doubt this vehicle saw much service on rough country roads. I *know* it couldn’t traverse the seven seas.

Nice wheels

We’ve broken a record in Norfolk. A bad record. We’re not far from breaking the 1889 record of 70 inches of rain in one year. And hey - we got three weeks to go!

We had more torrential downpours last night. And then more rain in the wee hours.

This morning, I arose at 4:30 to get some writing work done. I went out to my sunporch and heard the plop, plop, plop of a leaky roof splashing raindrops onto my beige carpet. So then I had the husband run around and fetch plastic buckets and containers for the SEVEN places that were dripping water.

I ran upstairs and out to the sunporch ROOF (which is flat) and wearing my jammies, I went out on the roof (barefoot), got down on my hands and knees and bent over the edge of the sunporch roof in the POURING rain and cleaned out the gutters. When the gutters get too full, the water rises up behind the flat-roof’s flashing (bent over into the gutters) and then - thanks to that little miracle we call “gravity - flows merrily into the sunporch ceiling. The low spot on the sunporch ceiling is in the center, so that’s where it drips.

While I was up above - traipsing to and fro on this black rubber roof - my bare feet hit a slick patch of black rubber roofing (at 4:30 am keep in mind) and that sent me slip-sliding across the roof. In that split second, as the roof’s edge came closer and closer, I thought, “Great. This is how it all ends. The architectural historian slides off the flat sunroof of her own 1924-built Colonial Revival at 4:30 in the morning, with green-handled salad tongs in one hand and a blue Mag-light in the other.”

However, I survived that event.

Then hubby came out in the darkness and held the flashlight for me while I cleaned partially decomposed leaf matter and acorns and twigs and squiggly pink worms out of 35 linear feet of gutters in the pouring rain while wearing my jammies.

About 20 minutes later, I came back inside, drenched to the bone, and put on clean jammies and dry socks.

At 10:30 am, another torrential downpour clogged up the gutters again. This time, I went out with my drill motor and my hammer. I was going to fix those *&#^ gutters once and for all. I drilled about 129 half-inch holes in the gutters and then using the hammer, I *beat* the downspout off the gutter. I could *see* the problem - the downspouts were clogged with all manner of debris, but everytime I jammed my hand down into the downspout’s elbow, I only made matters worse, because when I pulled my hand *out* of the downspout, the razor-sharp sheet metal screws removed a little more downspout-clogging organic matter from my right hand.

I saw someone driving by on the street slow down to watch this amazing show. I am quite sure I looked like a mad woman. That’s because I *felt* like a mad woman.

At this point, if I’d had access to 13 sticks of dynamite I would have used all of them to blow those sunporch gutters to aluminum-gutter hell, where they surely belonged.

Again, when I re-entered the bedroom (where you access the sunporch roof) I was soaked through and through. As I walked toward the bathroom to peel off soaked clothes, I muttered, “Those gutters won’t hurt anyone now.”

I washed my hands in the bathroom and they burned from the death of a thousand cuts. Forcing my large hands into the downspouts’ mouth again and again and again left me with a right hand that resembled an uncooked rump roast. I focused on something other than pain and wondered if it’s possible to go into shock from having 83 small slices on one hand.

So I went back to my work and then I realized I need some boxes to ship books to people overseas. I went downstairs to my basement (where we store boxes) and as I descended the steps, I saw one of my boxes gently floating by at the foot of the stairs, like a cardboard gondola (sans gondolier).

My basement has five inches of standing water and a POS sump pump with a lot of ’splaining to do. Remembering the MANY extension cords we’d draped throughout the basement floor (to run fans and humidifiers after the last GREAT FLOOD - two weeks ago), I decide to not step into the potentially electrically charged water.

Instead, I pause and don my husband’s insulated rubber-sole boots and then courageously step off the basement steps and into Lake Colonial Revival. Nothing sparks or zaps and if I have just died instantly from an electric shock, it happened so fast that I have no conscious memory of it, so it’s all good. Perhaps with this one great step, I’ve walked right into eternity and never even knew it. I wonder if this is the case. However, I don’t see Mother anywhere nearby so I figure I’m still among the living and walk over to the sump pump.

Once at the sump pump, I give it a good swift kick in the float and it roars to life. Forty minutes later, we’re down to 1/2″ of water. Using my water-puddle-rapid-movement-device (something I used to call a broom), I sweep a little more recalcitrant water into the sump and then I notice that the formerly dry spots in the basement are wet again. The basement is refilling itself with an endless supply of flood water.

At this point, I call my husband and tell him, “I’m leaving. Don’t know when or if I’m coming back, but I’m leaving. I’m off to find dry ground and a dry house with beige carpet that doesn’t squish when I walk across it and gutters that don’t channel rain water into my office space where I store boxes and boxes of early 20th Century irreplaceable documents. If I come back with an olive branch, you’ll know I was successful. If not, it’s been nice knowing you.”

Long day. And I just got back home. He reported that the basement refilled after I left.

It’s nuts I tell you - just nuts. Our basement hasn’t flooded since 1924. An old man built our house in 1924 and he built it on its own tall hill. And yet - we flooded. Second time in 87 years. And the first time was two weeks ago.

Anyone got a rubber room I can borrow for a few weeks? I might need it…

Today’s headlines report that major marketers are withdrawing their prime-time ads featuring Tiger Woods. And the rest of the media headlines crackle with excitement over the man’s quick fall from grace. Comments posted at blogs and news sites are not especially kind either. In fact, some of them are downright ugly.

There’s a word for this:  schadenfreude.

It’s a German word that means delighting in the misfortune of others. I had never heard of this word until I was doing some research for my book The Ugly Woman’s Guide to Internet Dating: What I Learned From 70 First Dates. Before this, I’d heard it described as “The Crab Theory.”

Put one crab in a five-gallon bucket and Mr. Crab will do everything in his power to scale its smooth wall and crawl out of that bucket. Put two or more crabs in a bucket and when one starts to climb up, the others will grab him and pull him back down into the bucket. Unfortunately, humans sometime exhibit the same tendencies as crabs.

In my own life, I’ve struggled mightily with envy, and I’m sorry to say that too many times, I had a decided leaning toward the crab/schadenfreude side.

And then one day, I read a story in the Christian Science Sentinel about a woman who’d spent a lifetime cultivating the habit of gratitude. She said that her mother had taught her to feel sincerely joyous and grateful for the good things that happened in other people’s lives, and to take it as a personal promise from God that, if it happened for them, it could happen for her, too.

The Buddhist have a word for this: Mudita. It’s the practice of finding joy in other people’s success and happiness.

Tiger and people like him are human beings. And we’re all cracked pots and fallible and prone to foibles and missteps and mistakes and even lapses in good judgment. Who among us hasn’t lost our temper and said something we deeply regret? Who among us hasn’t surrendered to temptation when we could have done better? My point is, maybe the real need is to stop staring so hard at other people’s sins and take a better look at our own shortcomings and work on improving those.

Maybe we need to stop cultivating the habit of schadenfreude and work on mudita.

We’re all doing our best and we all make plenty of regrettable mistakes.  Why not let Tiger slip off the front page and give him some privacy to work out his many problems and shortcomings?

Speaking of which, time for me to slip into the closet of prayer and work on my own mistakes and problems and shortcomings and sins. That’ll keep me plenty busy.

As most single women know, there are a lot of rules for dating, and those “rules” are probably one of the reasons that I had 70 first dates. For instance, a girl should never call a fellow. In fact, when the fellow calls, the girl should ignore him for a time until he becomes more desperate. That’s just the way men are wired. They need to chase. They like to win. It’s a testosterone thing.

Wrong. Wrong, Wrong.

It was these so-called rules that about drove me to drink.  And trying to follow those rules - trying to play a part that wasn’t true to my nature was emotional torture, with extra heapings of misery and angst. It wasn’t until I was ready to abandon those rules that my life became sweeter, simply and above all, authentic.

When I stopped playing games, when I stopped following all the so-called advice, my life turned a corner. And when I found a man that I admired and respected, I chased him like a dog running after a bus.

Women do not need another “how to find a good man” book with more advice on how they should “act.” If you invest your best energies in being real and authentic, there’ll be no need to devote any energy to acting. My friend Pamela was right when she told me, “Exude confidence and peace and joy and men will sense it. Inner beauty really does magnetize.”

In Gloria Steinem’s book,  Revolution From Within, she wrote, “As many women can testify [getting a man to fall in love with you] is alarmingly easy, provided you’re willing to play down who you are and play up who he wants you to be” (p. 264).

She goes on to explain why her marriage, which had been based on playing a part that wasn’t true to herself, ultimately failed.

“Having got this man to fall in love with an inauthentic me, I had to keep on not being myself.”

Current dating wisdom is very focused on getting a man to fall in love with you, even if it means that you have to bind and gag your very soul. Such a relationship is not only unsustainable, but is usually misery for all parties involved, and always miserable for the woman who’s putting on the show. And these mental games take up an enormous amount of space on our emotional hard-drive. Been there, done that, and have the t-shirt, wet with tears.

If you want to glow with a warm, sincere luminosity that has the potential to be irresistible to all men with two brain lobes to rub together, visit that land (or that time) when you were real.

Remember the children’s story, The Velveteen Rabbit? The wizened old Skin Horse was the real hero in that story and he also had the secret to success in internet dating.

The Skin Horse told Rabbit, “Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

Beauty - true beauty - is about being real. It’s about becoming the real person that our Creator intended us to be.

Or as the poet Robert Browning said, “No need to make yourself over. Just make the best of what God has made.”

Be real. Be authentic. And ignore those rules.

Worked for me.

Next:  Good Christian Man Wants Good Christian Woman for Friday Night Booty Call!

If you like what you’re reading, please email this link to your friends!

When I finally abandoned all the "rules" for women and dating, in short, when I became authentic and real, I found true love.

When reading men’s profiles, you need to learn to read between the lines. It’s a lot like looking at the real estate ads in the Sunday paper. The advertisement might read, “Cozy cottage in the woods that needs a little TLC,” but you understand immediately that it’s actually a hunter’s shack with a dirt floor and a privy out back.

Salesmen often engage in a little puffery when promoting their product and nowhere is that more evident than when we’re selling ourselves to a romantic partner.

In that spirit, here are some of the phrases you’ll often find in men’s profiles. Following each phrase is its honest interpretation.

I prefer slender women. I don’t care if you’ve had a frontal lobotomy and drool out both corners of your mouth, as long as my drinking buddies get jealous when they see us together.

Hey, I’m a guy. Looks matter. You’ll be replaced as soon as the new sleek models hit the street.

I prefer women with a little meat on their bones. I weigh 1200 pounds and haven’t left my bedroom in seven years.

I’ve lived alone for a time but now I’m ready to share my life with someone special. I don’t know how to change the bag in the vacuum cleaner.

I’m financially secure. I just made the final payment on the Yugo.

My home is spacious and beautiful but so very empty. If you’ll come live with me, I’ll give you money.

I’m recently widowed. I haven’t found the pots and pans yet.

Intelligent, powerful women are a real turn-on. At least one of us should have a real job.

I don’t have a subscription on this site, so please include your email address when you write to me. For our first date, I was hoping you’d meet me at the Quickie Mart, pump number seven.

I feel strongly that women should be treated as equals.  Be sure to bring your wallet on our first date because you’re paying for your dinner.

Looking for a woman who is down to earth and practical. And willing to live off the grid in an isolated mountaintop cabin in the pacific northwest.

Looking for someone who wants to spoil her man. I wouldn’t be at this site if I could teach the dog how to open the fridge and fetch me a cold one.

I have been to college but I didn’t get my degree. One time, I made out with a girl in the parking lot at the local community college.

I’ve had an interesting and varied life experience. They let me out for good behavior after serving only six years and four months.

Looking for a real woman. My inflatable doll sprang a leak.

I’d like to have a partner so that we can work toward common goals. Behind every successful man is an exhausted woman and I’d like you to be my exhausted woman.

My children are my first priority. You’ll fall somewhere between the dog and my favorite remote control.

I’m new to this country. And desperately in need of a green card.

I’m currently separated. And looking around to see if I can find someone better before I give this one up.

My home needs a woman’s touch. The maggot eggs in the kitchen will be hatching soon if someone doesn’t get in there and do some cleaning.

I’m just a regular guy who needs some loving. And I’m sick and tired of paying for it.

Next: Read Rose’s “Little Princess Theory of Beauty” here.

Want to read Rose’s book? Click here!

When I hear the word “Grandmother,” I think of two people:  Grandma Walton and Grandma Joyce . The first is from the popular TV show, The Waltons and the second example is from my own life: My ex-husband’s mother.

The Waltons premiered in September 1972 when I was 13 years old. I adored television shows about family and like millions of others, The Waltons fast became one of my all-time favorites. And Grandpa and Grandma Walton were my two favorite characters.

Did those kids know how lucky they were to have a grandma and grandpa that loved them unconditionally and that was a constant presence in their lives? Maybe they did. With my powerful imagination, I sandwiched myself into the Walton clan, somewhere between Mary Ellen and Jason, and wondered what it’d be like to be ensconced by the love of extended family.

Before I was born, my father moved his wife and their two sons 3000 miles due east from their native California. He left behind his parents and her parents and countless aunts, uncles, siblings and cousins. Before I was born, my maternal grandparents died. When I was in my mid-30s, my paternal grandparents died. I’d seen them three times in my life, and the sum total of those visits could be measured in hours.

When my first child was born, I was a little surprised to see my mother-in-law showing up at the house several times a week, and more often than not, she was bearing presents such as clothing, food and toys. When the second baby came 16 months later, Grandma Joyce was still appearing regularly and at this point, I’d grown to love her and appreciate her in a whole new way. Seven years later, a surprise baby came and Grandma Joyce acted like it was the first baby she’d ever seen and the gifts and clothing and food and toys came with a renewed vigor.

One Christmas, as Grandma Joyce and her husband (Grandfather) sat in awe watching “our” three perfect daughters dig into the Christmas loot. I looked away from the kids for a moment and saw Grandma Joyce and Grandfather staring at the girls and grinning from ear to ear.

“This is what it’s like,” I thought to myself, “to have a grandmother who adores you.” And just basking in the glow of the love she felt for this kids was a delightful, powerful and heavenly experience.

“My mother would have adored you,” my own mother frequently told me. “She loved little girls and she was such a lot like you, a gentle, sensitive soul. She would have fallen in love with you the first moment she laid eyes on you. I wish she could have met you.”

So do I.

Click here to read more from Rose.

Grandma Joyce gets Annie ready for Sunday School (1983)

Grandma Joyce and Annie heading out to Sunday School

My mother standing beside her mother (Flossie) about 1938

These “happy holidays” can be hard on people who are already struggling day to day with isolation and loneliness. And this time of year can be extra tough on the freshly divorced.

In 2002, after my divorce, I lived alone for the first time in my 43 years of life. And one of the harshest surprises of this new solo experience was the soul-crushing pain of loneliness. I lived alone. I worked from home (alone) and I ate alone and I slept alone. Many days passed when I didn’t see another human face. Work kept me busy and distracted most days but the holidays presented a special challenge.

In 2004, I gave a lecture in Muncie, Indiana. It was a small group and a lovely gathering. After the lecture, an older woman came up to me and started chatting with me. I told her my mother had died in 2002 and that I still missed her.

“She always insisted that I call her when traveling and let her know that I’d arrived safely,” I told the elderly woman who looked back at me with the sweet smile and understanding eyes. “But now there’s no one to call now. I just sit in my hotel room and stare at the phone, wishing I could talk to her one more time.”

“I know about loneliness,” the elderly woman said quietly. “I know how it feels to realize that there’s no-one waiting for you at home and no one expecting your call. I know all about that.”

Her words touched my soul.

After my first post-divorce holiday, my daughter Crystal told me what she’d learned about loneliness while working during the holidays at a video rental store.

“On Thanksgiving  Day and Christmas Day, there are two kinds of people who rent videos,” she told me. “There are the smiling parents with the happy kids bouncing around their feet, looking for a video that’ll keep the kids entertained for a couple hours. And then there are the desperately lonely souls, whose number one goal is getting through the day without slashing their wrists. They can hardly bear to make eye contact.

“When I see them at my register, loaded down with enough videos to keep their brain turned off for eight hours, I don’t want to twist the knife by wishing them a ‘Happy Thanksgiving’ or ‘Merry Christmas.’ I just bag up their videos and say, ‘Thank you.’”

Before my divorce, I was clueless about this massive culture of loneliness. I had no idea how frightening and depleting loneliness could be.

Now I understand.

Next:  Real beauty, true love and The Velveteen Rabbit.

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Today is Pearl Harbor Day. I can’t help but wonder how many people alive today know the full import of this day. For my parent’s generation, it was their September 11th. More than 2,300 Americans died in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and about 1200 were injured. After Pearl Harbor, recruiter’s offices were full with patriotic young men (and women) signing up to serve in the armed forces.

My mother was one of them. She enlisted in the WAVES.

“When we enlisted, we signed up for the duration plus six months,” she told me. “We didn’t know how or when or even if the war would end. Hitler looked unstoppable. There was talk that the war could go on for years and years. The media called us ‘the lost generation.’ We were an entire generation that missed the years of our youth. That time of our life was lost to those war years.”

Her true love - the young man she’d spent months getting to know and love - also joined the Navy. About a year into the war, his boat was hit by a German torpedo and he suffered severe injuries and required extensive physical rehabilitation. When he came home from the war, he told my mother that he was now only “half a man” and according to my mother, he said that she deserved better and that she should forget about him and find someone else.

When she was in her late 70s, she finally told me this story. And that was only because I found a well-hidden 1930s photo of my mother and this fellow. When I showed this photo to my mom and started asking a few questions, she finally told me the whole story.  When she looked at the snapshot, tears came to her eyes, followed by a soft smile. When she spoke up and started talking, she described him as “the love of my life.”

That’s one couple, and one story. And two lives changed forever by the war. And one of millions of stories, I’m sure.

Click here to read more.

Pearl Harbor

When my husband and I first met and started sharing those many detailed stories about our lives, he told me about his mother. He said that she’d passed on Christmas 1992.

“You mean, she passed on around Christmas time?” I asked.

“She didn’t answer her phone when I called her on Christmas Day,” he told me. “The next day, I drove to Richmond to check on her. When I got to her apartment, I found her there. She’d died some time around the 25th.”

His story had a familiar ring. I’d found my mother - unconscious in her apartment - on Christmas Day 2001. We called the ambulance and we rushed off to the hospital. She never regained consciousness and passed on a few days later.

In Christmases past, my mother often talked about her mother. When my mother was in her early 30s, her mom had passed on.

“It’s been almost 50 years since I saw her,” she told me one time. “But what if for her, this passage of five decades is like me stepping into the kitchen right now to get a snack while you wait on the couch? What if the long wait is only from my perspective? I hope that’s how it is. I know she misses me. I don’t want to think of her missing me for 50 years.”

“You know what Einstein said about time?” I asked her. “He said that ‘to those of us that are committed physicists the past, present and future are only illusion, however persistent.’

“In other words, time is really a human construct and it’s an illusion.”

She seemed comforted by this explanation.

Now I’m the one wondering about all those same things. Is time just an illusion? I suspect that it is. Our eyes see a sliver of the light spectrum, our ears hear only a sliver on the sound spectrum, so it seems probable that we’re only seeing a sliver of the reality of this dimension of time.

Those are the hypothetical arguments. What I do know - beyond any doubt - is that sometimes, I miss my dear mother more than ever.

Click here to learn more about Rose.

My mother (Betty Fuller) and her mother (Flossie Appleby) in the late 1930s.

Yahoo news is reporting this morning that a man has been arrested for accosting his wife’s face with a cheeseburger. During a heated argument, the man lost his temper and began smearing a greasy cheeseburger over her face. Apparently, it erupted into a full-fledged food fight.

Read the short article here.

As a writer, I tend to pay way too much attention to non-verbal communication. And many sensitive souls - like me - are guilty of this, too. In fact, the experts say that 70% of all communication is non-verbal. I’ve noticed that when I see wedding videos and/or attend the weddings in person, that there are two kinds of men: The kinds of men who gently feed their wives their first bite of wedding cake, and the men who think that a woman’s wedding day is a swell time to act stupid and cram that cake into her face, embarrassing her, embarrassing himself, and proving to his friends and family that his new wife just married a real horse’s ass.

When did we lose our manners? When did we stop behaving well in public? And when did men get license to start treating their brand-new wives so unattractively at such an important moment?

I have observed that there’s an interesting semi-scientific insight that comes with the “feeding of the wedding cake.” Those men who do the cram often end up divorced. Those men who do the gentle feed, remain married.

Coincidence?

Nope.

Click here to learn more about Rose.

My 70th first date and I agreed to meet on a Saturday morning at a coffee shop in downtown Portsmouth. His profile had caught my attention because his photo showed him in a green flannel shirt. I have a thing for men in flannel shirts. And he had a beard. I’ve always had a thing for men with beards.

I arrived at the coffee shop about 30 minutes early. While I was sitting there waiting for Mr. Green Flannel, an email arrived from an old friend. He offered to fly to Virginia and spend a week with me. He missed me and I missed him. We had been very dear friends for a time but our friendship had never sailed into the great beyond of romantic bliss. I was in the midst of a lonely spell and in response to his generous email, I wrote, “Please come soon and fast. I’m so lonely. I need you.”

But I hesitated.

What if Mr. Green Flannel was The One, the last first date? Shouldn’t I give this the old college try before giving up hope? I saved the email in my computer’s drafts folder. As I was sitting there thinking about all this, my last first date walked through the door.

He was shorter than I thought. Or maybe the doorway to the old building was unusually high. He was wearing a green plaid flannel shirt, clean blue jeans and a belt with a West Virginia buckle. West Virginia’s upper-most hinterlands were hidden underneath his muffin top. He was grinning. And he was cute as a button.

“You must be Rose,” he said with that enchanting West Virginian drawl.

“I am. And you must be Wayne.”

I managed to rise to my feet without falling over. A good start.

“Nice to meet you,” he replied through perfectly aligned teeth.

He was way too relaxed. He appeared to be someone who actually enjoyed dating. I wasn’t sure what to think of that. Did that indicate good self-esteem (a plus) or a smarmy familiarity with the ladies (a big negative)? His body language suggested he was comfortable and planning to have a splendid time. He looked both relaxed and alert. He seemed happy and eager to get to know this newest offering from the internet dating world.

We sat down together and engaged in the idle chatter that is the on-ramp to meaningful dialogue on a first date.

Less than 15 minutes into the date, my well-honed listening skills failed me. I gazed into his kind eyes and looked at his pretty red lips and wondered if he knew how to kiss a woman. His beard was also very distracting. He had a beautiful silver beard with a few remnants of the original red and brown. It was a really, really good beard. It was a very manly beard. And there were a gray chest hairs sprouting from his open shirt. A manly man with a manly beard and manly chest hair.

Read the rest of the story here.

Mr. Green Flannel (aka my 70th first date) and his pipe

Hordes of people have asked me, “Why do you think of yourself as ugly?”

The fact is, I don’t.

However, during my years in the world of internet dating, at least 30 men (out of 70) rejected me because (they said) they didn’t feel “chemistry” or I didn’t have “The Look.” This is really an indelicate way of saying, “You’re not pretty enough for me.”

I chose the title (Ugly Woman’s Guide to Internet Dating) because I have met *SO* many women who gave up on internet dating because of men’s ugly comments to them. The hits on their self-esteem were persistent and unrelenting. Ultimately, these women just threw in the towel and gave up their dream of life-long pair-bonding and decided to get another cat. I understand their pain.

My book is not about ugly women. It’s about the fact that in this internet dating culture, women are judged first and foremost by their thumbnail profile picture, often to the exclusion of all else. And what can you really learn about someone’s character, spirituality, maturity or goodness by looking at ¾” picture?

Nothing.

Like most women, I’m “average” looking (hence, the term). And in the process of these 70 first dates, I became disgusted with the fact that these men were only interested in women who had “the look.”

So I did a little experiment.

Continued at, “Why do you think of yourself as “ugly”? (Part II)

Buy the book here.

continued from part I.

Like most women, I’m “average” looking (hence, the term). And in the process of these 70 first dates, I became disgusted with the fact that these men were only interested in women who had “the look.”

Out of pure curiosity, I conducted a little experiment. With my daughter’s permission, I posted an ad at an internet dating site, using her beautiful headshots. Her “ad” (profile) was carefully written, and made it clear that she was high maintenance and had serious gold-digger leanings.

Within 24 hours, she had more than 20 emails. By the end of the first week, she had 75 emails from 75 men, pleading for a response. Within 30 days, she had received more than 250 letters from men (ages 25 to 62) who were begging to meet her.

Many men’s emails explained they had “plenty of money, a fine house” and blah, blah, blah. Their message was like saying, “You have plenty of beauty; I have plenty of money. We’re a perfect match.”

That made me angry.

Internet dating is only a little different from posting your picture at “Rate My Face dot com” and asking strangers to rate you on a score of 1-10. If you’re a ten, you get a few emails. If you’re a five (like me) you get six emails in 90 days.

I found the whole process to be hard and harsh and it did a number of my self-esteem. I did have a happy ending, but mainly from what I learned about myself and men. I learned that the opinions of others really do not matter.

And I found myself a nice guy, too. He’s good and decent and kind and patient. And he has a job and he doesn’t sniff gasoline and he doesn’t have any addictions and he loves me with his whole heart. And he tells me that I’m his “eight-cow wife.”

Learn more here.

During the four years that I dwelt in the land of internet dating, I learned a few things about single men and internet dating. Actually, I learned a *lot* of things and the most important “red flags” are delineated below.

Red Flag #1:  Three Strike Rule. If a man mentions the ex more than three times during any one event, he’s out. The opposite of love is not hate (or obsession), but apathy. If a man can’t stop talking about the ex, it usually means that he’s not over her yet.

Red Flag #2:  If a man is mean, run away fast.  It doesn’t matter how much good a man does or how good he makes you feel; if he has a vicious side, that viciousness will taint everything and can ruin anything. Any man who shows a vicious side must be exorcised from your heart, mind and soul. There is no counterbalance to viciousness.

Red Flag #3:  Watch out, sheepies! Some of the most treacherous and lecherous wolves you’ll meet are the men who claim to wear the garment of a Christian. The most dangerous evil in this world is the evil that sneaks into our lives disguised as something good. To learn more, read Chapter Four in my book titled, “Good Christian Man Seeks Good Christian Woman for Friday Night Booty Call.” The chapter title says it all.

Red Flag #4:  Do not trust your body and soul to a man who has not proven himself worthy of trust. It is inappropriate (and immature) for a man to pressure a woman to have sex before she feels emotionally ready. Studies show that casual sex can lead to serious depression and even suicidal ideation.

Red Flag #5:  If a man uses vitriol and contempt and ugly words to describe a woman that he once cherished and loved, he’ll eventually use those same words to accost you.

Red Flag #6: Time in the wilderness. If a man from a long-term marriage has been divorced less than two years, he’s probably not ready for a new relationship. The severance from such emotional and spiritual ties takes time to heal.

Red Flag #7: Childless fathers. If a man is able to sever ties with his own flesh and blood, that doesn’t bode well for his potential as a future mate. Ditto on men who don’t pay child support.

Red Flag #8: Watch out for married men at dating sites. Most studies show that about 20% of the male subscribers at internet dating sites are married men. Be wise and be alert that too many men are not honest about their marital status.

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Next:  Eharmony vs. Match.com - which is better?

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My 59th first date and I were having a lovely dinner together when that question popped into my head. I believe in guardian angels and I believe that it’s wise to pay attention to those ideas that seem to just “pop into my head.”

Yet to all appearances, this guy was as safe as they come.  He had a prestigious job and he was a member of several impressive social organizations and he seemed to be an upstanding citizens in all regards.

There’s a wonderful book called, The Gift of Fear which I highly recommend as a primer for any woman who plans to date. The author tells story after story where women “knew something wasn’t right” but couldn’t put their finger on it, and eventually came to learn that their intuitive sense had been spot-on. The Gift of Fear explains that we are biological systems hard-wired to survive and that we must learn to pay better attention to those pokes and prods from that “inner-knowing” or natural intuitive sense.

Even having read that book twice, I still surprised myself with my bold question.

As soon as that question had left my lips, I thought to myself, “Holy cow, did I just say that out loud?”

I was even more shocked at his answer:  Yes. His first wife had taken out a restraining order when he tampered with the engine in her car. He was mad, it seems, and he wanted to get even. And then this seemingly calm man launched into a surprise diatribe that began with, “That woman is such a bitch…”

Since then, I’ve asked that question when it seemed appropriate. You might be as surprised as I was at how many men answer, Yes.

In her powerful book Revolution From Within, Gloria Steinem points out that on Valentines Day 1991, a judge in Knoxville, Tennessee issued 30 applications for marriage licenses, 60 applications for divorce and 90 restraining orders.

To read Rose’s book, click here:

During the time I was dating my (now) husband, I had lunch with two women friends, and one of them (who’d never met Mr. Fiance)  asked if I had a picture of the new man in my life. I whipped out my cell phone and showed her a picture on its diminutive screen. In fact, I showed her this picture:

The one in the glasses is mine (1961)

A few days earlier, I’d used my cell phone’s camera feature to take a picture of this old photo, prominently displayed in my fiance’s home.

Once my friend focused on the tiny screen, she laughed out loud and said, “Is he the one in the glasses?”

To which I replied, “Yes, that’s him.”

My other woman friend glanced over and saw the photo. In a very serious tone she said, “Keep in mind, he’s much older now.”

Read more about Rose here.

Wayne all growed up

Beauty has a price, we’ve all heard, and for the most part, this cliche has been applied to women. For instance, women often endure the headaches and hassles of getting all tarted up for an evening on the town. I’m not a big fan of make-up for many reasons, but here’s one of them: Lipstick. During a time in my life when I wore lipstick, I could feel the parafin-based goo slip-sliding down my throat and leaving a slug-trail of wax in its wake.

A few clicks through Google revealed that the average woman eats about six pounds of lipstick during the course of her life. As I said, ick.

Make-up has an interesting history. This modern marvel has its roots in ancient Egypt, where women applied colorful concoctions to their eyes, eyelids, cheeks and lips to emulate the look of a post-orgasmic flush. Think about that next time you’re at the store looking for the perfect shade of lip-gloss.

And it’s “make-up” that led to the passage of the Food and Cosmetic Drug Act. In 1933, a woman named Mrs. Brown was permanently blinded after using a new mascara product called Lash-Lure. The mascara contained a synthetic aniline dye, something, it turns out, that should never ever be put on human skin. In 1938, after The Food and Cosmetic Drug Act was passed, the first product that the new government agency seized was Lash-Lure.

Beauty has a price for men, too. Like 20 years of alimony payments.

Or in the case of Tiger Woods, today’s news reports say that he may be on the hook for $300 million for his (ahem) alleged indiscretions with Ms. Uchitel.

Tiger should have paid closer attention to Jimmy Soul’s wise words: Jimmy Soul has good advice

With my whole heart, I believe in the power of prayer.  And I also believe it’s important to set goals and make plans and then visualize those potential futures. As author and children’s television host Fred Rogers said, our imagination has the wonderful ability to offer us a potential future and then we can decide if it’s the future that we want.

Author Sarah Ban Breathnach has a beautiful comment found in many of her books on gratitude. She writes, “Be willing to believe that a companion spirit is with you each step of the way, and knows the next step.”

During the years when I felt so alone, I leaned heavily on that idea and it comforted me and supported me and sustained me. Many nights, I’d position a small chair beside my bed and put my arm out toward the chair and ask my “companion spirit” to stay with me through the night and hold my hand. I was “willing to believe” that I was not as alone as I felt.

And I also prayed.

My prayers were often very simple. When I was feeling sad or lost or hopeless, I’d take a moment and say (sometimes through tears), “Thank you God for bringing the perfect man into my life at the perfect time.”

It’d take another 200 blog entries to talk about the amazing, delightful and surprising ways in which this simple prayer was answered. Men showed up in my life with perfect timing to help me with difficult business decisions, personal decisions, appliance repairs, car problems, career issues, etc. Sometimes, they just showed up to hold my hand or give me a hug or talk to me for two hours and help me think things through. I thanked God for each and every “right man,” knowing that each of these men were a proof that my prayers were being heard and answered.

And I considered each and every right man as a portent and a promise that there were still good men in the world and that one day, I’d find one to call my own.

Continued at The Perfect Man at The Perfect Time, Part II