I'm 34. I'm a reference librarian at a branch library in Kansas City, which means I spend all day finding things for people and then go home and can't find my car keys. I live in half a duplex with three cats named after Sherlock Holmes characters, and I am aware that this is not helping my case.

Sunday, September 26, 1999
Reading: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (off hold at last)
Cat census: three of three on the bed, zero room for me

Mom called at 12:05, which is when she gets home from church and before the roast is out, so it's a short call by design. She asked how I was in The Voice, the one that means "tell me about a man." So I told her about Dan. There was a thump. She had dropped the phone. My father picked it up and said, "Your mother is in the other room saying the rosary, I think," and I have to say I have not laughed that hard in weeks.

Here is the thing I figured out at 2 a.m. on Friday, lying awake with Mrs. Hudson sitting on my chest like a warm sack of flour. I like Dan. I would like there to be a third date. I don't know if he's going to be anything, and for the first time in a long time that doesn't make my stomach hurt.

Because my life is not a waiting room. I have the Tuesday teen book club (eleven kids, two of whom actually read the book). I have trivia night with the girls from Cataloging. I have a garden that grew exactly four tomatoes this year and I loved every one of them personally. I have a good reading chair and a library card with no fines, because librarians pay their fines, it's a matter of honor. I'd like kids someday, maybe. I'd also like to see Ireland. They're both on the list and neither one is an emergency.

If it's Dan, wonderful. If it's nobody, I'm still a person with a full life and three cats who think I hung the moon, or at least the can opener. Either way. Either way is fine. I'm writing it down so I can read it back in January.

Filed under: Self-acceptance. Cats. Mothers and daughters.

Saturday, September 25, 1999
Reading: still Azkaban; I keep getting interrupted
Cat census: Moriarty under suspicion (the sock drawer)

Date number two was last night, and I'm happy to report that at no point did anyone produce a laminated chart.

We went for barbecue. Burnt ends, which Dan ate like a man who'd been waiting all week, which it turns out he had, because he'd been eating crackers at his desk since Tuesday on account of a very sick beagle he wouldn't leave. The beagle is fine now. He told me the whole story, including the part where he slept on the floor of the clinic next to her kennel, and I decided I was going to have to watch myself around this man.

Afterwards we walked around the Plaza and looked at the fountains. He asked questions and then listened to the answers, which I'm told is rare. He thinks the Sherlock Holmes names are funny, not weird. He has a dog named Pickles and does not apologize for it. He held my hand walking back to the car and we stood in the parking lot talking until the lot attendant started turning off lights at us.

He kissed me on the cheek. Like 1955. I drove home with the radio off.

Filed under: Dating (Social customs). Barbecue cookery -- Missouri -- Kansas City.

Thursday, September 16, 1999
Reading: The Poisonwood Bible, while I wait
Cat census: Sherlock asleep in the laundry basket, clean load, naturally

So. Last Friday who walks up to my desk but Dan, the vet tech from Moriarty's appointment (see Aug. 30), in regular clothes, with no cat hair on him for once. He wanted to put himself on the hold list for the new Harry Potter. I had to tell him he was number forty-seven. He looked genuinely stricken, the way my teen book club kids did.

Then he said, "If I'm going to be waiting till November anyway, would you want to get coffee sometime?"

We went tonight, a little place in Westport. We talked about books for two hours. Real books, not motivational tapes. He'd read the first two Potters twice. He thinks Snape is going to turn out to be a good guy and I think he's wrong, and we have a dollar riding on it.

I did not tell him I have my own copy of Azkaban on my nightstand. A woman needs some mystery.

Filed under: Coffee. Books and reading.

Monday, September 13, 1999
Reading: Bridget Jones's Diary, again, for medicinal purposes
Cat census: Mrs. Hudson has a hairball situation, we don't need to discuss it

An envelope from Mom in today's mail. No letter. Just a clipping of the Sunday wedding announcements from her paper back home with one of them circled in red pen. It's Kevin Engstrom. Kevin Engstrom, whom I went to junior prom with in 1981, and who got his tie caught in the car door. Kevin is marrying a dental hygienist named Brandi. I wish them every happiness. I don't know what my mother wants me to do with this information. Challenge her to a duel?

Other recent hints, for the record:

• "The Pruitts' daughter just had twins, and she's thirty-six, Wendy. Thirty-six. So there's still time."
• Asking how old the cats are, in a tone.
• A church singles mixer flyer, "just in case you're ever in town on a Thursday." I live three hours away.

I love her. She had three kids by the time she was my age, and I think she honestly can't picture a woman being happy with a quiet house. I'm working on it myself.

Filed under: Mothers and daughters. Hints (not a real heading, but it should be).

Saturday, September 4, 1999
Reading: nothing. I need a lie-down.
Cat census: all three waiting at the door when I came home, like a jury

The blind date was last night. Settle in.

Darlene's husband's cousin Rod picked me up at 6:30 in a very clean car. Rod is "in real estate." We went to a steakhouse. For the first twenty minutes Rod was fine: he talked about the Chiefs, he asked what a reference librarian does, he ordered for himself and not for me. I was thinking, okay, Darlene, okay.

Then the salads came, and Rod leaned forward and said, "Wendy, let me ask you something. Have you ever thought about where you're going to vacation for the rest of your life?"

And out of a leather portfolio came a glossy folder with a picture of a condominium at the Lake of the Ozarks on the front, and a laminated chart of "points." Rod walked me through the points. Rod had clearly walked many people through the points. Every time I tried to change the subject he came back around, like a very polite shark. I said I usually vacation at my parents' house. He said, "And how's that working out for you?"

I tried books. Rod said he doesn't really read, but he listens to motivational tapes in the car, and had I read Who Moved My Cheese?, because it changed his life. I said I had catalogued it. He didn't know what that meant, and honestly at that point neither did I.

At dessert he invited me to a "free presentation" on Saturday that came with a free weekend at the lake. I said no thank you. He said the offer was good for thirty days. I paid for my own salad, because I didn't want to owe the points anything.

When I got home, Mrs. Hudson looked at me with such deep pity that I gave her the good tuna. Darlene called this morning to ask how it went and I said, "Darlene, did you know?" There was a pause. There was a LONG pause.

Filed under: Dating (Social customs). Time-sharing (Real estate). Disasters.

Monday, August 30, 1999
Reading: Memoirs of a Geisha
Cat census: Moriarty not speaking to me

Moriarty's yearly shots this afternoon. Moriarty is two, jet black, and a criminal mastermind, so the name was not an accident. He got out of the carrier in the exam room, went straight up the side of the cabinets like a squirrel, and sat on top by the ceiling tiles, looking down at us with his arms folded. (Cats can't fold their arms. He did.)

The vet tech, whose name tag said DAN, didn't grab or yell. He sat down on the little rolling stool and talked to Moriarty for ten minutes in a low voice about nothing, the weather, the Royals, and eventually Moriarty came down on his own and climbed into Dan's lap as if it had been his idea. Dan had cat hair all over his scrubs and didn't seem to mind.

He read the chart and said, "Moriarty. Is there a Sherlock at home?" I said yes, and a Mrs. Hudson. He said, "Is there a Watson?" and I said Watson was a goldfish and it was a long story. He laughed like it was the best thing he'd heard all day.

That's all. I just thought it was nice. Nothing else to report.

Filed under: Cats -- Behavior. Veterinary hospitals.

Wednesday, August 25, 1999
Reading: A Man in Full (it is very full)

Darlene from Circulation, at the staff coffee pot, apropos of nothing: "My husband has a cousin." I said I was sure he had several. She said this one is single, has a good job, and "cleans up nice." I said yes before I could think of a reason to say no. I blame the five weddings. My defenses are down.

Filed under: Decision making (poor).

Sunday, August 22, 1999
Reading: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, for book club
Cat census: Sherlock sat on my good dress while I was at the wedding, which is a neat trick

Wedding number five of 1999. Janelle from the children's room married her Greg at a country club in Johnson County. She was beautiful and he cried during the vows, which I always count as a good sign.

I was at Table 14. Every single woman knows Table 14. It had me, Janelle's nineteen-year-old cousin who spent the evening paging someone, a very sweet widower named Herb who is eighty-one and asked me to dance to Sinatra, and a man in his forties who explained his fantasy football draft to me, in order, by round.

The DJ played "Livin' la Vida Loca" three times and "Mambo No. 5" twice. The Chicken Dance happened. I did the Chicken Dance. I have no pride left.

And then the bouquet. The DJ called every unmarried woman to the dance floor. By name. By NAME, off a list Janelle's mother gave him. I stood at the back with the posture of a woman who is not trying to catch anything, and Janelle, who played softball all through college, threw it like she was trying to get a runner at home. Straight at me. I stepped aside like a bullfighter and it hit a twelve-year-old flower girl, who was thrilled.

Herb walked me to my car afterward and said, "Don't let 'em rush you, honey." I could have kissed him. I did, on the cheek. He's the best date I've had all year.

Filed under: Weddings. Single women. Dance -- Poultry-related.

Earlier entries (and weddings one through four) are in the Archives.