I signed up for eHarmony a couple of months ago out of curiosity and general lameness. eHarmony asks you questions and then proposes potential matches for you. You can decide if you would like to pursue the match. If you do want to, you of course have that option. (But seriously, boys are all drama, so I don't recommend it). There are eleven steps in the guided communication process. I've never got past step two. So I normally 'close' the match which is what a women is supposed to do when the dude's profile has 5 semi-colons in his answer for 'The most influential person in my life has been.' or when a person uses the words 'personal growth,' 'video games,' and the phrase 'I have no desire for money or power.' Really??, cause most of us female-types really like the Alphas last I checked.  That's like a girl saying, "I don't desire to be young, can't wait to grow old.  And my boobs and teeth are really just optional accessories when considering my overall beauty. Just as good and /or better without."

When you close a match, you do so by sending an eHarmony message to the match from a static list of eHarmony messages as to why the match is being closed. 90% of the time the chosen answer is 'Other,' cause really, you just don't want to see their stinkin profile no more, and none of the other responses make any sense like 'I am pursuing another relationship', or 'I'm taking a break from dating', or 'I have too much happening in my life at the moment'. Which of course are completely irrelevant responses on a dating site.

99% of the time a match is closed without any communication happening whatsoever between the match.  Closes are done strictly on the basis of pictures and a match's answers to eHarmony's 7 or 8 questions. 6 of which are actually the same question just worded slightly different. See the picture below to see just how uninteresting and unrevealing the eHarmony questions are. I'd get more information about a guy from cooking myself some scrambled eggs.

I've closed lots of matches, but also get closed on a lot myself.  Now, the only times I was getting closed on without the 'Other' reason,  I was getting the eHarmony developed response:   ''The physical distance between us is to great.' Everytime I got that response from a guy, I'd get in a huff, run through the rejector's pictures and declare, "Well, you ain't such a hottie yourself!!!" and grumble about pot-bellies, bad jobs, and how certain people LIKE BOYS APARENTLY.  Thinking the guy is saying he is far too attractive for the likes of me. This went on from two months ago till today, when I was deciding how to use a combo box to tell an interested potential match that Utah was too far away and he was most likely abandoned and molested as a child if he thinks that STARTING OUT with a long-distance dating is acceptable.

The answer I chose to send to Mr. Beehive State ( the first time I haven't used 'Other' ) was the choice: 'The physical distance between us is to great.' And as I sent it...I paused... my eyes widened, and I wondered to myself how I manage to safely shave my legs and delete spam.

I know. right?

I went to Provincetown, Massachusetts. The tabooless town. As I drive in I get a fever, three days later, my fever breaks.  So the whole time in this town was pure ridiculousness, I am floppy sick and fighting my way into a vacation. Three weeks later I can still feel myself breathing, and am eagerly awaiting my lungs to clear so I can begin my marathon training.

One of the days, my brother, took me to see the Pilgrim Monument which is the inaugural landing place of the famed pilgrims. We walked a couple blocks there from the bed and breakfast and up a little ramp. At the top of the ramp, I'm about to pass out, and I'm falling apart as I realize that the only thing to do at the Pilgrim Monument is to climb 11.6 stories to the top. I envision myself puking on story 6, assuming the fetal position, and refusing to move till my fever broke 2 days later.  The Bro decides that maybe touring the small museum would be a better idea. This "tour" turned out to be me sitting on a wood bench and Bro going around to the different exhibits, reading them, and coming back to tell me what they were. We eventually wandered outside to where I collapsed on a wooden chair and took a half-hour nap.

Also, while there, Bro and I went to see a show called Willie Wanker and the Hershey Highway. Now this show sounds like it would be a dirty and crass laugh-fest, but it was really just lame and boring. You would expect it to be a unique gay-themed riot, different, but parallel and analogous to Charlie and the Chocolate factory. But no, it was literally a near-identical-to-the-movie story line with lame drag, cardboard sets, high-school level choreography, boring songs, and a hint of "crass humor" that can only be described as "grabbing at the low-hanging comedy fruit."  God, I was begging for any one property of the show to NOT be mediocre.  It was so dull and boring that Bro and I bailed at intermission. We wandered down the street and into the Post Office Cafe to watch an Off-Broadway show called Naked Boys Singing which was a show whose theme was...Nevermind, I have a feeling you already know. Regardless, everything about the show was great except the fact that the stage needed to be higher. All the poor audience gays were having to move their heads around to get glimpses of a part of the show's theme. But honestly, fantastic vocals.

Now for the secret. Shhhhhh. Later on in the week, Bro told me of a rumor of this man who purchases Project Runway dresses after season completion. Bro did some asking around and found that the dresses were located at. A boutique called Coffey Men. A store featuring hand-made clothes running about $90 for a t-shirt.

199 Commercial St # 11
Provincetown, MA 02657-2126

So we walk in and find the owner and ask if the rumor is true. Scott says yes, wanders into the back and pulls out a brown paper bag in which are 3-4 different noticeable dresses from the show.  Almost all of them were dresses that almost got the contestant eliminated. Laura's (season 3) black gown with the white ruffles, Christian's (Season 4) brown prom dress, Ricky's (Season 4) prom dress. He also owns the blue cup dress from one of the grocery store challenges. We ooo and ahh and then like a solid line of shoppers came over and ooh'd and ahh'd with us.  As we are preparing to leave, Scott tells me I should wear one of the dresses out tonight. Since he just bought them for fun. I at first was like, noooo, these are works of art with historical significance, but then I was like, hey, hey he keeps them in a brown sac for pete's sake. I chose Ricky's prom dress and left with a giddy adrenaline back to the B&B to take another 5 hour nap before nightfall. Ricky almost got canned for the fact that the color-choice makes the skin looked washed out so of course me in the dress on a fever is a perfect chance to get a google image result on the word clammy.

Bro plays piano at a piano bar in Provincetown. Playing show tunes and keeping the mode lite. I wore the dress there to hear him play.  I felt a little silly, it being so prom-dressy and all, but Jackie Beat loved it. And btw, her makeup is unreal, True True talent going on there.  The Bro did great. I left half-way through the show cause the chairs were too high for a nauseous person. And I didn't even have to pay for my food cause the bartender was too high on coke to take my money. He kinda just brushed me away before heading back into the bathroom to do more blow off the toilet.

My fever dwindled away just in time for me to head back to Connecticut. Through the first of two thunderstorms that I would get to experience during my east coast trip.

Today, I spent a good amount of time buying the rest of my camping gear for this upcoming weekend. From July 24th - July 27th I will be traipsing around Bryce Canyon, and finally getting dirt on all my camping gear. It has been sitting bored in my closet for over 6 months, tags still on, along with my top-roping equipment. I got the gear cause I wanted to get into the hobby, and then walked around my life begging everyone to please take me camping. 

I even celebrated my excitement by of course spending more money at lululemon. Conveniently, and suspiciously creepily, they (for the first time that I've seen) had a pair of hiking shorts for sale.  These people are IN MY HEAD. It's like me and the store are bonded on some deeper levels, apparently one of which is the Music Genome level. I literally was in the store and noticed the speaker playing a song that I've only ever heard on my favorite Pandora station, the one that I've manipulated to eliminate all male vocals (except Jason Mraz), and I was all "how odd."  And then the next 5 songs, same story, only songs from that one specific customized station that I thought was all my own. And of course I asked the sales lady what they were playing, and she was all, "Oh, a customized Pandora station." And then I'm all, "Wait, The reason I am unwillingly becoming addicted to expensive luon is because I voluntarily listen to songs that some person at lulu thinks make people spend hundreds of dollars!!" SHOCKING. From now on, no more Fine Frenzy for me. I need to save up for my nose job. So goodbye my almost lover.

$160 dollars and two hiking shorts later I decide to go rockclimbing,  I get to the gym and reach to grab my gear and gym clothes. I see a pair of white sweatpants and then I glance at the bag of hiking shorts and note that it is Really hot and humid outside and that the gym is open to the outdoors.  I grab the white sweatpants and head into the gym, leaving my light-weight, breezy, full-movement shorts in the car, reasoning that they were too expensive to get covered in chalk. I spend the next hour constantly pulling the sticky, sweaty pants off my chiseled thighs.

I reached a proud milestone at the gym, no, not the fact that I saw a shoulder muscle, though, I am proud of it, and I shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine. But I managed to rip off, not one, but two calluses 3/4 of the way. Otherwise known as a flapper. These painful partially exiled integuments emerge as your skin literally rolls off as your hand slides off its hold. They are a hazard of the rockclimbing hobby, and now frankly, I feel official. 

A fellow climber counseled me to put something on it right away, so I eagerly headed to the front desk with the promise of a Dora The Explorer Band-Aid. Instead I got a splattering of Neosporin and some medical tape. I had actually really wanted to get to know what a half Spanish half English band-aid would look like.

I get home and am greeted for the next hour by the pleasant sound of this short dog-ish critter yelling at the bird, who is yelling back.