Or, “An Overly-Accurate Dating Profile”

I make my own hummus.
I have about five go-to variations.

It’s not that I love hummus. In truth, I’d prefer salsa and chips, or veggies and ranch, or crisp celery dolloped with peanut butter.

I just like making hummus.
It’s a hobby.

I also write a blog. It’s like a Captain’s Log from a really bad space saga, where the Captain is leaning back in her big chair, knocking the rocks of her whisky, talking about everything except what actually happened. (I have loved space sagas my whole life, even the bad ones– especially the bad ones. I’m only just barely falling in love with whisky, the good kind and the bad kind. Especially the bad kind, the cheap kind, the kind that tastes like a butterscotch candy melted down in a black skillet.)

Nothing has to be all good for me to love it. I like sharp edges and broken bits and angry stories. I like the kind of spice that burns my tongue, the kind of sour that roughs up my mouth, the kind of poetry that gives me nightmares.

I like people who love things, people who hate things, and people who do things.

And you.
I probably already love you.

And I love that guy, too, and that girl. And that guy behind you. And that couple in front of us. The total stranger I’m having brunch with tomorrow. The total stranger I’m texting with today.

And me.
I love me.

If you’re a jealous person, this won’t work out.
Swipe left, my friend.
Swipe left and be well.

I am a little bit outrageous, in between long stretches of boring. I do yoga, write letters, read books. I collect interesting photos and use the most make-shift photo-editing programs to insert myself where I do not belong.

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Which is everywhere.
I’m a misfit.

It’s hard to tell sometimes because I am also a companion. I belong nowhere, but I belong with everyone I meet.

If I’m smiling in my photos, it is because I am with someone, or holding food. (If I’m holding food, I am with someone. Food only matters to me when I don’t have any, or when it is shared.)

It’s not that I don’t enjoy my own company. It’s that I am rather like the moon. I am most visible to myself when a friend lights me up, when friends sparkle beside me, when the world lifts me high and holds me in place.

That metaphor went a little wild, but that happens with me. I am exponential storyteller. One story leads to another, which ties to another. It’s too much.

I’m too much.

If you’re tired easily, you should move on.
Swipe left, my friend.
Swipe left and find peace.

I eat until I’m sick of myself and food in general. I used to be almost twice the size I am today. I didn’t mind being fat.  I used to be married, but he passed away.  I love my late husband very much. I used to be imprisoned. Some beautiful things happened there.

I am defensive of the flaws I love.
I am not asking you to drink cheap whisky and watch bad television.
I am asking you to let me love how I love,

because it is what I do.

I love life, even when she is pummeling me in the face.
I love myself, even when I fail miserably.

I love you,
probably.

If that scares you, then you will not be brave enough for the wild things I will bring to your door.
Swipe left, my friend.
Swipe left and be safe.

I don’t want to slide on snow, or roll down a mountain or try to climb one. I don’t want to shoot things and count the lives that could have been, or chase fire or water and count the battles I could have lost.

I want the things that count without counting being necessary.

I don’t want to visit something just for a photo on Instagram.
I have an app for that,
and if I don’t,
I could build one.

I want to go to the diner down the way.
I want to know if the wrinkled old man who folds the dough has really been doing that same job his whole life. I want to know if he loves it.

I want to breathe in his story till I love it, too, and I want to smile every time I see a filo for the whole rest of my life.

I want to know who your Muppet totem is. I want to know how often you cry. I want to know if I can sit on your lap when there is plenty of space on the sofa, if I can hold your hand even when you kinda need it to drive or to eat.

I want to know if your life is filled with too much of any one thing. I want to know how you deal with excess, how you deal with the things that are just too much.

Like hummus that is hotter than salsa.
Like a girl who talks too much.
A girl who has lived too much.

A girl who carries her emotional baggage in a bright pink suitcase and takes it out to show everyone who asks.

I want to be impressed.

I don’t mean for you to tell me stories of courage, or buy me gifts, or practice suspiciously visible acts of kindness. I’m not impressed that you’re tall, or short, or have a job or don’t, or that you were born in the summer or on a land that is shaped differently than the land where I was born.

I am impressed by eyes that see silver linings, round rocks in stretches of jagged rocks, and animal shapes in the clouds. I am impressed by voices that hold tone and patience, implication and calm. I am impressed by hands that make things far more than they break things.

I am impressed by those who challenge me– those who can move my stubborn feet until I am dancing in a kitchen, stumbling over my comfort zones.

It is a lot to ask,
in exchange for a shared bowl of homemade hummus.

It’s hardly even.
It’s hardly fair.

But if you’re someone who still believes in fairness, this probably won’t work out.
Swipe left, my friend.
Swipe left and keep believing.