Join Emily as she posts about her current wild ride of motherhood, singlehood, singlemotherhood—while looking for the next big gig—and now datinghood in the Motherhoodlum of Mommywood (a.k.a. L.A., baby!).

JULY 2007

SMF! MISSION STATEMENT

Mission Statement for SINGLE MOTHER FU*KER!

Besides taking an earnest crack at good spelling/grammar and not binging on vegan cookies while writing, I have several goals for this new blog.

Mathematical twisters such as:

41 years old. 16-month-old baby. 0 dates.

Is trying to 'get out there' and actually date someone an oxymoron with the above statistics?

Will I ever find a GOOD DADDY for Baby? a GREAT HUBBY FOR ME? (and by hubby, i don't do marriage...i mean, life partner, but that sounds GAY) Gee, it sucks not being Sug Daddy material. Yeah, I'll talk about that too. And sometimes in haiku.

DONT'S for your Nerve.com profile

Things that did not go over well when I made my profile:

Don't write under IF I COULD BE ANYWHERE NOW:

"getting a thigh lift."

Conversely, under LAST BOOK READ:

Don't write "A Smart Girls Guide To Plastic Surgery."

Under WHERE I'D LIKE TO BE IN 25 YEARS:

Don't write "Rich and thin."

And my handle is TheRealE.

Don't ask me what it means. I made it years ago when I really WAS a swinging single. And it costs $10 to change it so forget it. It's already cost me a small fortune to join these dating sites.

Look me up and send me a wink!

WHAT I'VE SPENT TO FIX MY FACE

While it's only been one week on the dating websites, I already HAND WROTE a letter today (that's what they told me to do) to get my money ($68) back from Match.com.

The men are revolting. Any website where Dr. Phil's picture and mating for life tips refresh every page is not a website I want anything to do with.

Anyway, here's what I've spent so I can get prettied up when I go to the office (Buzz Cafe) in case a cute boy comes in:

I can't do the math but it feels like a ton. And I still need a new stroller. Not only is mine ugly but it makes me look fat.

The UPSIDES

I usually HATE music class. It's so depressing. All I can do is stare at the other moms and make up stories about their lives. And even when I make them dark and twisted and sad they still end up being better than mine.

But there is one upside when you are a SMF! There is another great way to make class go by faster. You can check out the dads in class.

Not to flirt or anything. They are married after all. And I'm just not built like that. Physically that is. You see, when you have my genetics you are not programmed, deep in your brain, to think about things like flirting with a married man. The brain just doesn't go there.

But, I can fantasize that maybe the good looking one who came alone is single. Maybe his wife died. Or she runs a studio or something and is a total Cuntessa who didn't fuck him for years and then divorced him and has his balls in a jar in the fridge. Or something.

So there was a guy a few weeks ago in class that I projected this fantasy onto. He wasn't even that cute. But I was rip-roaring bored outta my mind so I pretended to send him secret messages.

And it worked. Sort of.

I must have been sending out the perfect 'I'm the perfect replacement mommy' vibes as suddenly his butt-ugly daughter started to glom onto me!

For sure she didn't have a mom, the way she was throwing herself all over me and drooling. I had to keep repeating in my head that her mom was dead, her mom was dead. I rubbed her back a little. I was Ann Bancroft and she was my Helen Keller.

Maybe if she were the least bit cute it wouldn't have been so hard. But I really hate ugly babies. And I hate the way diapers look in their pants too. So puffy and dumpy. I was so embarrassed I could not look up at her daddy. I just knew he was thinking I would be the best replacement mom ever. I was on Oscar watch I was so good. Rubbing, Giggling, Cooing. It was all total make believe as I was holding my breath, trying no to breathe in the germs of this sniveling toddlerette. This kid was in love with me. Her daddy was beaming. And then, as all this beauty was happening, it occurred to me I hadn't looked in the mirror for an entire hour. I was just dying to see how this all looked to the outside world. I was so IN IT, I couldn't tell.

I looked up and watched us from across the room in the giant mirror. We all looked so amazing. Me stroking the motherless ugly baby's back. Her dad watching us bond from the room, rapt. And most importantly, how THIN those mirrors made me look. I never noticed before. These were the most amazing mirrors ever. I looked ten pounds thinner and at least 5'7''. I pushed the kid off me and shoved her back to her dad with whom she belonged, widowed or not. I stood up to admire myself, all while pretending to do the horsey dance around the room. I now love music class. Who cares if the songs make me hungry and I can't stop wondering if the teachers are gay, they have great mirrors in there and that alone is worth suffering through those mother sucking 45 mins.

Not what I signed up for

How does a SMF wind down after a long day of toddler wrangling? I watch the same episode of Hey Paula for the third time. TiVo really is a girls best friend.

An UPSIDE discovery today when taking Baby out in her noise polluting red truck buggy thingy. I can fart my brains out while I'm walking and no one can hear a thing.

Now, a DOWNSIDE or two:

Being a SMF can feel like Groundhogs Day. Sometimes I wake up and think, oh my god, it's happening AGAIN. Not that it's not amazing, and wonderful, all that blah, blah talk...but lemme explain:

Taking care of Baby, all day, every day (basically) is how I feel when get an acting job. I wake up and get to set, totally excited and grateful and disbelieving that I even got the job in the first place. But then, I get in hair and make-up and it all starts to feel dreadful and scary and soon I'm asking any P.A. I can grab when they think I'll be wrapped. Soon enough everyone starts taking bets on how long the next set up will be, the next scene, when the goddamn day is going to end. Even the director is making threats "You people wanna get outta here? Then let's get going folks!" It's all about getting it over with.

That's how my days feel. I pray for them to end. And now Baby wants to stay up even later because it's still light out and she's standing in her crib and my fake her out to get her back to sleep routine takes hours and it's almost 9 before I can do anything for me. I'm so burnt from her sleep resisting screams (last night I overheard my downstairs neighbors saying "What is she doing? Strangling her?) all I want to do is eat my stress away. Or take a Klonipin. BUt then I get scared that something terrible will happen in the middle of the night and since her daddy doesn't pick up the phone when I call sometimes, depending on his mood, well, I have to be on top of my game at all times.

I'm so burnt, I'm just too lazy to teach her anything. I taught her NOSE, and that's fine for me.

I just keep saying SHOW ME YOUR NOSE, WHERE'S MOMMY'S NOSE? NOSE, NOSE, NOSE...And she's pointing to, or near it, and I'm happy. But the thought of moving to other body parts? Forget it.

What I'm saying is, I better sell my tv show soon, because it really does take a fucking village and I need one badly. I could make a joke about me being the village idiot but that would be stupid.

AUGUST 2007

the bafoonery continues....

where to begin?

my first date out there - i was a MESS. first of all, i got drunk. and fast, as in 10 minutes into the lunch. most likely because i took an ATIVAN before hand. second, i was very nervous. beyond nervous. this person is very much in the public eye, who has achieved incredible creative success, who i admire tremendously as an artist. not to mention, downright incredibly sexy. shit.

then the spiral began. basically, to sum it up: i talked about myself the whole time. but not myself-self, like a different self. are you with me? i have no idea who i was talking about. he asked me a million questions

(i asked none), and every answer made me sound stupider and flakier and un-smarter than the next...ALL coming from a place of beyond-insecurity.... further and farther (can never figure out which is correct here) removed from who i really am. crap.

at the time, i thought it was going great. then, i mentioned the two meetings i had later, i mean, commercial auditions. something about HEADSHOTS. i badmouthed an old friend of mine. i bragged about this and that. i told him i grew up rich? i told him NOT to google me (can you say NARCISSISM?) and NOT to watch my show as i 'don't look good.' i mentioned i got into online dating to research an article for an online magazine i write for, and wondered if a 41 year old with a baby could get a date. i think i mumbled into my penne that i never actually wrote the piece. everything that came out of my mouth was disconnected.

anyway, it gets worse. i can't relive the shame anymore. needless to say, i wrote to thank him that night, and offered my REAL email as i thought i might be ending my month on nerve.com. he wrote a few days later, a couple of lines, thanked me for giving him my email, (didn't give me his) and ended with a 'take care.'

i looped for several days about how unfair it was. my first date out there with someone who literally is, at least on paper , everything i'm looking for to a tee. and, ya know the 'if only he got to see the real me he would have totally fallen for me' conundrum... then again...maybe that WAS the real me?

afraid it is. i get nervous, i spill, i take on personas, even if only one of an UBER-version of me. does this make sense? probably not. no wonder i got a 'take care'...

mortally depressed.

please be able to speak english if you are american

after my first date in years disaster, i decided to go back in and see if anyone piqued my interest. there was one guy, who, though, not my type physically, said he was a documentary film editor, which i found interesting.

so, i wrote him back after brushing him off weeks earlier. sometimes these guys give you their number RIGHT AWAY and expect you to call?? this freaks me out and i DELETE their email entirely. maybe it's the protocol, but it's just not right for me. then again, no one seemed intriguing enough to actually pick up the phone and call a stranger. anyway, had given me his number and i deleted his emails but wrote him again to start up a dialogue. he gave me HIS digits this time then i said, ok, ok, here's is mine.

he called. the talk was not bad. he told me he had been a writer on some big TV shows ( i later researched him on IMDB and this turned out to be FALSE...FREAKY)...which made him sound smart. hopeful as MASSIVE BRAINS are the only way to my vagina.

then we got to talk about kiddie school. he has a son. mind you, we had already sort of talked about meeting that upcoming weekend. anyway, he started to say the word CURRICULUM, but couldn't. he stumbled, he stammered. it just wouldn't come out. and then he mentioned something about his lack of education. SEXY!

and, gross.

one thing i am a Snobby Snob Snobberman about it, LITERACY!

it's one thing if you are from a foreign country but if you are from northern california, please, please be able to pronounce CURRICULUM.

i have not figured out a way to get out of the date. what do you say?? um, please say curriculum 10 times really fast??