Pretty is as pretty does.

I have a date with Sidney Poitier or at least I hope I do, Match.com photos can be pretty unreliable. Whether or not he's actually beautiful, I'll be able ito identify him. Because I'm meeting him at Starbucks on 23rd Ave. and, given how few black people I've ever seen on 23rd, the likelihood of a different black man wandering into Starbucks is slim.

I have shrunk a shirt in my first non-public washer/dryer since childhood, so that it now hits my hips rather than covering them. There is no weight as unattractive as the weight you hide. It, like most my clothing, is from Goodwill.

Note: I am devastatated that Goodwill is underpaying their disabled workers. It's like if the Target employee in a wheelchair I saw my first day in Oregon, where I was buying clothes (my mom's idea, not where I'd shop) because mine hadn't arrived yet, was paid a different wage than the other Target employees with his time on the job. It would never fly at Target, so why does it fly at Goodwill? I've noticed from my own time working at a charity that they think because their mission is good that rules shouldn't apply to them and apparently, legally, they don't. Regardless, paying your handicapped employees crap is crappy.

Thus today, unlike most days, I have a figure. It's like when I decided not to wear my protruding retainer mechanism for 6th grade gym and noticed more boys asked me to square dance. I regard Match.com as a joke, but why not make an effort to not be repulsive? I even leave Isabel at home, because I know she'd upstage me.

Mr. Poitier arrives at my side and he's as pretty as a picture, his. He's a slightly aging Sidney Poitier but that bone structure can't go wrong. It's ok that he's older than my actual age, not just the age I've given, because beautiful features last. He will still be pretty and boring when we are old.

Sidney Poitier, still beautiful in his 80's.

On parting, he asks, "This was our meet and greet?", and folds me in a short embrace. "Yes, I say". He then asks for my number. This is more than enough in my current emotional state. I don't care if he actually uses it.

Mr. Poitier found it odd  that I hadn't wanted to exchange phone calls beforehand, but I think get-to-know-each-other phone calls are work, and I sensed he was not the generation that texts. I know there are people in their 50s and up who text; I could just tell he was not one of them.

Neither is my 66 year old stepfather, but he has started texting for me since I arrived in Portland. This is sweet and more effective than calling me, because I am usually too tired or too involved in something to risk getting stuck in a long conversation. However, I can usually manage to type a sentence. Whether my mother will learn to text is doubtful. She appreciates technology, but she doesn't explore it. She has no natural curiosity about it

She does however explore practical requirements and she has researched rates and put me on their phone plan. I now have unlimited calling and a pretty new iPhone, but it feels like a virtual umbilical cord. As does that they live 3 miles away from me.

Almost scale map.

When my mother called during my date with Mr. Poitier, because she's my mother I pick up, but I say I am with a friend. Kind of suspicious, since she knows I know no one in Portland except Vanessa the neighbor I met the first day. I debate whether to stay in touch with this new friend. I want to be married again and to someone pretty. Still, I wonder if I could tolerate all the hours and years of forced conversation.