Day 20: Blind. Date.

"Blind date: Where the people involved have not met each other previously. The match could have been arranged by mutual friends, relatives or by a dating system" -Wikipedia

One of the greatest joys of single-hood is the blind date.

I went on a blind date this weekend. It went something like this:

Six days before the date:

10:00 pm - We talk on the phone for almost an hour about: His hobbies, his talents, his job, and Bolivia witchcraft stores.

Night Before the Date:

7:00 pm - I receive a voice mail message with a detailed description of how he'll be dressed so I'll recognize him (White collared shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbow, dark jeans, sunglasses, and some schnazzy shoes whose brand name escapes me for the moment).

Date Night:

6:55 pm - Just in case I didn't get the clothing details right, he texts me once again to tell me his sleeves are rolled up.

7:00 pm - By a miracle I identify him at the top of the stairs, where it's him and two women.

7:00 pm - The conversation starts. We talk about his laser eye surgery, which I find hilarious for a "blind" date conversation. Get it?

7:05 pm - My first attempt at a joke, comparing him to Stevie Wonder...silence...maybe he doesn't like it Stevie Wonder.

7:20 pm - The guy taking our order is really cute, and exchanges a couple flirtatious smiles and comments with me...maybe the highlight of the night. He really was good looking.

7:30 pm - I make the fourth attempt at a joke and hit another brick wall...tough crowd.

7:35 pm - I pull out my moleskine notebook to write down a book suggestion of his.

7:36 pm - He goes off about how he had moleskine notebooks before they were popular and since he is an artist, he deserves to carry one, not like all the hipsters that think it's trendy.

7:37 pm - Time out. Is he calling me a trendy hipster not good enough for my notebook?

7:40 pm - We decide it's a nice night for a walk. So we walk.

7:40 pm - A 20-minute thorough discussion about the difference between medic teams and ambulances. It was interesting, but so were the two squirrels that were chasing each other around the park. I divided my attention between him and the squirrels. I thought that was only fair.

7:47 pm - I finally get him to laugh, only I wasn't being funny...I'm not even sure what it was I said, but it sure struck him as hilarious.

8:00 pm - A homeless man comes up to us and tells us all about this awesome concert that is happening that night. I think it sounds awesome. My date thinks otherwise. Against his better judgement, we walk to where the concert is, according to my friend Frank.

8:20 pm - No concert. Oops. That's the last time I'll trust Frank.

8:25 pm - My feet are tired. We've walked a couple miles and I'm in heels. I don't feel the need to impress anyone, so I stop for a second to change into the flip flops I carry in my purse, for just such an emergency. As I change my shoes, he tells me he's okay with me doing that, it doesn't bother him.

8:26 pm - I stand puzzled, wondering if dating etiquette now requires you to ask your date's permission to change out of heels. I guess I'm lucky that my date is generous enough to allow it.

8:31 pm - We get to the first metro stop, he suggests we keep walking...

9:00 pm - We're still walking, he's still talking. It's enjoyable enough, but not incredible.

9:24 pm - We're talking about something and biking comes up. I mention I hate biking more than anything in the world...he says he loves it, and then quickly finds a metro station. I guess that was a deal breaker.

9:26 pm - We hug and part ways. I get on the train and smile, thinking about the cute waiter. Oh yeah, and my date.

Conclusion: Nice guy, but not a match. I could use a little more laughter and a little more spark. And it wouldn't hurt if a guy could also get just as excited about crazy squirrels and homeless men with wild entertainment suggestions.

Day 17: Dumb it Down

"A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can." Jane Austen

I'm pretty sure that the first thing a married person thinks when they see a single woman my age is, "Poor thing! She must be miserable, being so old and so single." Then, the next thing they think is, "Something must be wrong, because it just doesn't make sense that someone would be single at that age!" They then continue to tell me all the reasons why I must be single (apart from the fact that I just don't "try" hard enough).

I've heard so many reasons, and I won't list them all now, but one of my favorites is "You intimidate men. You're too smart and too accomplished. Guys are just too afraid to ." First of all, what is that saying about all married women...? Second, what I am suppose to do to correct that? Be more approachable by being dull and witless? Sure, I'll give it a try.

My friend asked if his sister Juliana could stay the weekend with us. I said sure. She even called me that week to make some arrangements. My week got busy and I didn't think about it again. A week later, last night to be exact, I got a text message from an unknown number saying "Hi Kelly. Just wanted you to know I'll be in tomorrow around 3. Is that okay? -Juliana" I could not for the life of me think who this person was so I promptly responded, "I think you have the wrong number, I don't know who you are." I never got a return text, so that was the end of that.

I was driving today and out of nowhere started thinking, is this the weekend the sister is coming? Juliana! My memory finally came back, and I started apologizing profusely over text, telling her I knew who she was, and she could still stay at my house.

I'm pretty sure my friend was not that happy that I slighted his sister. Without even trying, I'm naturally developing a lack of common sense, but it doesn't seem to impress the men yet...but I think if I keep it up, it'll get 'em.

Day 15: Lock the Pantry

"Don’t make it easy for young men to hang out in a setting where you women provide the food. Don’t subsidize freeloaders...I think you should lock the pantry and bolt the front door." Dallin H. Oakes

We've been doing a lot of moving this week, and that has required a lot of male assistance. My male neighbors and friends have been more than willing to help us with this, so my roommates and I have been more than willing to feed them. You know, as payment for their moving services.

Well, what I didn't know was that if you feed a guy a couple times, I guess they come to expect it.

Our neighbors came down for something, and without an invitation, or a word from any of us, they went straight to the table to help themselves to our dinner we had not yet cleared from the table.

Unbelieveable! Our jaws dropped and we all just stared at them, wondering what had brought us to this point. So we did what good, single Mormon girls should do. We locked our pantries and bolted the front door.

Day 13: I love you...

"Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love." Albert Einstein

So, I understand that saying "I love you" is an important step in a relationship, but I don't get why it's so taboo to say it when you aren't in a relationship.

I dated this great guy once. We had been dating for a couple of months when my younger sister, who thought my boyfriend was awesome, told him she loved him. It was a moment of impulse, but she meant it. She thought he was a wonderful person and she loved him as a friend and as a human being, so she told him. It really threw him off, but he told her hesitantly that he loved her too (?) It was really amusing...

Anyway, as far as advice goes, I feel like I've been told many different opinions about when it's right to say it, and when it isn't. I ran into this guy that I met a couple of weeks ago, but hadn't seen in awhile. So, turning on my charm, I teased him about how he must be avoiding me or something.

He overzealously replied, "No way Kelly!! Are you kidding me? I love you! (Pause) ... (awkward pause) ... I mean ... (really awkward pause accompanied by severe blushing) ... I love you like my own sister."

Classic.

Day 11: Strong Man

"For there's no one as burly and brawny.

As you see I've got biceps to spare.

Not a bit of him's scraggly or scrawny.

That's right! And ev'ry last inch of me's covered with hair."

Gaston, Disney's Beauty and the Beast

Last year a guy friend of mine told me the best trick to catch a man. He said,"All you have to do is tell a guy he's strong. Guys totally go for that." Really? Could it be that simple? Well, at the time I totally liked this same friend, so what better way to try it out then on him. So I did. Every time we talked I subtly slipped it in when I could. I'm pretty sure he didn't notice I was using his own trick against him. Did it work, you ask? It did! We dated, and dated, and dated. And then I forgot to keep telling him he was strong...and we stopped dating. Maybe that was our ultimate downfall.

So, I decided to put that trick back into practice. I helped a friend move tonight and I thought it was a perfect opportunity to bring it back. So I tried. My problem was, it wasn't coming out naturally. The timing was all off. Each time I tried saying it out loud, it came out more like that little kid on Disney's Hercules. "Jeepers Mister, you're strong!" Not the sexiest way to compliment a guy.

The only guy that seemed to be flattered was this friend of mine that was probably the weakest guy there, who I said it to in passing as a sarcastic comment...I think I figured out that the trick works best on guys that maybe aren't that strong anyway.

Day 10: Ribbons Down My Back

"It takes a woman all powdered and pink to joyously clean out the drain in the sink!" Horace Vandergelder

Today I watched Hello Dolly!, a great movie with lots of advice on how to catch a man. Here's what I learned:

• Constantly tell him how charming, strong, and handsome he is.
• Send other men to visit the girl he really wants to marry, and have him catch her hiding the other men in his closet. That'll get rid of her and leave you as the next best option.
• You can fill an entire song with all the chores women can do so men won't have to do them - So prepare yourself for a life of indentured servitude.
• Wear big puke green feathers in your hair.
• Set him up with women you know he'll hate.
• Sneakily plant the idea in his head to marry you by repeatedly suggesting that he wants to marry you, but you don't want to marry him.
• Encourage everyone else in his life to abandon him so that he is bitterly alone. Once he is in despair and completely alone, with no one to make his breakfast for him, he''ll realize you aren't such a bad option after all. Nevermind that fact that minutes before he detested the idea of you. At least you could clean up after him and cook for him.

Ah, I have always loved this movie. I never realized how much it could teach me until now.

Day 9: Goals

"Remember in college when you made me set marriage goals? You said you'd do it too. Well, I set goals and you didn't and I got married and you didn't." Tatia "Go Out There and Get It" Granger

If you want to get somewhere in life, you have to set goals. My father taught me that. Every year we'd sit down as a family and set goals. We'd talk about our dreams and our wishes, and my father would tell us if we planned it, wrote it down, believed in it, and then worked for it, it would happen.

It was magic.

But I learned pretty quickly that it wasn't magic, the trick was actually in the work. Goals can't produce results without work. One time my sister Ashley and I watched a cable show that stated that there were 3000 types of birds. We didn't believe it, so we set out to name them all. I'm pretty sure we named about 13 birds and then gave up. Failed goal #1.

Once in high school my sisters and I spent all night planning and talking about how we were going to make the boys in our ward be friends with us (Oddly enough, the guys and girls at church never talked to each other...it's like we were all terrified of what would happen if we did). So we talked about how we were going to change ourselves and change the boys and change the world. The very next morning at the bus stop, we took one look at them, and then abandoned it all. Failed goal #2.

I won't bore you with all the failed goals in my life. I'm just saying, you're reading this blog right now because I was rightly chastised about another failed goal of not setting goals. So I did it, I set some marriage goals today.

I'm pretty sure it'll be magic.

Day 7: Failure

" You never fail until you stop trying." Albert Einstein

I was tired. I was grumpy. Today I felt like trying was the last thing on my list.

I stopped trying when:

• Instead of getting all dolled up, I looked like a homeless woman with banshee hair, a long purple striped sweater, and a face that said, "If you look directly at me, you might die."
• Instead of watching my girlish figure, I went ahead and ate a second brownie.
• Instead of staying at FHE, I ran towards the door at the first opportunity.
• Instead of flirting with the guy that went out of his way to come talk to me as I was attempting to run out the door, I continued to run out the door.
• Instead of gracefully running out the door, I tripped on the way to the door.

The end. (Of the day, not of trying. Don't worry, I will be trying again by tomorrow.)

Day 5: Almost Heaven, WV

"Almost Heaven, West Virginia. Blue Ridge Mountains. Shenandoah River. Life is old there, older than the trees. Younger than the mountains, growin' like a breeze." John Denver

Not only was it my first time in West Virginia, but it was my first time at a YSA conference. Here were the highlights:

1) I'm about 93% sure that I was old enough to be everyone's grandmother.

2) I sat next to a guy in one of the classes and before I could even talk to him, he moved down a couple seats. Not to sit by someone else...he was still sitting alone. I guess I smelled?

3) The favorite conversation I had with a guy was about the tragedy it was that Jack in the Box doesn't exist on the east coast. We both love the tacos, although I only buy 2 for a meal, and he goes for 10.

4) I started to feel like Jack in the Box Guy thought because we both love cheap tacos with fake meat, we were MFEO. He was nice, but I am pretty sure that's all we had in common.

5) Jack in the Box Guy was very interested in getting to know the real me. Each time I tried to inch away from the conversation, he would bring up another fast food chain and try to find out exactly how I felt about it and what I would order if I ate there.

**I just want to mention that although I didn't find my EC in West Virginia, the conference actually was great. The theme was about focusing on the little things, and I feel like I was inspired to make some changes in my life that will help me be happier and to move forward in a positive direction.

Day 4: Fancy Pants

Jack Donaghy: "Alfredo's 2pm"

Liz Lemon: "I'm not dressed for that."

Jack Donaghy:"You're dressed for Burger King. Should we make it Burger King?"

-30 Rock, Season 1, Episode 1

When I was in high school, I thought I looked awesome. I was pretty sure I had a keen sense of fashion. Years later, looking at pictures, I wonder what made me think men's boxer shorts were suitable outer wear for women. I wonder why an intelligent girl of 15 would think those were perfect for a "first day of high school" outfit. (Picture purposefully excluded).

Well, I've come a long way. I no longer wear men's underwear as pants. But I still have a hard time getting all fancied up. I like to be comfortable. I like sweats, t shirts, hoodies and baseball caps. But according to some friends and family, and What Not to Wear, I would look more attractive if I actually wore feminine, well fitted clothing. So, I've been trying.

My friends and I were headed to a YSA conference this weekend, and I figured I should try to make a killer first impression. So I put on my tight jeans, a lacy black tank top, and a white fitted jacket. I even put aside the flip flops for some patterned flats. No one could say I wasn't trying. For a fashionably challenged girl, I looked hot.

My sister Ashley had a genius idea on our drive there. Two words - burger snack. We pulled into Burger King and all decided the Rodeo Cheeseburger looked like a winner - delicious and economical. (As a side note, it was. For $1.39 Charbroiled burger, cheese, onion rings, and BBQ sauce. Yum.) Having truly mastered the art of eating while driving, I wasn't worried. So there we were, laughing, driving and eating...having the time of our life, when I look down and noticed why I hadn't tasted much BBQ sauce on my burger. It's because I was wearing all the sauce down my shirt.

After a lot of screaming (literally) and a lot of napkins (literally), I decided it didn't look that bad. I mean, look on the bright side:

1) Men love the smell of BBQ sauce, and I reeked of it and

2) At least I wasn't wearing boxer shorts.

Day 3: Institute

"Humidity is rising - Barometer's getting low, according to all sources, the street's the place to go. Cause tonight for the first time...It's gonna start raining men." The Weather Girls

Day 2: Talk to Me

"The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech." George Bernard Shaw

I know how to talk. That might not sound impressive, but it is. Conversation is an art form, and I’ve figured out a thing or two about it over the years. But what I haven’t figured out is how to love it. This was my plan for the night, and I was looking forward to it: Me + Aloneness + My pajamas + 30 Rock Season 3 = Bliss.

So when our neighbors invited us to a singles activity to play “outdoor games”, my mind started racing for a good excuse not to go.

“I have to wash my hair.”

“I have tuberculosis.”

“My dog just died.”

Then, I remembered that one of the most repeated words of marriage advice I’ve received is that I should take every opportunity to meet people. The thought of talking to people makes me tired. And grumpy. But I put on a happy face and said, “Sure, I’ll go.”

We went. Games were played. Food was eaten. It was a typical Mormon activity. With typical conversations.

“What’s your name?” I said. (His name was Rodrigo. He had a great name and great hair.)

“Where are you from?” (I asked Brandon that 3 times on accident. Listening to the answer might be helpful next time.)

“What do you do?” I questioned. (“Computer Science…blah blah blah…” Carl said. He lost me after those first two words.)

“How do you know that? Have you been stalking me?” I demanded. (Rodrigo remembered seeing me at a random institute class back in March…I was flattered.)

“Let’s have a Saved by the Bell Party.” I exclaimed. (Everyone agreed. We decided who would be who, and discussed potential outfits, most of which included shoulder pads, neon, and high waist pants.)

“Did you eat guinea pig?” I wondered out loud. (Rodrigo did. But he didn’t like it.)

“Is World of Warcraft an Xbox game?” I politely inquired. (Brett’s thoughts: “Stupid. World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. Everyone knows that.”)

“Is Fantasy Football an Xbox game?” I asked. (Peter’s thoughts: “Seriously? This girl’s an idiot.”)

“¿Cómo se llama llama?” I repeated. (Rodrigo made fun of my Argentine accent. But I knew he was actually jealous of it.)

“Can we go home now?” I implored. (And like true Americans, they answered: Yes, we can.)

Afterwards I was tired, but I wasn’t as grumpy as I thought I’d be. The majority of the night was filled with exhausting conversations, talking about things that did not interest me at all. But, in the midst of all those pointless conversations, there was one that was okay. In fact, it was better than okay.

“You’re fun. I hope we get to talk again,” he said. (I smiled.)

Day 1: The Way to a Man's Heart

"There is one thing more exasperating than a wife who can cook and won't and that's a wife who can't cook and will." Robert Frost

Contrary to popular belief, having the last name Kitchen does not automatically make you a fabulous cook. I've tried my hand at cooking in the past, and haven't always had the best results. For example, one time I made brownies. They looked incredible, they smelled like heaven, but they tasted like garbage. How did I pull off that amazing feat, you ask? I accidentally substituted meat grease for vegetable oil. In my defense, the grease was in an oil bottle and I had poor eyesight. When you can't see the meat particles floating in the grease, it looks exactly like oil. Seriously.

Anyway, I decided that step one to becoming more "marriageable" is to become an excellent cook. I had the fixings for taco salad so I went for it. Before you judge me and say that cooking taco salad is not really cooking, I want you to know I seasoned the meat myself and I made my own tortilla chips out of corn tortillas...impressed? That's what I thought.

So there I was, cooking away. I sauteed the onions, diced the tomatoes and avocados, browned the meat to perfection, adding just the right amount of seasoning. The chips were coming out crisp and salty. I was listening to Eric Hutchinson and dancing around the kitchen like a fool. And I thought to myself, if a man walked into this kitchen right now, he'd be enchanted with me.

Then there was a knock at the door...

My attractive neighbor had come over to drop something off. I couldn't believe my luck, it must have been fate. As my sister opened the door and invited him in, I got ready to graciously invite him to dinner. And then I smelled smoke. I checked the meat, and it looked fine, so I kept chopping and stirring, looking like the charming chef I was. Right as Hot Neighbor came around the corner into the kitchen I opened the oven door to pull out the chips, which happened to be on fire. I started screaming "Fire! Fire!" and threw the chips into the sink. Then, sweaty and smoky but still wonderfully composed, I turned to Hot Neighbor and invited him to dinner.

My cooking skills weren't as impressive as I thought they'd be, but my fire extinguishing skills obviously were. At least enough to make him stay for dinner. Cooking will have to be an ongoing project.