So 2008. Wasn’t so bad. I’ll give you all the highlights of my year, other than the mucho importante jello conclusions listed above.

Favorite New Artist - Ray LaMontagne
Favorite Movie - Lars and the Real Girl
Favorite Book - In Defense of Food by Michael Pollen
Favorite Moment - Pool Party at Jessi’s wedding
Favorite Meal - meat pancakes with paprika sauce in Budapest (not kidding)
Favorite Travel Destination - Prague

I’m excited about 2009. Can’t help but have high hopes. We’ll see what unfolds. Stay tuned.

Ready? Okay. Here goes it: Do not ask women on a first date if they’ve ever kissed a girl.

I understand you might be tempted to. It’s bizarre to me that you are, but I understand.

Regardless, try to resist the temptation.

It doesn’t come across well.

Shockingly, however, now that Billy has that clarified (my answer being a resounding “NO” for any of you curious), I actually think we might be seeing each other again. I got the next-day-follow-up e-mail about an hour ago.

I do want to state for the record that I think I’m being asked a lot of strange questions on dates and pre-date phone calls that most people say haven’t been a part of their introductory conversations. What’s up with that? Call me crazy, but I think things like, “Tell me about your family” or “What kind of movies do you like to watch?” are a bit more mainstream. I guess things like kissing other women is one way to “break the ice”. Or smatter it. Whatever.

Sadly, I have nothing to report about set-up #2. I showed up at church and the only man waiting to meet me there was Jesus. I don’t feel stood up, really, as Nathan knew nothing about what was happening. But now I have to find another opportunity to meet him, and though I know all of you are tuning in regularly with baited breath hoping I to have found love (or to just hear one of the 1,000 untold stories), I’m not sure I’ll have anything else to report until January. So, until then, or until the other guy from my mom’s Bible study calls, or until Jared forces me to actually sign up for e-Harmony, or until I start flirting with people at the grocery store, or…well, this might be all I have for you.

Tomorrow I meet Billy. Billy. Gotta love a 38-year-old man who calls himself Billy, I say. Why am I meeting Billy you ask? Well, check this out and tell me you don’t think this is a disaster waiting to happen. A few weeks back my mom was at Bible study when a woman DURING PRAYER REQUESTS mentioned her 40-year-old brother and him wishing he was married and starting a family and blah blah blah. Another woman spoke up and said, “I have a 38-year-old brother who says the same thing, but he just can’t seem to meet the right girl.” ENTER MY MOTHER. Knowing FULL WELL what she was doing, Susan spoke up and said, “Well, I have a 33-year-old daughter who wants to meet the right guy.” Thanks, Mom. Well, maybe I shouldn’t complain too quick. This could all come back and bite me later. Regardless, I say the fact that we’re single is NOT enough reason to set us up. Do we know if any of us have anything in common other than the fact that significant women in our lives study the Bible together? This is insane. Thankfully only one of them has made contact so far. I’m starting to get dizzy trying to keep all of this straight.

So last week I got an e-mail from Billy two days before I met Mr. Potato down in Branson. And plans began to submerge about getting together this week. He seems funny enough in his e-mails, but Branson-man seemed funny enough on the phone and we all know how that turned out. I will wait until tomorrow to formulate too many ideas, Mom…don’t you worry. My mind is WIDE OPEN about this one, I PROMISE. I will say if for no other reason I was glad to have plans with Billy starting as I forged through my infamous lunch at Applebee’s so I would remember that “there are many more fish in the sea.”

I’m much more hopeful about Sunday. Sunday? Sure he’s young (shut up, Jessi), but he definitely seems like someone I would WANT to meet. I have a couple significant friends to thank for this, and they know me well enough to only be suggesting this because they see genuine possibility. So Sunday, I meet Nathan. That’s all I have to say about that.

I will tell you, however, that for as exciting as all of this is, to have two set ups in one weekend leaves me in a bit of a laundry quandary (yeah, I just said that). See, after tons of wardrobe evaluation pre-Coldplay a collaborative decision was made amongst my closest of friends that one particular outfit made the perfect first impression about me. And so it was then decided that in the process of “playing” said “field” I should subsequently wear said outfit on ALL FIRST DATES, so as to not ever get confused about what I’ve worn around whom. Not a problem when I’m meeting one person a week. But two in two days? I think it’s STUPID that I will be spending part of my Saturday doing laundry seeing as I just did it today.

Maybe I just need to go shopping some might say. I say, no. This just makes the whole thing more ridiculous. And yes, for the record, this does make two blog entries about laundry in one year. Why are you people even reading this?

[See post to watch Flash video]

Yeah, it blew my mind too.

(Special thanks to Jared MegaHurst for making this video possible. It would’ve been better had you been there, but I know you just can’t handle being that cool.)

Allow me to highlight a few of the moments FROM OUR LUNCH AT APPLEBEE’S.

First, when he ordered his steak, the waitress asked what side we wanted. He chose a baked potato. She then asked, “Would you like sour cream and butter with that?” His response? “Well, am I going to be charged for them?” She said, “No, they’re complimentary.” He then detailed an entire story about another dining experience where he was charged $7 for a loaded baked potato or something and then tried to explain to me he’s only trying to live faithfully by the financial principles he’s learned from Dave Ramsey. Now, I’m no Dave Ramsey expert, but I know enough to confidently say Mr. Ramsey did not have baked potato toppings in mind when he set out his principles for debt-free living.

So Mr. Potato then “casually” lead us into conversation starting with simple questions like, “So do you frequent bars regularly?” “No? Well, do you drink much?” “Have you ever done any drugs?” “Never even smoked marijuana?” All these are clearly great ice-breakers on a first date during the first 10 minutes at a table, yes. But now would also be a good time to tell you about our pre-date phone call last week when he jumped immediately from “How was your Thanksgiving?” to “Can you tell me why you’re not married?” which lead to a 45-minute discussion about singleness and marriage and ended with him telling me that he has “full intention of making up for lost time” in reference to sex. At the time, I didn’t even know his last name. Awkward.

I tried to take the conversation past the inquisition about drugs and alcohol and asked him about his work. He then told me he could never do what I do, as it is clearly “so boring.” Being one who normally have people respond with the exact opposite, I was curious why he thought so. He said, “Wedding photography?…it’s like seeing the same movie over and over again. Same characters, same plot line…boring.” Nice. You probably think every city in Europe looks the same. And that every glass of wine tastes like the other. Awesome. Clearly, a great match for me.

I asked him what he did when he wasn’t working or teaching. This is where it’s totally amazing. “Well,” he said, “I sought out a part-time job.” He sat, smiling, waiting for me to ask. “What do you do?” I said. (Seriously, people…I am not making this up.) “I work at Silver Dollar City as a stand-up comic in the Saloon.” (Yeah. I’m not. I promise.) I followed up with, “Do you write your own material, or is it scripted?” “Oh, it’s scripted, but they let us ad lib.” I seriously think I want to take Jared down to see his act so this whole experience can be enjoyed to its fullest. Only problem? I never want to see him again. Why? Let me continue…

At one point during lunch he started talking about sex…again…every chance he got. Like making mention of movies he wants to see and listing “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” at the top. Now, I know it was a “joke” as he is clearly trying to “ad lib” here, but I’m pretty sure avoiding the use of the word porno at any time during a first date is probably a good idea. I’m just sayin’…

But why? Why NOT mention “porno” when you’re also going to tell me the story about an ex-girlfriend who you were highly disappointed by her moral character when having a discussion about boundaries said, “But what if three or four months into our relationship I WANT you to play with my breasts?” Yeah…about that…um, Matt?…I didn’t need to know that. You didn’t need to detail that story to me over lunch at Applebee’s. No. No, you didn’t. I especially didn’t need to hear you say, “Now, don’t get me wrong…it’s not that I didn’t WANT to either, but I’m trying to honor the Lord with my sexuality and I know things like that need to wait.” Just stop talking.

So clearly when I went to say good-bye you’ll understand why I opted for a handshake.

I didn’t want my breasts anywhere near him.

At all.

It’s seriously brilliant. To sum up? Eat food. Not too much. Mostly greens. A lot of info about how the government and food industries have teamed up to brainwash us into thinking the Western diet is actually good for us. And then a lot more info about how it’s actually killing us.

Like Joe, I’m attempting to cut out a few bad practices and replace them with good ones all a bit at a time. My first step has been to reprogram my brain into seeing the layout of a dinner plate entirely different. Seems since youth I have been taught from my mom to t.v. dinners to any restaurant you visit that protein should take up half the plate, while starches take up most of space remaining, and veggies? Well, they just get the small corner leftover.

Take a look at a plate the other day as I attempted to eliminate starches and give protein a minor role to the vegetable festival I called lunch with my friend Cara.

From the top moving clockwise allow me to impress you with my wicked culinary skills:
1. butternut squash soup made without dairy and heavy butter
2. braised red cabbage with a little goat cheese (because you can’t be good 100% of the time)
3. roasted brussel sprouts with almonds and dried cranberries (dont’ judge…they’re amazing)
4. spaghetti squash with shiraz kissed organic tomato sauce

The yummy substance in the center? Organic chicken sausage from Whole Foods, following the recommendation to only buy proteins raised organically, free-range, and free of antibiotics. And yes, even though it was lunch, I did have a glass of wine with my meal. I felt a little bit like a lush in the process, but he said I should, so I did.

(I’ll give you all a minute to think of your own responses to that.)

(And another minute to laugh a little.)

(And yet a few more to come up with another joke or two.)

(And, now, laugh a little bit more.)

Now that you’ve got that out of your system, allow me to clarify a few things.

No, we did not meet on Shoji Tabuchi’s fan club website.
We will not be throwing rolls at each other at Lamberts.
I’m pretty sure we won’t be outlet mall shopping.
Or riding the ducks.
I hope we’re not actually going to be wearing Bible belts.
A Yakov Smirnoff show is not my idea of a good time.
Smirnoff, however, is probably (ironically) illegal to drink down there.

Dang it.

So Coldplay was awesome. Todd was great. No major connection made, but it was just a concert, right? Right. And you’ll all be happy to know there was no vomit involved at any point of the date, prior - during - or after. As my sister Dana shared with me, there is nothing sexy about vomit, so I, clearly being very, very sexy, decided not to throw up.

However, in classic Kelly fashion, one moment during dinner deserves recap. We met up in the Power and Light District before the show and enjoyed the last decent fall night on the patio of Gordon Biersch. My dad instructed me years ago to only eat things requiring forks on the first five dates, as I have a habit of making a mess of everything. So in reviewing the menu, I honored his request, seeing everything in only two catergories - fork and no fork. My date ordered from the no fork section. Some sort of southwest chicken sandwich. Being very sweet, he offered to let me try it half way through eating. I, being very honest, shared with him the rule my dad had given me, as we had learned pre-date that our dads were high school friends. (Weird. Yeah, I know.) He laughed when I said, “I would love to, thank you, but my dad has specifically directed me to only eat with forks on the first few dates…so I’m sure it’s great, but whatever sauce is in there would somehow find it’s way on my face or down my shirt or something as I am the biggest klutz around, so I think I might need to pass.” He laughed a little, asked, “Sure?”, and two hot seconds later I took a bite of my salad and somehow managed to drop a piece of lettuce from the fork down my shirt.

Yeah.

I totally did.

And he saw it all happen.

Being a gentleman, he excused himself from the table so I could “take care of the situation” while I meanwhile sat on the patio and dug lettuce out of my top like an idiot.

Yes, it’s true. Facebook. I’m like a 16-year-old. An old high school acquaintance wrote me, then I him, then he me, then I him, and then Coldplay tickets fell out of the sky like a gift from heaven and now…we’re going.

I’m seriously so nervous about this I think I might throw up on my keyboard. I haven’t been able to eat for about three days. Sleep? Yeah. Didn’t get any of that last night. I’m a mess.

Sometimes I think when you meet up like this after, what, 16 years you probably shouldn’t spend the whole week on the phone and texting because expectations tend to be built. And I hate going into things with super high expectations. So I keep telling myself, “It’s just a concert.”

It’s just a concert.

It’s just a concert.

It’s just a concert.

(There, Joe. I blogged.)

“That’s impressive,” I said.

His reply?

“I have a pornographic, I mean, photographic memory.”

Gross.

Didn’t know whether I should be completely grossed out or completely grossed out.

I went with being completely grossed out.

The bags, of course, had to be special ordered, so when I came back to pick them up, he said, “Took you long enough.”

I told him, “Sorry. I injured my lower back and it’s taken me a couple days to get back to running errand like this.”

His reply?

“New boyfriend?”

And I wonder why every time I come by there is a new office assistant.