Hilarious

I know it's really bad form to write about work. So I will. Cause I am occasionally the queen of bad form; just ask my mother. It's all good, though, which is why I'm going to write about it.

One of the things I appreciate about my career path is that in a position like mine I am out of the office working in the community quite frequently. In fact, my boss just said last week that she hopes not to see me very often. In the six weeks that I've been working here, I've made about, oh, 50ish new contacts who work at other human services organizations. So that 50 does not count either the kids I work with regularly, their parents, or my direct coworkers.

The county I work in is very large and very spread out, compared to my prior jobs. There are 20 high schools, as compared to four in the county I used to work in. That means that the human services community isn't very tight knit. There are discrete groups of people who work together, but not everyone is connected to everyone else. A long term goal of mine in this position is to create an information-sharing council of youth-serving organizations. Such a group would benefit from knowing the services and programs other organizations provide, thus maximizing youth support and minimizing overlaps in services.

Anyhoo, all that is really beside the point; I was meaning to talk about one of those discrete groups of new colleagues. There's a very large youth-development agency here that has a big staff of people who work with youth outside of the schools. I'm collaborating with said group of people and a few other organizations to plan a big county-wide youth event for next fall. We had a meeting on Wednesday night, and I was floored at the conversations these women (cause it's mostly women, face it) had with one another. It felt more like a slumber party than a gathering of professionals. Now, do NOT get me wrong; these women are very professional when in a more work-like setting. It's just that they are good enough friends that there's a certain fluidity to their work/life-on/off switch.

All that background just to tell you that as soon as they had a chance they were drilling me about my relationship status. My short explanation of "the-only-single-men-I-meet-are-10-years-younger" met with an absolute buzz of problem-solving activity. They are going to FIND me a man, damnit! Did I care if he was divorced? No. If he smoked? Well...(I didn't get into it). Did I have a "preference"? (Huh?? Clarification: Do you date black men) No, no preference.

The only real limitations I put on were that he be 1) catless and 2) not socially conservative.

So far I have a date with a financial planner (FP) who wants kids immediately. The woman who knows the FP called her fiance to arrange a time/place/situation for all of us to go out. The fiance's only comment was "Is she skinny? Cause he won't do with a woman without some meat on her bones!"

I like him already.

(Except he likes to stay up late and is very muscular/big. I'm more prone to be attracted to a whippet-shaped man. These are minor issues)