Remember that saying, “Turn on, tune in, drop out”? No? OK, well, you obviously aren’t as old as I am! It’s what the hippies used to say, thanks to Timothy Leary, when they were looking for an excuse to smoke dope reach enlightenment and detach from commitments. 

Don’t worry — I’m not smoking dope (well, maybe an extra glass or two of zin), but I have been detaching from some commitments, thus my lack of an appearance here for the past few weeks, as you’ve probably noticed.

I wish I could say some sort of enlightenment has been reached, but no, not yet. I’m working on it though! Enlightenment is harder than it seems.

Luckily it’s a new year, and while I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions, I have made a promise to be a better Kat than I have been (no, not that way; I’ll still be a naughty kitty!), meaning I hope to write more inspired blogs. I feel like I’ve hit a dead-end of sorts. You’ve probably noticed. But you’ve been kind enough to let it slide — thank you.

So, if you can bear with me while I get closer to that enlightenment, I’d greatly appreciate it.

(Although, perhaps I should reconsider that dope …)

But, enough about me — how’s your new year going?

We found ourselves at the mall, Sara, Mia and me, on Black Friday after all, despite my protestations. Actually, just one store in the mall, the Apple Store, because Mia needed a new power cord for her laptop.

The place was packed (Why? I have no idea; it’s not like Apple offers any Black Friday deals at 4 a.m.), but better yet, it was packed with men. 

“Wow,” Mia exclaimed, ogling the eye candy who were checking out the iPads and iPhones. “Where did all these guys come from?”

“Not around here, that’s for sure,” Sara said, “otherwise I’m sure I would have seen most of them naked at some point.”

Mia and I rolled our eyes.

“This place is better than any speed dating event I went to,” she continued.

“Or bar,” Mia said.

“Or online dating site,” I chimed in.

Could Apple stores be the “new bar” when it comes to meeting people?

I don’t know; it would be a bit creepy to walk up to someone and ask about their ram needs. Personally, I have many, but thankfully Sean is quite generous when it comes to that. Plus, at a bar someone from the other end can buy you a drink (or vice versa); you’re not likely to get a new iPhone from someone a table or two away in an Apple store although, hey, that could be cool.

But, it’s as good a place as any to meet someone, right? It’s where Robin Williams met his latest bride (No. 3), so it can’t be all that bad, right?

Lots of people hate the bar scene: “You can’t meet anyone good there.” I’m not so sure of that. I did — OK, twice, but still. Online dating sites? Same complaint: “I’ve seen him on this site for years. Playah!” OK, but maybe he was in a long-term relationship and broke up … just at the same time your relationship ended and you’re back online (and he’s thinking, “I’ve seen her on this site for years. Playah!”)

Honestly, I don’t where to “go” to meet someone. I think you just have to live your life and not hole up in your pad with a Snuggie , a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, Netflix and the remote. It doesn’t make a difference where or how you meet someone as long as you meet someone.

Generally, it starts with a smile and a hello.

The bigger issue, of course, is how to make things work after the smile, hello and first date. Hey — do they have an app for that yet?

• Where’s the most unusual place you met someone?
• Where do you “go” to meet potential romantic partners?
• What’s harder/more enjoyable — meeting people or the first date?

“Sara, I am not doing Black Friday with you,” I said a little too loudly on my phone as I walked Roxy.

“Oh, c’mon. It will be fun!”

“Getting up at 3 a.m. is not my idea of fun, unless Sean’s poking me and even then …”

“But you love shopping, Kat.”

“I don’t love it, but, yeah, I like me a good shopping ‘experience’ like any other woman, just not with hundreds of crazed shoppers around me. Anyway, I’m going small this year with the gifts.”

“Well, I need to get Todd something, and I have no idea what to get and how much to spend.”

“It will be near impossible to make a rational decision fighting the hordes half-asleep.”

“You’re right. OK, but … what do I get him?”

And isn’t that the million-dollar question on a lot of people’s minds this time of year, especially if they’re in a new relationship — or not sure if they’re even in a relationship? 

I’m a pretty good gift giver — I think. I listen throughout the year for the “I wish” and “I’d love to get,” and if it hasn’t been bought by year’s end that’s likely what Sean, my kids or my parents will find under the tree. Although I still think the best gifts are the ones you give throughout the year “just because,” not just it’s expected of you. The holidays make everybody crazy.

But when you’ve got a new love? I’m just as stumped as Sara is because you’re still learning about him or her. Until you come to an understanding about gift-giving patterns and expectations — is he a big-gift giver or a non-gift guy? Does he have a sense of who you are or did he buy you something some salesperson talked him into? — you have to give something. But, what?

I’ve made CD compilations in the past, but that’s not OK for everyone and might be considered cheap early on in a relationship. Plus, all that’s changed now because of technology. If he’s an iPad/iPhone guy, you can bet the CD and DVD players are long gone.

Lord knows we all have enough stuff, so I’m loathe to buy just anything. How many hat and scarf sets or leather gloves does a guy need? I prefer to give the gift of experience — a concert, a show, a getaway. Can’t do that early on in a relationship, though — it’s a commitment for a future day, and who knows if you’ll still be together or not?

Then there’s the price thing. How much do you spend on someone you’ve known for six months? A year?

And, do you even give a gift to someone who isn’t your boyfriend or girlfriend, someone you’re just seeing? That’s a tricky one.

Now, I’m easy to give for; cook me a dinner, arrange a picnic hike, tickets to a favorite band — I melt like buttah. Just don’t get me something sparkly; as I’ve written before, if a guy buys me jewelry, I know the relationship is doomed.

So, help me help Sara:

• If you’re a guy, what do you like to get as a gift?
• What truly matters more, the thought or the gift? (Be honest!)
  
• What would be inappropriate to get from someone you’re been dating six months?
• Does it bother you if someone you’re dating seems clueless about what you’d like?

 Photo © Mosista Pambudi – Fotolia.com

I’m not sure why this somehow didn’t register with me before, but yesterday is when I realized for the first time that Thanksgiving is next week. Which meant I had to order a turkey — ASAP.

Holidays like Thanksgiving, where there are certain culinary expectations, means you have to detailed plans; what gets picked up when, what gets cooked first, etc. No one wants to deal with the crowds at the supermarket on the day before, so I ordered mine to be picked up on Tuesday — as if I am the only person who would think of that. Somehow, I have a feeling Tuesday will be as crowded — if not more — than Wednesday. Too late.

People are funny that way; we are predictably irrational, as MIT professor Dan Ariely says. 

Which is what I think about tattoo artist Kat Von D’s reaction to the discovery that her ex-fiancee, Jesse James, cheated on her with 19 women in the past year of their on-again, off-again engagement.

Because given his history, you’d want to ask her, what were you thinking? Everyone else was thinking once a cheater, always a cheater.

Although, how many of us date or marry people who cheated on their spouse to be with us? Well, lots of us. What does that say about us?

Few people in online comments have been kind to Kat — in fact, most are downright cruel (of course, so many people aren’t kind in online comments, period!). If they aren’t shaming her, they’re asking, How could you think you were different than anyone else?

Beside the tats, that is.

But, of course we all feel like we’re different than everyone else to a certain extent or in certain situations: We’re never going to be the one who gets cancer, even though we smoke. We’re not going to get a DUI, even though we drive home after a three-martini happy hour. We don’t keep emergency supplies ready even though we live in quake-ridden Bay Area and The Big One is due. And we’ll avoid the crowds at Thanksgiving by picking up our turkey on Tuesday, not Wednesday.

Are we stupid? In denial? Irrational? All of the above and more?

I do not totally convinced of the adage “Once a cheater, always a cheater.” Depending on what drove a person to cheat, I think some people can change; I did.

I am pretty sure we’re capable of cheating on someone we truly love.

I am positively certain that we rationalize a lot of our actions because we actually believe we are different than everyone else.

What about you?

Oh, and see you at the supermarket …

It’s really odd for me to be inside the house on a beautiful sunny fall day, like yesterday. It’s even weirder for me to be watching TV inside the house on a beautiful sunny fall day. But the 49ers were playing, and if you know what’s been going on with the Niners, you’ll understand.  

Plus, I was snuggled up next to Sean so even if you don’t know about the Niners, if you’re a woman, you’ll totally understand.

“Wow, those guys are friggin’ huge!” I said to him, noticing the size of the defense.

“They want them big.”

“But, that’s so unhealthy! Why are they so big?”

“Because no one’s going to get past them.”

“So, the teams are OK with that?”

“There’s a controversy around it, but yes, there’s pressure to supersize.”

Supersize? Guys who are 300 pounds are beyond supersize!

It’s amazing what people will do to their body for their career.

Like models. Despite some rumblings of rejecting the use of emaciated models on the runway awhile back, most models still are ridiculously skinny.

We hear a lot from women about the insanity of super-skinny models and how that affects girls — do men feel the same pressure about their body?

There seems to be some sexism going on.

OK, most men don’t need to pack 300 pounds to do their job well. But look at the covers of some men’s magazines and you’ll see what a man “should” like — broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, totally ripped. Evidently, these images are now causing guys as much body image problems as women have. You just don’t hear too much about it.

Why do we, men and women, freak out about how female models have to starve to make it, women who are just “doing their job,” and not male athletes, who also have to put their bodies through intense modification to be successful?

If you’re packing 300 pounds you’re stressing your heart as much as a heroin-addict-like super-skinny model — either way, it’s just not healthy. But, as they say, it’s a living.

• Should we be as upset about what males have to do to their body to succeed as we are about women?
• Do guys feel pressured to be perfect from the impossibly perfect images on men’s magazine covers?

I was in line at the supermarket when a 30-something woman talking on her cellphone wheeled up behind me; I could hear everything she was saying. She was talking about a breakup, or at least it had all the hallmarks of a specific kind of breakup — she was guessing, second-guessing, making excuses, sounding hopeful and teary-eyed all at once.

It was a “He’s Just Not That Into You” Moment if I ever heard one. And a uniquely gal moment.    

I tried to focus my attention on the magazines at the checkout stand, but those were even more depressing — Cosmo wants to boost my confidence and clue me in on guys’ top sex secrets, O magazine wants to tell me how to try my true calling and how to be beautiful.

I know women can’t be the only ones who have self-doubts, but I don’t think guys obsess about it as much as we do — nor do they have such of barrage of messages coming from all sorts of media. I mean, would a guy ever pick up a book like “Why She Disappeared?” Yet, we have “Why He Disappeared” (written by Evan Marc Katz, whom I admire. Hey, I’ll take relationship advice from a guy over a woman any day!).

Are women innately more insecure than men are? Or, do we seek self-awareness more than men do?

Not to say that men don’t look at themselves and their relationships critically; I’m sure they do. And there’s advice for men out there, too, otherwise you wouldn’t see the thriving PUA movement.

It’s just that most of the self-help and relationship books are geared toward women and we’re scooping them up are like crazy. Would all those “Mars and Venus” books and seminars be around if it weren’t for women? Would Oprah and Dr. Phil be who they are without women? Not a chance!

I don’t think it’s because we’re insecure; I think it’s because women blame ourselves when things go wrong and look to others to help us, while guys try to fix things themselves.

So how can we, uh, fix this? (No, I’m not asking for your advice!) I think we need to teach our daughters to be less other-directed, stop blaming ourselves and give them the knowledge to figure things out for themselves first before looking for help. And we need to teach our sons that there’s nothing unmanly about asking others for help and to create safe places for them to express their emotional vulnerabilities.

OK, now I am asking for your advice:

• Why do women blame themselves so much?
• Why would men rather go it alone than ask for help?

The phone rang ridiculously early on a Saturday morning. It was Sara. I looked over at Sean — snoring happily and oblivious to the drama that was most likely about to unfold — so I answered.

“Did you see that article in the Times?”

“What article?”

“The ‘Modern Love‘ article. She sounds like us.”

“I’ll get back to you,” I said as I hung up the phone and curled back up against Sean, who let out a muffled “Humph.”   

True to my word, I did read the article later that day. And although the author, Sara Eckel, is younger than Sara and me by a few, cough, decades, I totally get what she’s saying:

Being an unattached woman who would rather not be somehow meant you were a nitwit, a bubblehead who had few concerns beyond shopping, pedicures and “Will he call?” My friends and I had no interest in shopping or pedicures, but that didn’t stop us from feeling wildly embarrassed that we longed for love. … Like single women everywhere, I had bought into the idea that the problem must be me, that there was some essential flaw — arrogance, low self-esteem, fear of commitment — that needed to be fixed. I needed to be fixed.

Somehow, if you are a woman admitting that you’d rather not be single — whether you’ve never married or whether you are divorced and looking for love again — people assume there must be something wrong with you if you either make that a priority or if you can’t find someone.

As midlife divorcees, the stereotypes about Sara and me are a little different than those about Eckel and her generation (30-somethings), but they are no less maddening.

Divorcees (of any age) are bitter women who battle their exes and use their children as pawns and their child support payments to become plastic Barbies to keep their fading beauty from fading too quickly, and who got divorced because they knew they’d walk away with the house, the kids and a big, fat alimony check.  Or something like that. It isn’t true for many of us — certainly not Sara and me — but that doesn’t make things better. Perception is reality for too many people.

I hate the perceptions about divorced people — we’re failures, flawed, selfish, and self-absorbed people who don’t understand what commitment and “for better or worse” means, and put our own needs (aka happiness) before our children’s need, blah, blah, blah.

Those perceptions sting.

Like Eckel, we are wrestling with the belief that there’s something inherently wrong with us — we couldn’t make a marriage work, after all. How hard is that?!?! OK, granted — there are some divorced people who are bitter, who are oblivious to what commitment means, who have selfishly put their needs before their kids’. But, please don’t paint all of us with that broad paintbrush.

As for wanting love again at midlife, well, there’s the rub: Most of us assume we won’t find someone because of our wrinkles, sags and “issues.” And, yes — it is a little harder to find people at age 40 and beyond because the pool of eligible men is somewhat smaller and there’s a certain percentage of guys who want to skew younger. Fine — we’re not interested in those types! As Eckel says:

Did we find love because we grew up, got real and worked through our issues? No. We just found the right guys. We found men who love us even though we’re still cranky and neurotic, haven’t got our careers together, and sometimes talk too loudly, drink too much and swear at the television news. We have gray hairs and unfashionable clothes and bad attitudes. They love us, anyway.

Finding the “right guys” (or, in broader terms, the right person) is the take-home message.

Of course, nothing’s wrong with naming and addressing our issues head-on, and working through them as best we can. You can’t be available to fully embrace and love someone else if you can’t fully embrace and love yourself.

But, really, someone who loves us despite the crankiness, neuroses, gray hairs, bad clothes and other “endearing qualities” — isn’t that what we all want?

We just have to be prepared to do the same for someone else.

• Ever feel that there was something wrong with you because you were seeking love?
• Ever feel that something was wrong with you because you couldn’t find love?
• Ever feel that something was wrong with you because you couldn’t hold on to love?
• What stereotypes as a single or divorced person bother you the most?

Photo © Refocus Photography – Fotolia.com

“Do you think Sara Leal’s attractive?” I asked Sean as we snuggled on a lazy Sunday morning.

“Who’s that?”

Sean’s a smart guy, but he’s not too hip when it comes to the latest celebrity or celeb scandal — thankfully!

“The young blond party girl who had sex with Ashton.”

“Why do you pay attention to that stuff?”

Good question. I really don’t because I just can’t stand our celeb-obsessed culture. But as someone who likes to observe people — and as a mom —a Sara Leal is someone to pay attention to.    

Why? She’s pretty, young, has a great bod and can party with best of them — the kind of girl a lot of guys like to sleep with.

Now, I never would have heard about Sara and I’ll bet neither would have any one else if she hadn’t had unprotected sex — twice — with Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore’s husband.

So why do I know about the 22-year-old? Because after first asking for $250,000 to shut up about it, which obviously didn’t happen, she then blabbed about it to anyone who would listen (which, sadly, is a huge portion of the population) — presumably for cash — saying that sleeping with him has messed up her life.

No, Sara, the truth is, you messed up your life. Sleeping with a married man (OK, he allegedly told her he was separated, but still) is bad enough but I won’t judge other people’s actions. But sleeping with him and then selling your story and all the details (“He had great endurance. We were up for a while. It was about two hours.”) to magazines isn’t going to help you move past your part-time modeling gig.

Except, of course, it probably will. I imagine Sara’s already entertaining offers to pose naked in Playboy, and I wouldn’t doubt that we’ll soon see her on reality TV. To get your 15 minutes of fame nowadays all you have to do is sleep with a high-profile guy once or twice, sell your story or pictures of it, or both, and you’ll pocket a few thousand to ease your heartbreak.

If I were a mom of a daughter, we’d probably be having a long discussion about how not to get famous by going the Sara Leal route. Being naive and stupid (unprotected sex?) and then opportunistic is a very ugly combination, no matter how pretty you are.

Then there are all the topless picture of her circulating on the Internet and descriptions by friends that she “parties a lot” and would “go out with her best friends, and she’d get drunk and be the fun girl.” This is not something to be known for. Being a party girl ages you pretty quickly.

And her 15 minutes of fame from all of this will blow away quickly, and she’ll spend many more years trying to get people to forget about it than being able to capitalize on it. Need proof? Look at Monica Lewinsky, who didn’t seek fame but who got it anyway.

Reading some of the comments on the online stories about the Sara-Ashton “event,” guys are calling her skanky but in the same breath saying, “but I’d still f@*k her.” Because that’s how people will see her now. I have to wonder — was it worth it?

Knowing that about some guys, and I’m mom to a guy, I’ll be talking about Sara Leal to The Kid, too. While Ashton may have been a relatively safe bet for having unprotected sex with since he’s been married for the past six years, Sara is a party girl. If she’s having sex on the first hookup with no protection, you can pretty much bet she doesn’t use protection, period, and the consequences of that could be disastrous — STDs, AIDs, a baby. I really want my kid to think about that.

Beyond the sex part, I’d want to explore with him why guys find someone like Sara Leal — with her heavy makeup and boozy partying — attractive? OK, that was a stupid question — I know why guys find someone like Sara Leal attractive. Which makes me think we have a very skewed idea of what’s attractive.

When I explained to Sean why, as a mom, I feel a need to talk about Sara Leal, I asked him again if he thought she was attractive. “No,” he said, “but I’d still f@*k her.”

• Is there a message for kids in the Sara Leal saga?
• Is there a message for all of us in the Sara Leal saga?

“Was marriage what you expected it would be?” Mia asked, not quite directed to anyone in particular as we sat at Sam’s, enjoying the post-rain sun.

“No way! I had no idea how mind-numbingly boring it could be,” Sara said. “Like ‘Groundhog Day.’”

“Mine wasn’t boring, well it had its boring moments. We just stopped being nice to each other I think,” Mia said. “What about you, Kat?”

“I didn’t have many expectations. I don’t think I knew what I wanted it to be; I just knew what I didn’t want it to be — my parents’ marriage.”

“I hear that!” Mia exclaimed. “But, did ours turn out any better?”

That was a good question. All our parents have been married for 60-some years. Mia, Sara and me? All divorced in under 20 years.  

Who’s happier? Our parents didn’t shake it up but we sure did at midlife. After divorce, we threw ourselves into our careers, our friends, our passions. Still, we all wanted love, too. And we’ve found our way, sorta kinda. Mia was happy with Rex, until that ended horribly and she’s been floundering since, including dating a man who’s newly separated. Sara has been floundering, too, striking out with Yoga Man, who was just too emo for her, but then she met Todd — a nice guy who wants a threesome (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and who has a pretty cool ex. I’ve been incredibly happy with Sean, a great guy whom I adore — and not just because he thinks my small breasts are perfect. But we don’t and probably won’t ever live together (which may actually be why we’ve lasted this long).

Our parents? As kids, then sharp-eyed teens and eventually cynical adults, we’ve seen a bit (or more) of their marital dysfunction — and who knows the secrets they’ve kept from us? But they toughed it out, for better or worse, probably without any of the expectations we had when we married. Of course, our moms didn’t have the same choices we women have today. Neither did our dads — a stay-at-home dad in the ’50s? I don’t think so!

I honestly don’t know who’s had it better or easier. Do we want too much from a marriage? Did our parents expect too little?

Experts are blaming our 50 percent divorce rate and the increasingly loud chorus of those who think marriage is obsolete on our unrealistic expectations of marriages.

I didn’t have those expectations, but I guess I had a picture in my head of what a happy marriage looked like. You know, a little Norman Rockwellish because I’m a sentimental romantic at heart. But my observations of my own marriage is pretty much like my observation of life — there’s a lot of mundane stuff interrupted by some really nice stuff. I embrace the nice stuff, accept the mundane stuff and try to make the mundane parts a little less boring and get more of the nice stuff. And, I can’t really count on someone else doing that for me.

I’m not sure if that’s a sustainable model for a marriage — you obviously have to pick the right person from the beginning and some of us really don’t. Plus, you really do have to want to be married — some of us are just not cut out to be in a long-term, monogamous relationships. And, that’s OK.

Maybe we need to go into a marriage with no expectations — then we’d be constantly surprised!

• What expectations did you have in your marriage?
• Were they “unrealistic”?

© Volker Gerstenberg – Fotolia.com

“I feel so bad for Demi,” Sara said as we made our way up Old Railroad Grade.

“Sara, you really need to stop obsessing about Demi and Kim and Leann. When did you become such a celeb follower?”

“It’s not that! I couldn’t care less about them. I care about the broader issues.”

“Like?”

“Like can we older gals live just as happily-ever-after with boy toys as old guys with hot babes do?”

“So, you don’t think we can just because Ashton likes to have sex with other babes?” 

“Other younger babes.”

“Of course — did you expect he’d cheat with someone older than Demi? She’s 48!”

“It’s not that.”

“You’re right. It’s that he’s a cheater, and that probably doesn’t have anything to do with Demi’s age.”

Or does it?

Guys go for youth. This is not rocket science. But older women get their share of interest from younger men because we bring quite a few things to the table — experience, comfort in our own skin, and a savvy sexual appetite.

Say what you will about cougars, but it makes sense that older women should hook up with younger men. Maybe not guys 15 years younger, like Demi and Ashton, but maybe a few years — 5 or so. Why? Because men die younger than women do, and that means there are so many more widows than widowers. It means women often spend a decade or more alone when they’re old and more likely to need companionship more than ever; that’s sad!

Marrying someone younger would lessen the chance of that.

Plus, 15 years is an awfully big gap; your interests and experiences are bound to be pretty different. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean a marriage wouldn’t work — lots of people the same age with similar interests and experiences get divorced! But being just 5 years or so apart in age puts you in the same generation, anyway. And, you’d also have similar aging issues.

Maybe that’s the biggest turn off of all. The body starts to wrinkle, sag and shift, the mind starts to wander and then what? I know that stuff shouldn’t matter —after all, we don’t know what illnessnes and accidents await us at any age. But maybe starting off with a “disadvantage,” it will — eventually.

So, maybe cougars and boy toys should plan on five blissfully happy years together, and then move on. There are always more young men out there, ladies …

Does a big gap in a relationship matter in the long run?