Today, I blushed until the roses asked for their color back.

So, I had a business meeting today with someone whom I had never met.

He actually found me through Linked In, so I had seen a microscopic photo of him, and he looked cute. But given that I have been in the single doldrums until about two weeks ago, I really hadn't given it much thought. Besides, Linked In, unlike Facebook, doesn't disclose much personal information. And honestly, I assumed he was either gay or married. Such is A-town, right ladies?

Anywho, I showed up this morning, and he was so cute, I blushed to my knees. I mean, I blushed so hard that I blushed again, embarrassed at how much I was blushing. I blushed so deep the roses called me and asked me for their color back. Blushing, at age 37? Really? Is that what we're doing? I was suddenly transported to seventh grade when you get that first real crush, and so much is riding on the outcome. A first love letter. A first kiss. A first stolen glance in the hallway between class. A first time you feel those butterflies flutter in your stomach. While all that was delicious, all this was so new again! So unexpected! So out of my control! Control, ladies, that is what I completely lacked.

So, to cover up my blush, I smiled like a stranger in a strange land, where you don't know the language so you smile in greeting, thinking that makes you fit in. Remember that movie, "The Gods Must be Crazy?" Okay, you have no idea about that movie, but for that other person out there who watched it, I smiled as much as that Kalahari bushman in the courtroom. I mean I smiled so big that I think Businessman could see the skeletal structure of my head behind my strained skin, like an X-ray. I smiled so much in fact that he looked at me with that grin movie stars give their fawning fans, that sort of slightly embarrassed but flattered look? You know the one, you've seen it a thousand times on TMZ as stars get "spotted" by the hoi polloi. Anyway, what a great way to introduce myself. Like a fawning, friggin' idiot. Totally smooth.

Okay, all of the awkward introductions out of the way, we proceed to the business portion of the meeting. I had to take pictures at his company, and this guy (did I mention he was hot?) became a complete ham... I couldn't get him out of the photos, and really, he didn't need to be in them! I was annoyed, and then I gave him one of those looks grammar teachers give pupils who can't diagram a sentence. A bit stern. Suddenly, I had the upper hand. Oh this is fun!

Once I figured out that he was a ham and actually knew he was hot (of course he did!), then I relaxed and had fun with the meeting. There were some flirty e-mail exchanges later on, in which he couldn't see my blush, or skeletal structure.

The long and short of it is now I have a lunch date. And that, my friends, is the unbridled power of a blushing rose.

It's nearly final.

My divorce papers were signed today. We took them to my bank. The poor young man who had to be our notary public. It was obvious how awkward it was for him. I apologize to you, sweetheart. That was a terrible moment for you to have to go through. Especially so early in the morning and before you had finished your coffee! Oh, the horror.

About my divorce, I feel confused. Seriously sad on the one hand. I had all my eggs in that basket, so to speak. And literally, really I had all my eggs in that basket. I had hoped my eggs would be a part of procreating with my husband. It was my only procreation plan, really. I guess right now, I still don't have any other plan involving my eggs. All my eggs were in that basket.

On the other hand, I feel like the weight of the world has been lifted off my back. It was, by most accounts, a marriage that ran at a low-grade level of comfort and discomfort for many, many, many years. We were married in round numbers about a decade. A decade of bad sex, misunderstandings, failed attempts at therapy, empty threats to leave each other, superficial attempts at patching things up.

What we lacked -- in my flawed analysis -- was problem solving skills for our relationship. What I had in tenacity he lacked in will. What he had initially in patience I lacked in wife skills. When I gained wife skills, he lacked patience. What we had too much of was compatibility. That's why we lasted 10 years. 10 years! Had we been incompatible, it would have last less than 3 years, max.

I will tell you -- just for your eyes -- I am still madly in love with this man. I love him like I love my left leg. I can't live without it. It's become a part of who I am. I limp when it is hurt.

However, unlike my left leg, my husband left me. So I am left without him. I am learning to walk without him. Luckily for me, I still have my left leg. One day I may think it's lucky to not have him. Today? Let's leave luck out of it.

I love myself, despite my failed marriage. And I love my good friends, my town, my life. My life is very big. My life is very full. My marriage was like a pacifier. It felt very good, but it really didn't satisfy me.

Enough said.

Cazar or casar? To hunt or to marry?

I have been fluent in Spanish since I was about 16. I earned Spanish. I am not a native speaker. I studied it for years, and went away as an exchange student in high school to really master it. My high school friends were in awe of me. "How could I go away?" they asked me, as I packed my bags at the end of my sophomore summer. "How could I stay?" I thought, looking at the four walls of our subdivision. Spanish was an escape. A great adventure!

I would say, really, I didn't become "fluent" until college. It took, quite frankly, lots of study. Verb and vocab look-up in real "Spanish" dictionaries (not English-to-Spanish, but the equivalent of Webster's, only in the king's Castellano). Reading the entire "Don Quixote" in Spanish. My paperback version comprised two, 1,000-page volumes. Spanish has been a partial source of my identity ever since. That foreign land became a part of me: a culture, language, music that I could own. Luckily, the Latinos accepted me, this Gringa, even when she didn't accept herself.

I love all things related to Hispanic culture. I mostly love the men.
They have, in general, a dark complexion, which my fairness matches in equal measure.
They have, in general, a great sense of humor, which shakes me out of my Anglo-Saxon seriousness. They make me laugh, nudging my Protestant-American sensibilities. They often are self-deprecating, acknowledging their own macho bravado and innate sensuality, which makes my feminist upbringing quake to its core!

I married one -- he wasn't Hispanic, but from another Latin-tinged language that still melts my heart. His country is vast, mysterious, perplexing, exotic, brutal, soft, harsh and melting. I love it. The rhythm of the language and music beating a path to my heart. They are a sweet and loving tribe.

Yet, we didn't work out.
Who knows why.
My feminism? My American-ness?
His patriarchy, ingrained as an accent?
Who knows.
I will be honest. I still love this man. I adore him. Find him sexy. Delicious. Mysterious. Boring.
I know he loves me too. But I drive him inexplicably crazy. We can't make this work.
I wasn't about to give up though. In the end, he divorced me. I had a hard time accepting this.

At the same time, I knew that after many difficult years, we had most definitely not worked out. We had no kids to show for ourselves. Only a house, mostly-renovated, and yet as empty inside as when we found it.

I am in parts heart-broken, and yet, inexplicably, ecstatic.
It's my new freedom that finally embraced me when I wasn't looking this summer.

It woke up a part of me that never, not in my teens or twenties or early thirties, ever reared its wild, sexy head.
Part of me woke up that said, "I am woman, hear me roar! But come closer while you listen..."
I felt empowered, like a woman in the 1960s discovering birth control and LSD all at once.
Empowered, like listening to that song, "It's raining men."
Empowered, like listening to, "I will survive!"
Empowered, like Madonna's "Material Girl."
Empowered, shaking like Shakira's hips.

The awakening was abrupt. And all at once, I couldn't move without hitting a man who was ready and willing.

I couldn't swing a cat without knocking into a hot guy with devilish intentions. I didn't even know that I had devilish intentions. I had always, and I mean always, wanted to be a bit of Angel. There was some form of solace and self-esteem in being angelic. Some sort of smugness that I wanted as my own.

Not anymore, I tell you. Angelic-ness, be damned! And strike me down Jesus, Mary, Joseph and David and Allah, Buddha and Yaweh, but I tell, I'll have none of it! It didn't serve me well. Only good girls get the blues, I tell you. Even with my divorce, I've spent fewer blue days recently than I think in my most of my sweet, angelic life...

So, with this blog, as the Gods are my witness, I will tell you all about it. The blues, the men, the friends, the crazy with a Kapital "K."

But first, my name.

In Spanish, the verb "to marry" is spelled "casar." It's the root of the word "house," or "casa", like "mi casa, su casa," right?

But, a similarly pronounced verb, "cazar," means "to hunt."

In my case, it seems oddly appropriate to contrast "hunting" and "marrying." So Cazadora means the hunter (only huntress, I suppose).

I am divorced, yet single and looking, yet a bit gun shy. What will I catch as I go hunting? More single types? Fun and naughty? Serious and waiting to tie the knot? Bad boys with good intentions?

Come along with me as I see what I catch in my traps.