Swipe Right

bumbling™️ through spring

swipe left

Bio (Write a fun and punchy intro):

Over-educated art weirdo & widow working on working less (or differently, at least). I like colors. I like to write. I smell good.

If I’m looking at all (I highly dislike partner-shopping online) it’s for someone to learn alongside… to make beautiful and/or useful things with. Curiosity > skill.

[this is real. And this is honest:]

Frivolously-educated art weirdo & widow working on working out more before middle age truly solidifies the belly plump that’s for most of my life been subjugate to the width of my hips while continuing to decry with all my heart (big, guarded) every last aspect of patriarchy that implores spending anything other than kinetic energy on said width. I like to walk. I generally smell good.

If I’m looking at all (because 1/2 or one shifting part of the time I am quite happy in my singularity, my double-wide bed, and I hate that we live in a time or place where any introduction must be mediated by an app or a class or a friend or barring all of that, a beer) it’s for someone to teach me new things and call my bullshit out (but gently)… to share tools with, to build complementarily. Curiosity > skill (but please also be skilled). Be solid.

[TL;DR?:]

Art weirdo & widow looking to ride into menopause with a skilled and sturdy emotional support system that can handle this ish and make me laugh far more than I cry

Pick some photos that show the true you

when one loses a partner one also loses the chronicler of one's interstitial moments, the registrar of one's perimetric faces.

Interests (get specific about the things you love): 💤Sleeping well (hard to do with someone else in bed tbh), 🥾Hiking (because walking’s not on the list), ✏️Design (“Zephyr loves design”), 🌆Exploring new cities (on foot), 🥬Kimchi (seriously)

Causes and Communities: Human Rights (I guess we need to call it out these days)

Tell us what you value in a person (choose 3 that would make a connection that much stronger) : Humor, Kindness, Curiosity (no joke)

Prompts (Let people know what it’s like to date you):

My Perfect Typical First Date Is: meeting you in line or at the door to a local cafe (which I have probably walked to and am thus probably sweating — from the walk, not nerves, I am OG at this by now) where we will awkwardly acknowledge each other with an exaggerated expression intended to indicate that the other does in fact look enough like their photos to instigate recognition, perhaps punctuated with a one-armed hug followed by mild banter while waiting to see who will pay for whose coffee (I will try). With drinks in hand (hopefully quickly, though an extended delay is an opportunity for the barista to play a small bit part in our introduction) we’ll leave the cafe and I will immediately begin to subconsciously steer our walk for the next 30-90 minutes, depending on how interesting you are or how interesting you make me feel. Invariably the conversation will compel a mention or confirmation that I am a widow, and sometime after that I will probably feel obligated to point out that the husband was not the son’s father but that he too is Late. Like Chutes & Ladders¹, this admission will either send us down the slippery slope of tragic storytelling (but not trauma-bonding, I have done too much therapy for that to still rush my serotonin) or — rarer, but better — offer a subtle stepping stone to more philosophical and/or humorous exchange (therapy has not yet erased my compulsion to create bad comedy from life’s catastrophes). I will ask a fair amount of questions and hope you return the favor. If not, I will perform a cleveresque repartee, mostly for my own amusement. All 30-90 minutes I will be reading and gauging your stride, your tone, your sense of humor, your choice of words, your expressions, what’s behind your eyes. I’ll ask myself if I’m attracted to you, and why or why not, and whether that changes while we walk (another chute or ladder). I’ll internally bemoan that I, like, speak like a valley girl (do people still say that?), albeit an erudite one. And eventually I will rather abruptly announce that I’ve got to get home/to the studio/to an appointment/on with my day and we’ll part on some street corner, where I will hug you graciously and sincerely while expertly dodging any attempt at a kiss or an honest assessment of our future potential — it is too soon to tell. I may see you again. I may not.

Swipe right if you: think I’m cute and clever and funny, and you’re also cute and clever and funny, but not too cute or too clever or too funny.

What my therapist would say about me: “date Zephyr and give me job security”

I’m hoping you: are no more than 3 years younger than me and less than 7 years older. I hope you know who you are and what you like and who you love and what you want. I hope we share not just interests and pleasures but values and proximate destinations, and mutual routes to getting there. I hope our maps overlap.

I hope you’re some kind of sober, that you’ve come through some fire not unscathed but more determined to rise. Your cynicism should be artful, not harmful — your pith, succinct but not bitter — your mettle firm but not brittle. I hope that you’re taller than I, or if not that you complement my height and weight with your own physicality (this is an aesthetic need, I admit — but more of a designer’s desire to balance paired elements in an environment than a packaging concern — or so I tell myself — I might just be basic). I hope you are nice to look at, because I will — want to — spend hours looking at you and how the light hits and what the angles are and where the softer is and if you let me draw you sometimes, even better — I hope, too, that you can sit still for this or other quietudes but also, I hope that you are driven to move and shake and make things but that the driver is you, that you know why you go because you have asked and answered to some satisfaction: what am I for?

I hope you have some nice clothes and that once in a named moon we can dress up and go dancing and look good together doing so because we share a rhythm and will share who leads. I hope you put my son at ease and understand implicitly that you don’t need to/will never be his daddy but that I’ll be his mom first forever and that’s exactly how it should be. I hope you have your own kid(s), to grok that without saying. But I also, selfishly, hope that they’re not so young that we’re dodging nap times and chasing binkies. Please speak generously of your ex, at least initially, in the “affording grace” sense of the word. Please do not speak generously of them in the “you’ve been talking about them for 10 minutes without pause” way of the phrase (this happened, there will be no second date).

I hope that wherever you are on the gender spectrum — and I’m open to all points along, though my attractions are somewhat more particular, if inconsistently defined — you feel secure there. I mean, at least internally. Please, no embattled men’s men, no maralago femmes. In that vein, I hope (no, insist) that you acknowledge the threats to both imagination and security this current climate attempts to legitimize, and that you buck and evade it every damn chance.

I hope you have nice eyes and warm hands (mine run cold). Maybe it’s too much to ask, but foot rubs would go over great. And I love having my head scratched. Like a cat. I hope you like cats.

My personal hell is: This. (almost) 45 and dating from my iPhone while the world turns and burns so fast. this is it.

yeah, no thanks.

drawing cards

*** Currently reading Tarot at CARGO every other Sunday from 1-5pm… click here for my schedule! Drop-ins only, no appointment required! ***

Decks have been selling like hotcakes lately — like icecream on a warm day — even despite my Insta-vacuation, thanks to some online Tarot readers and influencers sharing my shizzit. Sometimes I use Dante’s phone to lurk on the ‘gram and see what they’re saying… “Miniature masterpieces!” “Not one thing I don’t like about this one.” “Quite tasty” … Don’t have your own yet?

Howbout a little quickie for my dating games?

Six of Swords, to the left — where I’ve been, what brings me here — leaving all that known-but-untenable on the backward shore, being blown forward on wing & prayer but not without regret nor ballast, and careful cargo. The balance of protection and surrender. In the center, a Judgment call — gut knowing, hard won (that long slog up and up, or in and through). To the right, to the right, a manifestation — the Four of Wands, a dream of home, of homecoming, of coalition, of energy gaining structure through ceremony, commitment. Framing, composing. And the bridge cards (“how do I get from there to there to there?”) — the Ace of Wands, reversed (burn it down to start again? change tactics, switch paths, cut switchbacks? or get off the apps again (lololol)?) and then, the Two of Cups… oh lover! A spring affair?!

One can dream!

et cetera

• this article about the “dire wolves”

• Ezra Klein and Ross Douthat on “political mysticism”

• the trend report reads TikTok n X so I don’t have to

• the dogwoods are still blooming. get outside!

• if you like reading what I’m writing, please “like” it or even better, “restack” it in the app. I know, I’m sorry, I hate this too. But my period is coming & my dopamine’s low & as soon as I post this I’ll feel all kinds of vulnerability hangover symptoms…

• … waitaminute, why am I asking you to share this when the sharing of it is what causes the hangover in the first place? Writing is so weird. See me! Now look away!

WITH LOVE ♥️💋 Z

1. OMG a chutes and ladders game based on internet dating? Copywriting this now.