36. CONVERSATIONS WITH THE INDIAN COWBOY

I am on the phone with Indian Cowboy. He lives outside of the City, so should we decide to date, it will be like a long distance relationship --- long calls late at night and 36 hour weekend dates. And I find grocery shopping challenging enough.

Indian Cowboy is sharing that his Ivy League undergrad education was like a pressure cooker where all they did was study. While I did not attend an Ivy League, my alma mater was an excellent liberal arts college with the third best medical school in the country right behind Harvard and Johns Hopkins. And we partied ... hard. So I am sure that Indian Cowboy has three times the brain cells as me. But as long as I can fend off dementia for a few more decades, I have no regrets.

“So architecture huh?” Indian Cowboy asks. “Were you inspired by Mr. Brady?”

If I had a dollar for every time I was asked this, I’d own an apartment. Granted it would be on York Avenue, not Park, but it would be Manhattan real estate none the less. “No, it is what we do in family. My father, my uncles, my brother, too,” I reply. “I understand that. I chose engineering because I like the engineering behind the machines rather than the output," he replies.

Hhmmm, I can barely work my IPod.

“Did I tell you that I like country line dancing?” he asks. “Do you have cowboy boots?” I ask. “Yes. And I teach aerobics too,” Indian Cowboy shares.

Wow! Am I glad to be sober because it takes everything I have to process the image of a 6-1” tall, Billy Ray Cyrus loving, country line dancing, cowboy boot wearing, aerobics teaching Indian engineer. Just as I begin to think how nice it would be date a man who has coordination, the Indian Fred Astaire, he says, and I quote, "Don't worry. I'm quite virile."

The word conjures images of vigor and the stamina to father children. Without the actual production of children HOW does he know he is virile? Or does he have children stashed away in the closet that he plans to reveal in conversation number two?

Mr. Brady