Getting into my mother�s building is not difficult, since I happen to arrive when someone else is leaving. But now I stand at the entrance to her unit and stare at the solid black door. For some dumb reason, I try the handle. It clicks, and the door glides open.

It hasn�t been that long since I was in New York, but I can�t help but wonder if burglars have gotten more sophisticated with their entry methods. Maybe there�s a master burglar key that some evil whiz of a street kid has designed. I push the door open just enough to peer in, but I see no activity.

I go in. I know this is a dumb move, even as I�m creeping though my mother�s home as though I�m the one robbing it. I have no weapon, should I be attacked from behind. What am I going to do, thwack my attacker with a plastic shopping bag full of Doritos and Tampax?

"Hello-oo?� I say, trying to sound casual. No answer. But then there is a loud clatter in the bathroom. Evil must be raiding my mother�s linen closet.

I drop my bag and race to the edge of the bathroom door, backing my self up against the wall like an FBI agent. My heart is in my mouth and I feel suddenly faint. I should have something to defend myself with, I decide, so I slip into my room and grab the largest bludgeoning object I can find, which as it turns out, is a four-foot ironwood phallus. For the first time, I absolutely adore my mother�s profession.

Cock in hand, I resume my position at the edge of the bathroom and, after one deep breath, I kick in the door, wielding my weapon over my head.

�Look out, fucker!� This is the first intimidating phrase that comes to mind.

Bent over the toilet is a man in blue workpants. He hasn�t moved from his position. My arms droop.

�Hey.� I say. Still nothing.

I poke the man�s lower back with the tip of the wooden weenie. He jumps and spins around, whipping the Walkman earphones out of his ears. He�s about twenty, I�d guess, and appears to be having a coronary.

�Jesus!� he says, breathless. Then he sees what I have in my hand. �Jesus.� He says again, but not at me, necessarily.

�I live here,� I say.

�Oh,� says the man, collecting himself. �Ms. Hathaway?�

�Her daughter. Can I help you?�

�Not unless you�re good with pipes.� He chuckles then clears his throat. �I got a call for a leak last week. Just getting around to fixing it now. Busy month.�

�Okay,� I say, in my best businesslike tone. �Let me know if you need anything.� I turn to leave, hoping he won�t make a lame-ass remark about the penis statue I�m now trying to hold as non-chalantly as possible.

�You really know how to handle one of those, huh?� says the plumber.

I am too tired to be witty. I would really like to get this jerk out of my bathroom.

�Yes,� I say. �I certainly do.�

I might as well have slithered up to him in a leopard print sheath gown and stuck my tongue in his ear. The wrench slips out of his hand and clangs to the floor. Normally, I would find this comically cute.

I leave the plumber to his piping and collapse onto the couch. In a minute or so, he�s in the doorway, wiping his hands on a rag.

�All done,� he says.

�Fabulous.�

�Tell your mom she can call me if anything else comes up. Or, you know, you can call me yourself.�

I roll my head toward him and stare.

�If you want. Whatever. My name�s Dan.�

He�s flustered now, and I can�t help but feel bad for him. He�s just a wee lad, and it�s not his fault I�m a psychologically wounded, soon-to-be single woman in a shitty mood. I lower my eyes in some silent signal of apology, and find myself looking directly at his crotch.

I have no idea why I am doing this. Or, indeed, why I cannot take my eyes off it. It could be that I�m at least ten feet away from him and yet I can see quite clearly that he is, how shall I say, abnormally well-endowed.

Oh, the shame of it. Oh, the horror that I can't be the bigger man and look away out of sheer decency. I could shift my eyes, I tell myself, and pretend I�m reading the spines of the entire row of books on my mother�s shelf. Yes, but they�re all titles like The Joy of Sex Collectibles, Erotic Art Expo 2000, Masterpieces of Masturbation.

�What�s your number, Dan?� I ask, reaching for a pen.

* * *

Mom doesn�t quite know what to do with herself when one Saturday evening I explain that I�m actually putting on actual makeup because I have an actual date.

I am applying mascara to my upper lashes only, because I recently read in Elle magazine that older women should not wear mascara on their lower lashes since it brings out their bags and wrinkles.

I don�t yet have any real wrinkles to speak of, and my bags are still small enough to fit in the overhead compartment, metaphorically speaking, but I figure this mascara trick is a good habit to get into. It prepares me for the inevitable and makes it less of a surprise to those around me. If I went completely gray tomorrow, it would actually be a relief; that way it won�t be a surprise when I�m really old.

I suppose by that logic, I should have kept wearing diapers throughout my life. Or developed an early fashion taste for polyester. But tonight, my attire is casual city chic: jeans, black stack-heeled ankle boots, black stretchy turtleneck, black leather jacket.

"Are you going on a date or to a funeral?� asks Mom, leaning in the bathroom doorway.

"Funeral,� I say.

"Phuff,� my mother says, and waves a hand at me. �You know, I don�t think I�ve ever seen Dan the Plumber.�

"He�s got a nice...pipe.�

"Oh, really?� asks my mother, eyebrows raised. �And how would you know about our fair plumber�s plumbing?�

�The female cat has a very keen eye in the jungle.�

�Well, kitty cat, be sure you bring condoms,� says Mom as she disappears into the living room.

�Mom,� I shout after her, �just because we�ve got the missile it doesn�t mean we�re going to launch it, you know?�

Mom grumbles from somewhere in the next room.

�Besides, he�s like, twelve.� I step back and survey my paint job in the mirror. I look like a French whore.

It�s been so long since I made myself up. In New Mexico, �make-up� means putting Chapstick on your nipples so they won�t burn when you lie out on the rocks at the hot springs.

Dan takes me to Brooklyn, to the River Caf�. We sit up on the deck so we can stare at the city we�ve just left. Since I met him at the bar twenty minutes ago and downed a Scotch, Dan has not stopped smiling. There are a few things he needs to know right away about me. Things that need no words to explain. The Scotch order is not necessarily a test, but how he reacts to it does say a few things about a potential lover.

There are a number of responses one can expect from the Normal Man when his date orders a Scotch with a splash of water right off the bat. He might make an asshole-ish comment about a girl who can take her liquor. He might verbally admire her having successfully acquired such an acquired taste.

The best response of all, however, is to not acknowledge the drink order whatsoever. This means that you�re on a date with a man who respects you as a free-thinking individual. Either that, or you�re dating a complete alcoholic. That�s why these tests are not really tests. Scientific certainty is impossible.

Regardless, Dan does very well.

�All righty,� he says, not too eagerly. �Good choice.�

I finish the drink. Quickly. Another opportunity for one�s date to say some idiotic, Normal Man thing like, �Hard day?� But Dan simply raises his finger to the bartender and orders us another round, which we take to the table.

This ordering thing causes Dan to lose a few points with me since he never asked me if I wanted the second Scotch. The truth of the matter is that I don't like drinking Scotch at the dinner table. It makes me look like a middle-aged insurance salesman in town from Minneapolis. In fact, the only reason I ordered the first Scotch was that I�d had a hard day.

I choose to overlook this, and the rest of the date goes teeth-numbingly smoothly. We talk about nothing: work, family, New York, yawn, yawn, yawn.

All I really want to do, you see, is to like this guy. If I can like him, that means my husband has not branded me for life with his Alpha lovemaking. Which, in turn, means there�s hope for me in the world of Other Men.

I don�t need to fall in love with my date, mind you. I just want to like him enough to get into a taxi with him, have the taxi drop me at my building, then give in to his tastefully alluring insistence that I at least come over to his place for coffee. That�s what I want. That, and that gigantic lead pipe of his roto-rooting me straight into Sunday afternoon.

I am a beast. A horrible, awful beast of a human being. I cannot think of anything else but sex. Not even as I�m supposed to be enjoying my -- what is this I�m eating? -- Jamaican Jerk Chicken. Great. I cannot get my mind off that, that, thing under the table, resting on his chair.

�You�re from New Mexico, then?� he�s asking me.

I must have told him I came from there. �No, no. I came from here, went there, now I�m cock. Back. I�m back.�

He smirks at me. Damn it. I need decompressing. Or a good flogging. It�s been too long since I had sex. Months and months. Half a year, to be exact. That�s simply not healthy for me, is all. And it�s perfectly natural to talk like an ass when you�re under stress. Oh, I�ll bet his jeans must be under a lot of stress...

Stop. Someone must stop me. He is a child.

�So, how old are you?� I ask, trying to shift the conversation away from my Freudian wipe-out.

�Thirty-eight.�

I inhale a stringy chunk of Jamaican Jerk Chicken and immediately cease to breathe. I pound my fist on the table and hack as delicately as is humanly possible, but it�s soon apparent to Dan -- as well as the good folks at the table next to us -- that I am choking.

I have never officially choked before. Oh, you know, soda down the wrong pipe, or the old massive-hit-on-a-bong choking, sure. But I have never experienced the kind of choking you see on those posters in every restaurant. The one, for example, to which the lady at the next table is now referring as her dinner date rushes me from behind, with Dan shouting out directions like a diving coach.

And I�m waving them away with a flailing arm. What an idiot. Hang on, I haven�t conceded yet. Haven�t cried �uncle.� I can still kick this chicken�s ass. Of course the realization that I can�t say these things and the fact that the room has become very sparkly all of a sudden, causes me to submit to our table neighbor�s doggy-style bear hug.

In one thrust, I heave up a wedge of soggy meat that lands on Dan�s plate of linguini, but is still miraculously attached to my lip by a glorious, glistening strand of mucus like some horror film translucent umbilical cord.

So, total date score: I give Dan all the points -� even the ones I took away earlier -- for not immediately throwing up on the floor.

Needless to say, my mother was more than surprised to see me home so early at eleven. After my near-death experience, there had been a lot of hand shaking and thanks. Dan hailed me a cab, but did not accompany me in it. Perhaps he thought I would spontaneously hack up my spleen onto his Eddie Bauer sweater. I can�t blame him.

Wait a minute. Yes, I can. He did what a Normal Man would do. Of course he did! He�s been well-versed in how to come off cool and real. That�s why he succeeded as long as he did early on in the date. He probably did some Internet research at Oxygen.com.

If he were a real man, he would have laughed his ass off. He would have found me to be an intoxicatingly good sport as I ordered a round of drinks for us and the couple that saved my life. Then he would have jauntily called the waiter over to get us our check, he�d let me split it with him without a fuss, and we�d go hear live Blues in the Village. He would take me back to his apartment and we�d play a few of his choicest Blues CDs while he explained -- for the first time to any living soul -- the reason why listening to Blues harp makes him weep. Then he�d whip out that gigantic lead pipe of his and roto-rooter me into Sunday afternoon.

Yes. I do blame him.