Kimchee rice and WTF online dating

Over the weekend I sat next to John Avalos at a café for THREE HOURS and didn't recognize him until he stood up to leave. I voted for him for MAYOR. He is VERY ATTRACTIVE. And he has the single-most-important quality I'm looking for in a man: He's 52 but he looks 41. So what if he's married to a woman whose last name is ZAPATA. BRING IT, ZAPATA. So what if Wikipedia says he had an affair with a staffer and that he was quoted in the Chronicle as saying about her, "We are not together, but we have shared our feelings for one another, and I felt it was most appropriate for her to find employment outside this office."

ISN'T THAT ILLEGAL. FUCKING FUCK IT. BACK TO MATCH.COM.

Every few days, Match.com sends me 12 "great matches," which I've come to think of as "12 Random  Motherfuckers." What exactly is the website's algorithm? On some of these "matches," Match.com declares excitedly: "You share the same birth month!" One of these guys had three -- THREE -- pictures of himself posing next to the same sculpture of A GIANT KIT KAT BAR.

The website also frequently sends me profiles with no picture. I got one of these yesterday, but this time out of sheer irritation I read the self-summary. It ended with the line, "Nothing's better than conquering life's challenges!"

Indeed, sir.

Online dating has morphed from me sitting in front of my computer screaming, "No. No. No!" into specifics, such as, "You took a picture of yourself on an elliptical machine?"

Meanwhile, OKCupid says I'm a 75 percent match with someone whose profile name is “completehorndog” and an 88 percent match with "morningwood."

So I went back to MeetMindful to see if they had any new members. They did!

"Please be willing to bring yourself and be open to the joy of meeting in the moment. If you have an agenda that keeps you in separation, you might consider suspending that for an hour or two to meet me for tea."

One of this guy's pictures was him dressed in a red Tai Chi outfit, striking a pose in the middle of a forest. I READ ON.

"My shadow animal is the koala bear- he stays in one tree his whole life, complacent."

Yesterday as I was riding BART home from work I had the spontaneous thought: I want a ThunderShirt. I calmed myself by remembering a road trip I took with friends my sophomore year in college, when we drove from Chicago to Miami to visit an ashram. One night in Florida, we broke into the outdoor pool at an apartment complex and for the first time in my life I floated in water that was the same temperature as the air. I kept my ears beneath the water and stared up at a clear, black night full of stars. It was incredibly calming I was 19. I remember thinking, I need to remember this.

For kimchee rice you need:

• 1-1 1/2 cups leftover rice

• 2 TB canola or peanut oil (if you're Italian and have only olive oil, use olive oil)

• 1 thumb ginger

• 2 cloves garlic

• 1/2 white or yellow onion

• 1 cup kimchee, chopped, with juice reserved

• 1 egg

• cilantro

• sesame seeds

You need to:

• Massage rice with oil so grains are separated and coated with oil. I'm kidding. I read this on a blog once and I've never done it.

• Put oil in a pan over medium-low heat.

• Chop ginger, garlic, and onion. Sauté in oil until translucent or, if you want more flavor, slightly browned.

• Add rice. Break up rice with a wooden spoon. Stir to coat with oil and aromatics.

• Add kimchee and kimchee juice. Stir to coat rice again.

• Turn heat to medium-high and flatten, then break up, rice every once in a while so rice becomes crispy but not burned.

• Make a perfect egg.

• Put kimchee rice in a bowl, sprinkle with sesame seeds, and add perfect egg and chopped cilantro.