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I’m Nora and I’m a stay-at-home single mom. When I’m not pretending to clean the house, I enjoy cooking, reading, traveling, knitting, and looking for new men to add to my collection.

Nora: Living, Loving, and Learning (?)

I was looking over my Single and Fierce blog recently, and I wondered if my final piece would reflect any kind of growth or lessons learned.

I've talked about several men, none of whom I am still involved with as I write this. The only one I still have an ongoing friendship with is Ron, the old boyfriend, current best friend I met up with in Austin a couple of months ago. As for Dan, Martin, Heath, and Jon, I'm not in contact with any of them. Scratch that; Dan still calls me regularly to try to get me to sit his kids while he takes his new girlfriend out to dinner. Other than that meaningful communication, I don't talk to him much.

When I started blogging here, I thought I would get some insight on how this whole relationship thing really boils down.

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Nora: Put a Label on It

You remember Dan? He's the dad at my kids' school that I was dating for a few months. (I wrote my first blog about him.) We got along okay, but his kids seemed to have difficulty with him having a relationship, so I broke it off.

There were other reasons for the break-up, but the bottom line is that, in his eyes - - we were "just friends." He told me the words "girlfriend" and "boyfriend" were not going to be used, because of his kids and his fresh divorce. But of course he enjoyed all the privileges of having a girlfriend, if you know what I mean.

Whatever.

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Nora: Real or Fake?

Finding Mr. Right.

I've been seeing a new guy for a few weeks. Martin and I actually met on a dating website, so when his profile popped up and he wasn't two states away, we started communicating. We saw right away that we had the same obscure sense of humor, and a lot of the same interests, so after a week of e-mails and texts, we met for a drink.

I really like him. Conversation flows so easily between us that I've been a little reluctant to move things "to the next level." You know how that goes; once things turn intimate, it can all careen out of control quickly. Still, we get along so well, if things move in that direction, I think it will last. For a while, anyway.

I was thinking that my feelings for Martin were still firmly in the friendship category. But something happened this weekend that makes me wonder if I'm falling for him.

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Nora: The Break-In, The Migraine, and the One That's Still The One

A few days after the Sam Rockwell incident at SXSW, I was once again loading up my car for a road trip. This time, I was taking my kids and meeting the rest of my family in San Antonio for spring break.

I'm in my mid-thirties and out of work; it's not lost on me how ridiculous a concept "spring break" is to someone like me. But my kids were off of school, and my family offered to put us up for a few nights in the Alamo city. Plus, one of the days I was going to be there, I was planning to park the kiddos with my folks while I drove to Austin again to meet Ron and Damani, old college friends who had a film premiering at the fest.

Unfortunately, two things happened that almost derailed the whole thing.

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Nora: Rubbing Elbows

My movie date with a star.

I don't have a full-time job right now, so just keeping a fully stocked larder is difficult. But I had a small windfall a couple of months ago, so when I got the e-mail from my brother reminding me that South by Southwest was approaching, I did some budgeting and forked over a few hundred for the film pass.

The one day I was there was fun. I even sat next to a REAL LIVE STAR at one screening. Here's how it happened:

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Nora: Table for One

Is the world really just a great big Noah's Ark?

Must all humans be holding hands, walking along two by two, at the supermarket, in restaurants, at the bus stop? Is each and every member of each of those couples deliriously happy, truly faithful, truly in love? If they are, what book did they read to get there? Did they take a course in college on how to find the perfect life mate? And what about us singletons?

Where do we fit in the big picture? Alone forever? Resigned to the role of "other woman" (or "other man")?

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Nora: Goodbye, Hello

Breaking up is hard to do.

Dan has called me three times today. I didn't pick up or return his phone calls. Yes, I'm exhibiting the same disturbing behavior usually reserved for those of the male gender. I really should call him and explain why I'm not interested in continuing our relationship. Perhaps I'll do that tomorrow.

I'm not avoiding the chore, really. I really was busy today. One of my kids is ill; the other absolutely needed some new jeans. Plus, I was sitting my nephew. I was also quite busy stuffing my face with all the leftover Valentine's Day chocolates.

I truly did not have time for any break-up business today.

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Nora: Valentine Scrooge

Valentine's Day is coming up, that holiday that makes single people feel empty and worthless and coupled folks wondering what all the fuss is about.

I went to my local bookshop today and looked wistfully at different tables piled with love/sex-themed books, fiction and non, in an attempt to cash in on the lonely and the loved. There were books of 'coupons' for naughty requests, manuals on how to bring each other to ever-mounting heights of ecstasy, and other such pathetic tomes. I mean, if you need to READ A BOOK to have more fun in the sack, you're probably with the wrong partner.

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Nora: On the Other Foot

This afternoon, while I was waiting in the parking lot for my kids to get out of school, a woman walked past my car. She's an acquaintance of mine; two of her kids are classmates of my children. Up until two months ago, she regularly stopped by my car or I stopped by hers to chat at drop off or pick up. We'd sit together at our sons' basketball games. She was recently divorced, and our kids liked hanging out together. We never got together outside of school functions, but we were friendly. But now, she saunters past my car, her eyes straight ahead of her. She no longer waves at me. She looks right past me as we cross each other in the breezeway. What's her problem? She thinks I'm sleeping with her ex-husband.

Find out if Nora is sleeping with the divorced dad at her kid's school.

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