Here are 15 random things you should know about me:

My sense of humor is quirky. Sometimes it will go over your head and you will give me a blank look instead of laughing. I'm used to that.

I'm blunt. Not the "God, your haircut looks awful"/"You got fat since I've last seen you" mean kind of blunt. More like stating-the-obvious-to-make-us-both-laugh-kind-of-blunt, like "Hey, now would be a good time to try to kiss me."

Don't worry, I have manners. I'm even toilet trained.

Merlot and blueberry-flavored Stoli with soda make me very happy. So do the tiny restaurants in Manhattan that only have about 15 tables and are softly lit and all the food is handmade. And dessert. Practically any dessert that doesn't contain fruit or anything remotely healthy.

I'm proud to be a Jersey girl. No, I wasn't paid to say that.

I'm easy to talk to. I listen well. I pay attention. I'll open the lock on your car door when you get in on the driver's side.

I have two cats, so you're going to see the occasional cat hair tumbleweed roll by if you get to pass go into my apartment. Can't be helped. BTW, the cats aren't negotiable.

I have never dreamed of driving to work naked. Maybe I'm missing out on something.

I've met a lot of rock stars. Fun fact: They are usually shorter than me.

I love to sing. Am I good? That depends on you much beer you drank before we hit the karaoke bar.

An occasional weekend getaway to the shore is great. Doing it in the winter where no one is around and we can wander the boardwalk, eat some crab cakes, find a fortune teller, gorge on fudge, hit Atlantic City for a concert and then crash at an ocean-front condo with a fireplace . . . this kind of stuff makes me tick.

I don't care if you're friends with your ex. But if you're calling/e-mailing/Facebooking/texting/IM'ing her every day, you need to be dating her, not me. The word "distance" was invented for a reason."

I keep secrets.

I belch frighteningly loud.

Leave me the way you found me. I don't have any room in my apartment to store baggage.


OK! If you've gotten this far .........

I am seeking a long-term relationship but am not going to be pushing the agenda as soon as the clock starts on the first date, so don't be terrified of saying words like "married" and "boyfriend" in front of me. We need to date a little while anyway before we can tell if the potential is there. As you can tell by now a sense of humor in a guy is crucial for me. Despite the hard-a** tendencies I tend to display, I'm playful, affectionate, trustworthy, passionate, compassionate and loyal. I want to cheer you on at your softball game, help you put together your speech for work, bring you orange juice when you have the flu and make a good impression when I meet your mom.

I am very easily entertained. I find talking with someone in a coffeehouse just as entertaining as being at a party with 100 people. A favorite weekend for me is to hit happy hour after work on Friday, see a band play and gab with strangers and friends alike along the way. Saturday is for something more involved - a drive upstate, absorbing an art opening, checking out an open-air market until the evening, where it's dinner and hanging with friends until we come back home and do things that I'm not going to mention in public. Sunday means sleeping in, brunching, strolling along the riverfront and deciding that we're going to call in sick on Monday and spend the day running errands with each other and being domestic so we can make our time together last longer.

I enjoy walking all around the city, people watching, taking in the sites. I love the mountains (especially the Cascades in Washington State), the ocean, the woods . . . wide-open spaces make me very happy.

I love sunsets more than sunrises but watching the moon come up and ride the sky is the best. Especially when it's autumn and the sky is clear and I'm on someone's back porch in a quiet neighborhood.

I love horses, cats, dogs, kittens, puppies -- any little baby animals, really. If you have a dog I will immediately fall in love with it and will be glad to take it on walks with you.

I don't play an instrument but music is a major part of my life. I sampling of the many many many artists I listen to: Queensryche (favorite band of all time), Tori Amos, Heart, Snow Patrol, Metallica, Dredg, Evanescence, Alanis Morissette, Dream Theater, Rush, Chimera, Sarah McLachlan, Riverside, Casey Stratton, a-ha, Hypnogaja, Al DiMeola, chill out, ethereal . . . . too many to count.


And if you're *still* reading, here's the kind of stuff you need to know if you're serious boyfriend material:

I willingly forgive much but I forget nothing.

I am low-maintenance but have high standards. (And if you understand that contradiction you're my kind of guy.)

If you're happy with what you do for a living, work an honest job and do your best at it, I got your back, whether you work on Wall Street or as a mechanic.

I'd rather see you waiting on tables as a temp job if you find yourself out of a work then sitting around crying for six months about how you can't find a job.

I don't do drama, drugs or d***heads.


*****PLEASE NOTE: I don't respond to e-mails from guys who don't have a photo in their profile or a recent one attached to their e-mail. Chemistry is chemistry, and I need to know what you look like before we start chatting. Them's the rules ;)*****

I'm open to a lot of things: I would love to take a boat ride around Manhattan, dine at a rooftop restaurant under the stars, walk through Central Park, wander through a museum on a Saturday afternoon, go to a concert, see a stand-up comic or hit the racetrack (horses, not cars). I like to go with the flow—if we're hitting it off well we can stay out all night.