All Men Are Cremated Equal: My 77 Blind Dates by Elizabeth Fournier

All Men Are Cremated Equal: MY 77 Blind Dates from Elizabeth Fournier had me hooked from beginning to end. I laughed, I gasped and I often shook my head in amazement. Oh yeah, I also wanted to hug my husband a little tighter and thank God that I am married.

Book Synopsis: Elizabeth chronicles her true life dating spree as a marriage-minded mortician in her mid-30's. Set off by her broken engagement, she enlists everyone in sight to set her up on blind dates in a passionate quest to meet just one really great guy. Armed with a 10-point list of dating criteria, skintight jeans, and flash cards on Nascar, football, and micro-breweries, she spends one full year doing the blind meet and greet. Names are changed to protect the rejected as she humorously dishes dot-com hotties, compulsive bloggers, and tattooed graduates of the Gene Simmons School of Dating. Bridget Jones would be proud of her American cousin.

My sister divorced a few years ago after 13 years of marriage and has been on the dating scene for a while now. I am often on the receiving end of that “What should I do?” or “How in the heck can I get out of this right now?” bathroom-during-the-date phone call and while she has not experienced quite as much as Elizabeth has, I was amazed at the sheer amount of men who have no idea at what is acceptable on a date (both in the book and in my sister's life).

This is the “must read” book for pretty much everyone. All Men Are Cremated Equal makes those of us who are married so glad that we are not out there on the dating scene. This should also be the book every man reads before even accepting a date and for the single woman…well, just read it. It does not disappoint.

Also just in case you cannot get enough of Elizabeth, check out her blog here where there are even more dating stories.

What Others are Saying About ALL MEN ARE CREMATED EQUAL:

“This book is fantastic! It was so breezy and fun, and will be an excellent beach read.” Shelley Kurtz, KVAL-CBS, Eugene, OR Morning Anchor and long-time Pacific Northest Newscaster.

“This book has the best title that I've heard of in many years. Elizabeth is one of the more interesting authors we've spoken to in a long time.” PAUL LINNMAN, radio personality on KEX 1190 AM and long-time broadcaster in Portland, Oregon

About Elizabeth Fournier

Elizabeth arrived in 1968 and was clearly a performer even though she was born to an engineer and a school teacher. She began her career at the young age of ten when she was picked out of her entire class to be the co-host of JUST KIDDING, a children's program shown on the NBC affiliate in Portland, Oregon. She was asked to come back three more times, and thus began her love for the performing arts. She spent summers at Portland Civic Theatre learning the ropes acting, and performing to a large audience.

Elizabeth earned her Bachelor's Degree in Mass Communications and Broadcasting in 1991, and soon became a local radio personality at KBOO-FM in Portland. Elizabeth is currently the voice of the autopsy exhibit in the forensic wing at the United States National Museum of Medicine. You can also see her online as the Video Spokesperson for Chinook Winds Casino Resort. She and her dance partner, Scott, teach Ballroom Dance at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Oh, and she's also a full-time mortician.

All Men Are Cremated Equal Book Excerpt

Meet Mike. Mike likes soap operas. He likes them so much that he TiVo’s four hours of soap operas every day, which he then views when he returns from work. In fact, he likes them so much that he felt it would be appropriate, and possibly fun, to talk about nothing but on our first (and last) date.

Even though he was gainfully employed in radio news, and did not consider his daytime drama viewing a true vocation, I can remember his favorite plot lines from shows I’ve never watched, more than I could tell you what his work life was like. He was addicted.

He never sufficiently established his smart credentials to make his albeit odd hobby legitimate. He felt no need to convince me that he also had intellectual pursuits, had an education, or could even read for that matter.

He didn’t seem to care about the stereotypes surrounding such an admission, so I sat back and enjoyed the show.

Mike liked seeing the same characters daily because he felt that they were part of his family. He looked forward to checking out what they’re wearing, what they were doing that day in soap land, and how their lives were progressing along.

He admitted to getting a “bit” obsessive and lost in the make-believe. (“I couldn’t sleep for two whole nights during Lizzie’s leukemia battle on Guiding Light.”) He also had to miss a few days of work when Ryan’s Hope was pulled from ABC. (“Those were some grey days for me.”) Yeah, well I was feeling the heavy grey cloud of another hopeless date looming above me.

He spent ample time online entering comments on other soap fans’ blogs, and finding out any plots he missed on Soapnet.com, and from reading Soap Opera Digest. And guess who was there for the 2003 Soap Opera Digest awards to see Susan Lucci win her very first Diamond Award from SoapNet? That’s right, my fantasy boy, Mike, with his equally jonesed grandmother in tow. They even got their picture taken with a few cast members from As the World Turns. Grandma has the photo proudly displayed on her fireplace mantel, right next to Grandpa’s cremains.

Mike’s one beef with soap opera watchers was that they just didn’t understand the richness of Passions. He was there for the soap’s debut on Monday, July 5, 1999, and will be there until the network rips it off the air. This show had introduced story lines about such things as witches and warlocks, ancient Egyptian goddesses, cursed islands, dolls that talk, and mermaids. What’s the problem? he wanted to know.

I liked the true confession that when he’s not on the air, he would sneak to the backroom and, instead of checking for weather updates and pulling fresh copy off the Reuter’s feed, he’d check out www.nbc.com or www.soapoperafan.com. I asked if he cleared the history out of the computer so no one could see what he’d been up to; he laughed and said he was one step ahead of me. He erases, then logs onto www.cnbc.com or www.foxnews.com, so it looks like he was actually doing something worthy with his free time.