Sad but true

Jesus H Christ, I've had a eureka moment.....

It has taken me a long time just to admit I want to be in a relationship. Now that I have made THAT admission, I think it may be worse. I think I may need to be in a loving relationship before I should have sex.

Should is the very important, operative word in that sentenct. For one thing, I'm not sure I'm capable of such behavior. I mean, for fuck's sake, I am at my sexual peak, like an 18 year-old boy. I am supposed to be married and able to get it whenever I want it, right? How in the hell am I supposed to WAIT? And why? It's not like I'm doing something I've never done before.

But here's the rub. It doesn't matter why. Something has changed. I feel shittier and shittier having sex and then not being treated the way I'd like to be treated, but how in the hell are these poor dupes supposed to know how I'd like to be treated when, in fact, we don't know each other. I'd like to think I can just get up and be all, Well, that was fun. Next! But the evidence mounts. I am doing the same thing and expecting different results.

But do I need to go all the way with this? Do I need to be loved before I can have sex? Does anything less just lead to heartache? Should I, by my own reasoning and the state of my own romantic life, still be a virgin?

I fear never having sex again. Sometimes I can admit to myself--progress?--it's not the lack of sex I truly fear.

Maybe if I'd taken this approach from the start I'd be happily married with 1.2 kids.

But how do you know what love is without sex? I have loads of loving relationships in my life--these are not people I orgasm with. I don't know if I'm capable of loving someone until I've rooted around in their smell. Is it not splitting hairs to do everything BUT fuck and pretend you did not have sexual relations?

So much for my eureka. This is still a pigfuck. I want a clear answer but I don't think it's strapping on the chastity belt. The answer lies somewhere in the middle. Yawn.

pre coitus interruptus

At last. At last. Maybe?

"I have to tell you..."

Oh god, no you don't. But he did.

"...I'm really bad at relationships."

Now what, exactly, I'm supposed to do with this information I don't know. Is this a way of saying, ten minutes, ten days, or ten weeks hence, "I told you."

Does that mean the relationship started? How did I miss agreeing to be in it?

Dude, sister has not been laid in an AGE. Did he really think I was going to let the little warning stop me? And, if he's so bad at it, what's he doing right there with me? OK, sure, like Woody Allen says at the end of Annie Hall, telling a joke, "My brother thinks he's a chicken." The doctor replies, "why don't you turn him in?" Guy says he needs the eggs. Relationships are like that guy, he says. Absurd. But most of us need the eggs.

I believe you show what you're thinking more clearly by your actions than by what you say. We can talk about what's going to happen. Then there's what happens. There's only one thing left to do. Wait and see what happens.

R U f*kn kiddn me?

6.42 this morning I get a text from a dude I exchanged a couple of emails and a couple of missed phone calls with. Morning!

OK, well, I'm awake. Back at ya, luv!

Breakfast?

...I do like my breakfast, but...

After I teach yoga? 10.30?

I shit you not, this was his reply:
Hmm...before. Breakfast in bed.

Huh? Whaaa? Christ, what on earth would make someone suggest, sight unseen, breakfast in BED. He must be flirting/teasing/testing to see how I'll react. I mean, he's pawned himself off as a doctor, so he supposedly has some book learnin' behind him anyway. I text back...

Surely u hav bettr com ons 4 getting in2 a womans bed?

I think me and coffee and croissants is enough.

...is this dude for REAL?...

U'd b wrong.

OK, thanks anyway.

OH. You're on the prowl. Best of luck out there.

Hardly on the prowl. Just like unique first dates.

...ok, maybe he was flirting. hmmm. keep it light....

Prove it?

That I like unque 1st dates? Cd b coff n crssnts ten times.

Talk about dropping the ball. But sheesh, if he wasn't teasing, what WAS that? Was I supposed to seriously entertain that idea? How's that gonna play out? OH, yeah, here's my addy. I like my coffee black. Like my SOUL.

Oy.

horrible shallow bitch

"Did my accident paralyze my sex drive?" asks the banner ad that just flicked on my screen.

I had to hie me to my blog, anything to get off that page. I just couldn't even look at it. So instead I'll mull it over, write about it, call the image up for YOU. Yeah, that oughta help.

The picture was of this hot fit guy in a wheelchair, looking sideways at the camera, kinda tough. All, yeah, I still like to fuck. What about it?

And I think I have it bad.

Though, last night I called my friend Dana about a woman, a real DOG, who was talking about cheating on her lover and I'm thinking, how is this bitch getting laid by not just one but TWO people. And Dana says, Well, there are at least that many homely people out there looking for someone just like her. Ha!

Which brings me back to the banner ad I just saw. Not so ha.

Maybe it's gone now. I'd just found this great recipe for homemade granola on that page. Hope.

I was ashamed

I was in emotional agony all day yesterday, the kind that lived to the left of center in my chest, threatening to erupt if I breathed too deeply. And then I realized, too late to quite save the day, I'd forgotten to turn on any music.

So I'm listening now to Sufjan Stevens, and I hear his refrain, "I was a ashamed, I was ashamed, I was ashamed of her." And I realize, he's just spoken the truth I was not even aware of and yet the one I fear the most--that my partner will feel that way about me.

This gives me the chance, for the right now moment, to be grateful I do not have a partner. And then on comes "darling nikki"--thank you iPod shuffle!--and the party is back on.

And that's why I have to have the music. Not only do I need the reassurance I get from music that someone else is feeling as I do, even when it's wrong, but, like a good therapist, it offers closure and the ability to move on.

rejection by iChat

Whoa. I have reached a new low.

It is clear I have no idea how to let attraction grow into fondness and finally a lasting, sexually fulfilling union. I'm having a hard time figuring out if that's even the right order.

Anyway, a prospect wants me to get on iChat so I do. Now I am hanging out there, because, well, maybe we'll meet there. I abhor this "getting to know you" shit on email. It doesn't actually work.

So this morning he comes on and-wham!-in a flash he disappears. I am left to assume he's seen me and thus popped back into his shell. Ouch.

Note to dude: I've taken you off my iChat list so I don't know when you're on. You can't fire me, muthafukka, I quit.

starving in Manhattan

Sweet dreams.

Twice now, someone I'd like to have as a lover has said this to me. You can see the problem already? Someone I can only claim I would "like" to have as my lover is wishing me a good night's sleep.

Forget that it's the ex's trademark line, one that made my heart melt. I have owned the shit out of it in the ensuing months. It's too good to lose. I'd wish the bodega guy sweet dreams if I could work it into the conversation.

Imagining the soft press of his breath on my ear as he says the words led me to realize I am starving for tenderness. He is a terrible bet for a life raft, but he'll do for a snack in this vast and dangerous sea.

Responding from the solar plexus

Caroline Myss is this wacky, New Age-y health reader type. What I love about her is the look at the mental, physical and spiritual aspect of her assessments. Her work is about moving "issues" from the mental to the physical plane, and then to the spiritual one again.

Last night I get an email from a perfectly nice guy who's responding to a question I sent him. His response does not move the question forward, which I should have just seen as, OK, either the guy's a dullard, completely convinced I'll think he's so fabulous that I'll write back even without any encouragement, OR, he's just not that into me. Naturally I take what's behind Door #!! I write back.

I tell myself I want to find out if the guy is not aware he didn't leave a way for me to respond so I can eliminate him if he's that thick, but in reality, he seems hot and I'd like to get that confirmed so that maybe sister can get laid some time before the long march ends.

In fact he HAS given me a way to respond. The url "answer" he sent me went to a page of "meet sexy singles," which was either totally RUDE, ie, you need more help, or a typo. I'm thinking it's the latter. I'm also thinking, perhaps the guy realize he's not left a way for me to get in touch, maybe I can come up with a clever way to call his attention to that fact by calling attention to the url, ask if he's sent it so I HAVE to write back. But my zingers all sarcastic. This shoulda been a clue--I can't get out of the gate with humor because it's coming across as a putdown, this is never going anywhere, BUT NO. I figure, I'll just write something straight, hey, looks like this is the wrong url?

He writes back with the "right" one. Oy.

Then he writes back again, including one of the "meet sexy singles" urls, saying, "sheesh, I musta looked like a perv."

I see the second message first, and my solar plexus kicks in. I think he's actually sending me a whole new "meet sexy singles" page, as in, did you not get it the first time?

If that's not bad enough--I write back and say, uh, sorry if I offended you. I was trying to be funny. Best of luck.

Sorry if I offended you?

Who is this person typing?

Seriously, the person typing most of the time could not give a fuck if she offends someone (hence perhaps why I'm having the problem of the long, sexless march).Sadly, I dig my foot deeper.

I re-read his message, which I'm still reading as an angry thing, even though I've now actually seen the first message. I write back a long thing, more explaining, at this point I know this is so over, those kids are just gonna have to be born to someone else, but what the hell, I want to say my peace. Again, the funny thing is, I'm still not getting it right. I don't know this at the time, hit send, buh-bye. No matter; I'm mostly horrified at myself, yes, even then, that I'd apologized and wanted to E X P L A I N.

This morning I re-re-read. What is clear is that, once again, the dude has totally NOT picked up the bait, and that he was just apologizing himself, without actually apologizing, and certainly without moving the conversation anywhere. On a completely basic level

Just now she comes up in the "shuffle songs" feature, talking about how we have to learn to get past responding from our primal center of fear, the solar plexus. She said-and this is a real paraphrase- take notice of when you feel something in your solar plexus and then respond that way, because it's probably the wrong response. There could be nothing more primal than dating, it's all about assessing suitability. What's disheartening to me is that I've managed, somehow, to use the internet as a tool to speed up the rush to the downward spiral. Without even clues in the real world, my primal senses are kicking in...this is a new, solar plexus-height low.

Officially not cool anymore

Such a triumph yesterday--on the heels of the Moth party, I figured out how to transfer a picture from my phone to my computer. Today, I managed to delete all my pictures. Worse still, it was not I who jumped the shark. I have never been cool. It was the Moth itself...

Last night a young man proposed to his girlfriend when it was his turn to slam. Thankfully, he went last. When private moments are told, it's a story. When private moments are acted out for public consumption, it's a reality TV show.

I suppose, since I've never been cool, it does not matter that just as I've found it, the Moth has become about as "best kept" a secret as the Today Show. If only I had that picture to prove I was there, after all, how else could I possibly convincingly evoke I was there when it happened?

I made Garrison Keillor laugh

And it so was NOT just a polite laugh, thank you very much though Martin for the vote of confidence.

I am bathed in star dust this morning, and it will not wash off, those thousand little gold flecks that fell off the centerpieces I put together for last night's Moth Ball. Of course I am also high as a kite from the event, and sure, I sound like a starfucker, and OK, maybe I am. But c'mon, people! Gabriel Byrne. Gabriel fucking Byrne drew me a little picture. If I can figure out how to get it off my phone I'm posting it. It's of James Joyce. Or maybe James Thurber channeling James Joyce, can't say for sure. And OK, it was for the Moth guest book, not me really, but, well, I was there!

Back to me and Garri. He's walking out the door and I chirp out a thank you, which causes him to lean in and shake my hand, which I respond to with a Freebird-worthy "Whooo!" This is apropos of a joke he made in his story, about women and the "whoo." He turned away before it struck him, which made him turn back and look at me, and, yes Martin, LAUGH. Not a heh, heh, I get it. But a spontaneous noise that started, not deep in his belly, no, but somewhere in the midsection for sure.

And that was the highlight of my night. That and being taunted by...Martin.

PS: Not trolling the Martin waters, but I do enjoy talking with him and have since the first time I met him which was the time I learned he had a girlfriend. Unlike SOME people who are tall and funny and refer frequently to OJ Simpson, Martin stays focused on the person he's talking to rather than the next hotter, younger thing to pass by. I chalk that up to the love of a good woman.

Was that supposed to be a date?

Forget about the bull in a china shop of love; I am more like a frightened colt.

I'm not sure what to make of these two very different experiences with these two ... well, I was gonna say "somewhat similar men" but that's not quite right. They're very different. Here's what's the same. Both are long term bachelors, 47 and 52 and neither's been married. I know the 47-year-old's never had a terribly long-term relationship, and I don't know about the 52 year old.

47 busts a move on the first date, he's all over me, I'm worried he's gonna be too into me. He fades off into the sunset. 52 has a track record of eager in print, not so much in person. He writes these emails that make me think, oh yeah, he's into me. But in person he's been completely platonic.

So 52 asks me out on a date finally, I mean, it's unmistakable. Or is it? Dinner and a movie on a Saturday night. That's a...but wait. I've been doing platonic Saturday night dinner and a movie almost since I arrived...

But he's such a gentleman throughout, opening doors, slipping my coat on (properly! damn you cotillion, but I know, and I care)...but then, the end comes and he stops dead in the street, "I'm going this way."

I was so shocked I didn't even thank him. We're splitting here in the middle of the street? Even Andy would walk me to the subway.

So I'm back to thinking how similar New York and Doha are. The construction, the shopping, the lack of private space.

I can remember wanting desperately to slip away from parties with my lover in Doha but not having any idea where we might go. I imagined his fingers grazing the hem of my skirt, inner thighs, inside. Never happened, not even close, you just didn't touch members of the opposite sex in public. Everywhere was public.

47 drew me into his courtyard, kissed me beneath the stars. Lovely. But what if you don't have a courtyard? Are you supposed to make out on the subway? A street corner? The other factor that made that work was proximity. 47 was on the way home, of course I wanted to see his place. I'm a New Yorker, I want to look inside everybody else's house. In the absence of geographic desirability, stopping by to check out someone's apartment is not incidental. Sure, let me hop a bus, transfer to the train, see you in about 45! We'll make out a bit, tongues maybe even, then I'm off.

52 asked me to come to his hood, which leaves only his place for the "stopping by." He didn't ask, but even if he had, I wouldn't have said yes. At least I hope, god, I can't be sure. That overwrought imagination is still at it, imagining fingers, mouths and impossible angles. This is what draws us inexorably together, and it is what matters least. But without it...let's just say I hope the stagehand strike continues. I've decided against "45" (who i don't believe for a MINUTE is 45) and this is the perfect out. Though I do wanna see that play. Ah, the rigors of city life on the colt.

my neighbor across the hall

I always know when my neighbor across the hall is home because the smell of weed reeks out into the hallway. She favors a pungent blend. I can picture it, dense buds, moist and carrying with them the scent of Hawaii or Thailand. Once I was downstairs at Andy's and I could smell it in his place. Thanks to the vagaries of construction, the odor doesn't infiltrate my unit.

Last week her dealer must've been busted or out of town or God knows what because the smell emanating from her place was what we used to call skunk weed, because it smelled, well, a little like a skunk. Is there still such a thing as skunk weed?

Just now, 6:16 am by my clock, I awoke to sounds in my apartment. The conversation seemed to be taking place in the other room, only there is no other room. Beyond my thumbnail sized studio there is only the apartment across from, behind, above, beside or below me. The noise was not loud enough to complain, but eventually I became curious as to where it was coming from, so I got out of bed and opened the door.

It was a shocker to discover the conversation was coming from my neighbor's across the hall. Mostly because, for the first time I can recall, she was in there and there was not even the lingering odor of marijuana. I just hope the poor lass hasn't had to move on to cocaine in desperation. It sucks to lose a dealer, but you shouldn't give up on your favorite drug so easily.

why'd ya feel my sorrow?

it's not that we're scared, it's just that it's delicate

why'd ya sing with me at all

I heard these words for the first time this morning walking home from yoga. The whole Damien Rice thing, sure, it's manipulative, but my god this spoke to me this morning. I am a bull in the china shop of love.

Incomplete communication

So last night Adam Gopnik gives a lovely reading at the Strand; he was great with his material, not over-the-top with an act but not that dirge-like NPR voice drone. I bought the book for his essay on the dilemma of busy-ness. As he himself said, business has been around much longer. He blamed the telegram.

The telegram began the world on a journey of increasingly incomplete communications. The letter, while it expected areply, was meant to be a whole thought in and of itself, whereas the telegram was quite often signed off with "letter to follow". Updates on the medium have followed suit, boiling it down to TTYL.

He went on to talk about this has led to a modern culture of busy-ness, particularly in NYC where we're stuck in 19th century modes of transport. I don't agree that NYers are busier than other people, but I was totally on board with him about the rest of it until I realized how naive we were both being. The fact is, these modes of communication have ceased to be viewed as incomplete.

If I needed more proof, I searched for a link to Adam Gopnik's web site. He doesn't have his own.

talk talk talk talk talk

Did Talk Talk plan to be a one-hit wonder with the catchiest tune ever being one in the same with their name? Looking over the lyrics I have no idea what that song's supposed to be about (OK, I didn't look too hard), but it lives in my brain right next to Dianne Weist's infamous line to her hopeful co-star in Bullets Over Broadway, when she covers his on the verge of profession lips and tsks tsks, "No talking!"

The only thing worse than being saddled with a talker is when he stops talking altogether. People still don't believe me when I tell them I got divorced over email...maybe I should just make up a really good story. I'll have to work on that.

The Cancer

I remember in Terms of Endearment a scene where Debra Winger is out to lunch with a group of friends and everyone's talking around the fact she has, as she puts it, THE CANCER. But what is there to talk about? There is but one exit for any of us, and who's to say what it really will be? The pain and suffering is not yet upon my mother, no more so than usual, and so anything I have to say about it feels like unnecessary drama, like carving in stone something best written in water. Mary Ellen's visit has me wondering though, is this somehow invalidating?

And so today's lesson is--if it's not working, GET RID OF IT.

In the ghetto

OK, there's really no ghetto left, but I am living at the very edge of safety. Across from my apartment building is the giant Jacob Rus housing project, standing in the way of me and the East River. Today at last I strolled through unable to refuse the burnished light of a late autumn afternoon another day. It was my first attempt at a water sighting on the East side and certainly my last for some time.


The first thing I had to contend with was the mounting fear I might be shot by a sniper, thanks to the menacing atmosphere of eerie quiet and clean-swept sidewalks. As I cleared the brick towers though, to my left I saw a Mysteries of Pittsburgh-worthy scene, which gave me enough comfort to carry on, though that comfort didn't last.


The waterside walkway, like the rest of New York City, was under construction. No sooner had I bellied up to the edge of the site than someone coughed behind me, "Ma'am, you have to leave"

"Really? There's no sign?"

"Hel-LO, it's a construction site."

"Hel-LO, no sign."

But I was leaving anyway. I wanted to get back through the project before the gloaming ended.

Mum's the word...

Oh my sadness....

My favorite band announcement web site, Oh My Rockness, has announced a show this weekend and I can't get a date for it to save my flipping LIFE.

It's part of some arty Wordless Music Festival, sadly, just the kind of thing I LOVE. Perhaps this explains problem number one.

LOST IN SPACE

OK, this has been the week from...beyond? Every time I turn around I'm doing some completely airheaded thing. Is it my mother? I'd like to blame the stress of that--her doomsaying actually had me wondering today if I'd have to move the old folks into my house in Pittsburgh--but the thing is, I'd managed to lose my BIKE SEAT before she even told me about Dad canceling the prescription drug coverage for her. At least I think it was before that, that I lost kinda means, ya know, I don't know what happened to it. But let's not skip over the juicy part, how it seemed like a good idea to cancel a 65-year-old obese woman's drug coverage. I mean, the old man's the nutty supplement freak, if he wanted to save money why didn't he cancel HIS drug coverage?

Then I get an email from a friend who doesn't have my phone number or address, but wants to stay with me in my pint-sized apartment. With her 2 children and Eastern European nannymate. Ummm. Do I actually have to respond to that?

I am lucky to have a place to offer my friend to stay. Lucky to still have parents. Lucky that there is a solution to my bike woes. Lucky to have a stereo to play and forget the madness.Casey Dienel, take me away...