And Away We Go

After the breakdown and subsequent build-up four years ago, I switched my "escape fantasy" from suicide to international travel. When stress levels began to rise, I would not think about killing myself, but rather, about going to Brazil and going "dark." No one would be able to find me, not even bill collectors, and my days would be spent along the beach stringing necklaces for tourists; my nights would be filled with dancing and merry-making. In short, I would not end my life, I would escape to a new one.

I'm defending my dissertation next month, then I have a fly-out to a job interview three days later. As a reward to myself, I bought myself a ticket to Spain, and will be bike touring from Madrid to Valencia to Barcelona. The company of a wonderful friend living in Milan will accompany me on the Valencia-Barcelona leg.

This is much better than my Brazilian non-suicide fantasy.

However, traveling with a bike can be a headache. Hell, international traveling in general can be a headache. I wouldn't know this for sure, of course, because I haven't actually done any. All in my head up until now.

First, I booked a flight for $620, then learned it was to a sold-out flight.

PHEW! Turns out, Air Canada doesn't love bicycles. Nor do most airlines; or rather, they love them because they can charge you up to $500 to bring one with you. That's right. $500.

(I bought my tour bike for $280, built it up for $700.)

So basically, you can probably buy a bike upon arrival more cheaply than fly with one for a long list of airlines. So, my $600 ticket would have been $720 all said and done. After learning of Air Canada's mistake, I went back to the multiple internet sites promising the lowest fares in the universe, and sought to find myself a British Airways or American flight. They don't charge anything to bring you bike.

Can I get a holla?

Anyway, ticket ended up being cheaper once bike fare was considered. Next, had to buy a bike bag. They won't charge you to carry your bike, but even if they allowed it, who would want to shove their bicycle into cargo with everyone's suitcases sliding about? So, now I have a lovely bicycle travel bag on the way which should fit on my rear rack as I bike about the Spanish countryside and along their coasts.

I was so excited today that I was shaking, sweating, and a little nauseous. I'm doing it. I'm taking a dream vacation, a somewhat practical one (instead of paying rent for August, I'll be in Spain! works out to be a wash), a long and indulgent one, too. I don't know if I'll have a job when I get back, or how my interviewers will feel about the fact that, should they like me, I will not start until September so that I can bike about spain. I might have to live with my parents while I job hunt. I might learn that I'm not moving back to California at all and have a job in DC.

But indulging in this long long long-held wish kinda makes all of that angst just evaporate like spanish wine in the mediterranean sun.
.

it sucks to learn that people who suck are happy.

i just learned that the asshole who cheated on me last year with the obnoxious chick is still with said chick. after telling me he "just didn't want a relationship."

this is one of the few reasons i'd like to get behind a religion; at least somewhere down the road sucky people reap what they've sown. but of course, with most religions, you can just say "sorry" to the big kahuna--not even necessarily the one you sucked against--and your score is fixed. podium finish nonetheless.

the word fair should be erased from our language.

But wait...there's more!

So a few hours after receiving naked pic guy's email, i update my profile to explicitly warn guys not to email me if they want random hook-ups, live more than 30 miles away; to refrain from sending me pics of their upright body parts, etc.
i get an email from the cute, granola-y, campy smart guy. wants to let me know upfront that he's happily married in an open relationship and would like to do something sly and flirty if "that's what I'm into."

I'm so confused. I have never had this many offers for sex from paying personal sites ever. this isn't craigslist. these are sites that Dr. Phil recommends, or where i met the awesome guy a few months ago. what is happening? is there special pollen on the east coast that's infecting boys out here? it's like horny zombies are crawling out of their offices and into the eastern metropolises, in search of one thing: human flesh.

And now...

I received a message today on the onions personals (fastcupid/salon/nerve whathaveyou). It was from a man in NY who will be in DC today for business. He wanted to know if I would like to get together with him tonight "to see what happens. Chemistry permitting, of course."

Included with this message? a picture of his erect penis.

wow. THANKS CREEPY DUDE!

Is is possible that my profile contains some sort of subliminal message which says "I am all about the f/ucking"?

Sigh.

Dating Woes.

B-Baltimore told me I should be blogging more. All of the recent bad dates? Total blogging material, he says. So here I am, back to writing my on-line journal of sorts. Aren't you so glad I'm back? By the way, B and I started a new blog, Dealing With Normals. It might prove useful for some of you.

Back to this one, though...

The writer and I broke up last month. and the month before. i met him on-line a few weeks after re-joining that world for the first time in a few years. so lucky so quick. wonderful guy, amicable breakup...it gave me a bit of (false) hope that other wonderful awesome guys were just waiting on the internets for me to appear on their screen and in their lives. i am on three online dating sites currently, but the one which has given us the most fodder for today's post is match.com. Holy hell. And here we go.

1. The Cokehead. I answered his email because his profile was funny; he noticed the recurrent theme of many of the profiles about which my friends and I had bantered on numerous occasions. "Likes to travel," "Laid-back," "Likes to have fun." So, after a few emails back and forth, he asked me out to an Eritrean restaurant and drinks afterward at a nearby bar.

Breaking my cardinal rule of biking to the date location, I let him pick me up near my house. He was well-dressed, very fashionable, driving a practical but nice car...no white van missing windows and looked like his profile picture. Already off to a good start!

I get in the car, and he seems pretty amped. I mean, he has WAY more jitters than a first date might normally induce. And his nose is pretty runny. But hey, you already know my nickname for him, so you can probably tell why already!

The Eritrean restaurant was delicious, but my stomach didn't love all the spices as much as my mouth did. Nice jittery guy got us a cab, hopped out of the cab at a CVS and got me sum tums.* We got out of the cab, started walking toward the bar, when my date admitted his nose was running so much because he had "partied with a friend" earlier that day. Oh, and I'm gonna go ahead and have a few bumps more, would you mind? A true gentleman, he offered me a few lines as well.

Awww.

I of course declined, and I'm no prude--I've had pals in college whose noses ran, too, so I wasn't necessarily shocked that my date's nose would run, but THIS WAS OUR FIRST DATE. maybe keep the coke at home until we know if we hit if off...make it a TINY bit more difficult for me to completely write you off.


2. Sack Guy
So I started emailing a few days ago with Sack Guy. He's finished law school, passed the bar, and is now in medical school. He's a smarty pants, with degrees from all our finest universities. Also, pretty funny profile. Avoided all of the match cliches, and looked kinda cute in his profile pic to boot.

Yesterday, we moved the emailing to our regular email accounts as his subscription was running out that day. We started chatting on gmail, and about an hour into the chat, started talking about what blows about match...namely, the uninteresting homogeneous pool of potential dates. After talking about the "fun-lovers", Dr. Sack tells me another thing he hates is cockblocking. I expressed confusion...how does one cockblock on a dating site? He explains that it's the in-person cockblocking.

Me: Huh? you're on a date and your DATE cockblocks you?

Sack: Yeah, your date isn't into you and doesn't want you to hit on others...

*At this point, I'm already thinking about the increasing odds that this guy is an asshole.

Me: I would probably be a little offended if my date walked away mid-sentence and slid his arm around a stranger at a bar.

Sack: It's sort of like, we're on date 5, and it's not going to happen. That's the usual way it comes up. I think they're usually banging other guys and want me to buy them shit and give them attention.

Me: Huh.

Sack: God I haven't been laid in a while. My sack is heavy.

--End of Transmission--

Now I see why a cute, funny lawyer/doctor is single. Because he's really a giant walking penis with degrees dangling like penis earrings.


3. The Leg Man.

I was contacted by a cute professional in Brooklyn. Italian.

First email: Can you elaborate at all on leg-wrestling? I'd also like to read your explanation as to why your calves are your best feature.

I mention in my profile that I was an undefeated leg wrestling champion until recently. And under best feature, it says calves. So, sure, this is all harmless, right? RIGHT?

Indulging the request, I explain the mechanics of leg wrestling (not really a sexy sport...it's like thumb wrestling for legs). I talk about riding bikes. Rather, I kind of brag about riding bikes. It's my thing, I'm good at it, and as we've read over and over again on this blog, I have unusually strong man-like legs with girl ankles.

A few emails in, he asks for a picture of my calves. I'm still thinking at this point that he's joking about being so into my descriptions of winning races with my "raw awesome strength." I'm joking as I write it, he must be joking as he responds. the request for a calf picture must be just another round in the game.

Then I heard "my sack is heavy" from Dr. Sack, and think, "Maybe all guys ARE really creepy..." So I email Leg Man and tell him that I need to know more about him before I send any pictures along...at this point, he's earned a wrist.

The reply I get is the most desperate thing I've ever read...he thinks I'm lording my calves over him like some prize because he's divulged what most turns him on and now HE FEELS UNCOMFORTABLE. He'd already offered to take a train down to DC, what more do i possible want?

HOW ABOUT KNOWING YOU BEFORE SHOWING YOU THE SEXUAL EQUIVALENT OF MY NIPPLES (for him, anyway).

4. Frisky. Cute, mature-looking guy talking about how he's now in his thirties and is ready for the real thing (not his exact words, but I'm summarizing for you). Talks about how he's grown and probably screwed up a lot of potentially good relationships in his twenties, but remember, we're in our thirties now. Also, talks about wanting someone who can teach him stuff he doesn't know--clearly interested in brains!

I wink. He winks. I email:

the romans rounded pi to 3. it's an architectural marvel that the colosseum held up so well.

David Foster Wallace loved the first terminator movie.

macguyver's first name was angus.

If you know of a good place to watch blues/jazz, I'd love to have you show me!

Cheers,
Slickaphonic

He responds back telling me where he lives, asking if we'd like to get a drink soon. I tell him my neighborhood, and ask, "maybe this weekend?"

That's when Mr. 30's decides to go back to Mr. 20's. "I just opened up a bottle of wine and I'm feeling frisky! Want to come over?"

Me: "Sorry, I'm busy tonight, but if you'd like to go out this weekend..."

Him: "okay. Well, here's my number...give me a call if you're frisky."

WHAT IS UP WITH THE FRISK, DUDE? No, I don't feel frisky. You want a prostitute, not a girlfriend. they're frisky All_the_time!
***

I had talked about the Cokehead to the Writer, and he explained it like this: "you're a freak. you're going to attract other freaks. and some of those freaks are going to be cokehead freaks."


I guess in conclusion...

PLEASE HELP!

bah

i feel a bit frozen. both figuratively and literally. (ha;).
inside jokes don't belong here i suppose.
whatever. best word of this century. WHATEVER.
that is how i feel about my job prospects currently. dear president obama, please find me a job. i will buy things like fancy clothes and multiple belts and purses, and maybe a car for funsies. no, i won't buy a car, but i'll rent a car for a homeless child--a minority one--and we'll stimulate the economy and spread the wealth. but first, i'll definitely need that job.
why isn't the academic market more protected than this? i thought i could shun academia one day and feel puffed with pride and such. ha ha! i eschew your tenure and monastic existence! instead, academia shunned me this year and it kinda hurt. mainly my ego, i guess, but it's hard to ignore ego pain. it's not like pulling a tooth.
oh, and obama claus, i would also like you to forgive my student loan debt. actually, you could choose--a job or loan forgiveness. either will work. or let me declare bankruptcy on student loans. that'd be swell. stupid doctors.
elsewise, i'm realizing more and more that i might be defective. like when i'm cold if you offered me a blanket i'd wonder why. don't you want the blanket? is there a better blanket upstairs in the closet? why do i care about the hypothetical blanket upstairs when there is absolutely nothing wrong with this blanket anyway? i even like this blanket. and i was cold. and it was very kind of you to give it to me. i promise to try to wrap it around myself, i promise to try. dear president obama, please give me a catalogue of all possible blankets.

homesick

ride a raindrop every lottery you win. i wrote that once. it comes around again, now and then, like a shadow that chases the light. i miss the taut little tummies and arms with ink stains swirling around. burritos with heaven inside. long stretches of pavement with sun melting my face. his beard was bushy and his glasses round. you don't have to wait any longer. i'm so sorry. her eyes were asian. it caused confusion at the german hospital. and there were swirling tutus with cupcakes on trays and earlobes stretched and displayed at the checkout lanes. i fit like a whale in a goldfish jar. i didn't go to the beach enough. but we sat on the cliffs once with pbr and let our thoughts drift over the waves and trickle down our throats. you dried my tears with the chain grease off your bicycle. we sat in a cemetery with your grandfather and a pack of parliament lights. but maybe everyone was there.

she had a great rack. she looked like a thirteen year old boy. her teeth were slightly crooked and bucked in the front. i'm a being of higher intelligence. meep. there's crayon on the walls and the cat has no hair. she has huge blue eyes with lashes that lick the sky. so tiny, put her in my pocket. her bike is named baby blue. she couldn't ride anymore, her girl bits were broken. please don't dance anymore i can't take it. his nose was broken twice, and he wore glasses he didn't need. skinny jeans are morally offensive. do you wanna escape all of this. i couldn't move his arms from around my hips, he had narcolepsy.

she thought she was a witch. a real one with magic. the rose hunt and the dead bird, he touched it and brought it close to his smiling mayan face. she jumped into the pool with striped tights, a bumblebee. goddesses and gods, and oil that burns my nose but is supposed to smell pretty. a corncob up his ass and popcorn out of his mouth. singing and dancing and making pancakes with too much confetti inside. needles going in here and there, don't worry, it's chinese. don't worry, we'll make it. those fucking sunsets are pretty.

he told me he is weird. no, really i am he said. it sounded wrong. i told him weird means you want to fix something to make it normal. i don't want to fix him.

it took a moment before gravity brought that back down to us.

notes from the tour

her sister died and became a tornado. the dead tornado's sister took the last spot at the campsite that night. is it okay if they sleep here, Laura? sure, she told the park ranger. and give them that hand-rolled cigarette, Bill. neither of us really wanted it but it seemed rude somehow to refuse. like she had offered us a freshly slaughtered guinea pig in peru and we would be insulting her people to snub the gift. she's homeless and sleeps here and other sites along the coast for $3 a night. up and down the beaches with a yoga mat and her crap...she surveys it and shakes her dirt-thick, dirty blond hair. "i have too much stuff. I need to get rid of some of my clutter."

she can fit all of her belongings into a small shopping cart.

Time! Now you know.

there's something strange about the distribution of time. there are supposed to be 24 hours in every day, measured in the same way the world over by factory-inspected clocks.

clocks must be a part of the conspiracy.

lately, i feel like my time has shifted--jumped off the tracks it was on. as though i were a person once, became a character in a book, and am now a person again--but without a past. all of that got trapped in the book's chapters, in that track of time.

there are globs of time, dense little pockets that you have to purposefully work yourself thru. everything sticks, cement-like in your memory. molasses in the winter. then, patches as light and thin as new ice on a fall pond. you can't trust anything, the experiences are moving too quickly to get things properly underfoot. memories don't form as cleanly...a thin fur covers the conversations, blurring what was said, how you felt. i've been ice-skating through the last few weeks. but things are starting to firm up a bit.

funny. "Time" by rolling stones came on as i typed this.

Notes from the Tour, 1.

We had been biking at a pace which quickly became grueling for my body, which was not just putting forth the effort to cycle 60-80 miles a day in headwinds and through the California coast's numerous hills, but also to mend a still-broken bone. On the morning of our eighth day, my touring partner assured me that we only had sixty miles to cover, a relatively short stretch. Around mile 15 or so, I realized that this sixty miles included all of Big Sur along the Pacific Coast Highway (the 1). There are a lot of steep hills along that stretch, folks.

Around mile 40, I began to curse my partner, who I had not seen for 30 miles. I had no cell phone reception, and no maps. I wasn't sure about which campsite we were staying at that night. And I was tired, angry, and mostly, scared. I began to fight back tears every other mile. Each hill filled me with dread; I would pause, look behind me and survey all of the terrain and all of those hills I had already conquered and wonder, how would I make it up yet another climb?

I knew I needed to let go of my fear. I would tell myself in my most motherly voice, "Just let go. You're afraid of the next ten miles, but you only need to pedal for this instant. You are not at your limit yet. This is only fear!" As I reached mile 50, I began to become encouraged again. "It's only 10 more miles! You can bike any 10 miles, no matter how hilly! You can always do ten miles!

This worked until about mile 60. Then, I began to argue with that motherly voice, "Yes, but what about the pain? How do you let go of the pain? That is not just in my head, that is aching through my body!"

And then, I hit mile 65. I had arrived at the Henry Miller museum, closed, of course, by that time. It was not the campsite just like the three other Big Sur attractions I had recently passed were not the campsite. There were still no signs for the campsite, and the strangers I had asked along the way had been telling me "five more miles" for the last fifteen miles. I no longer believed them. Further, I no longer had numbers to play with; I had passed the 60-mile mark, and had no idea how far that campsite actually was from where I sat.

I pulled off into the parking lot of the museum, leaned my bike against a tree, sat down in a wooden chair, and sobbed. I had indeed reached my limit; perhaps not physically, but emotionally. The games I played with myself were no longer working, Yo La Tengo could no longer distract me, and there was another small hill to climb if I was to leave that museum. I could no longer tell myself, "It's only sixty miles!" It had already been 65.

After about 20 minutes of heaving, self-pitying, all-out wailing, a man drove his car over to where I sat. His window down, he leaned out and said, "Ma'am, I haven't heard someone cry like that in a long time. What's got you so upset?"

I explained that I had been biking for quite some time, had no cell phone reception, didn't know where my touring partner or the campsite was, and just could not bike one more mile. He then explained that he knew the owner of the museum, would go talk to him, and that I could probably just camp at the museum that night. After he introduced himself, Todd told me to sit right there, settle myself down, and wait while he went and spoke with the owner about my camping prospects.

I'll admit, while I was somewhat creeped out by the idea of sleeping by myself in a closed, empty museum, I was also quite intrigued. It would certainly be more interesting than the hiker/biker sites we had stayed in up to this point.

While Todd was gone, a 20-something, sporty couple approached the closed front gate to examine the literature regarding the museum's and Henry Miller's history. I asked them if they knew of a campsite just north of the museum. They responded that they did know of one--20 miles north.

I began sobbing again.

The girl began rushing toward me, asking "Why are you so sad? No, don't cry! What's wrong?" I hic-upped my story out to them, and they offered to put my bicycle (Frank) on their car's bike rack and drive me to the campsite.

The only other time I have ever hitchhiked was during a high school spring break vacation in the Cayman Islands, where absolutely everyone hitchhikes. But I had absolutely no hesitation at that point in taking this ride from strangers.

While we began unloading my bags from Frank, a tall, shaggy-haired man in a short-sleeved polyester shirt arrived at the museum. He sauntered over, pointed at the three of us, and asked "Which one of you met Todd?" I raised my hand, and he said, "Well, my name's Peter. Now if you want to walk right up that hill there, I live just at the top. You can stay with me tonight. Let's go!"

"Well, thank you so much for the invitation, but these nice people here have a bike rack and they're just going to drive me over to the campsite."

"No, no! I'm just right there, you can get a shower, have your own room with a bed, and I can walk your bike for you!"

At this point, the girl from the couple interjected on my behalf, "No, she can come with us."

I couldn't believe it; three strangers were arguing over who got to take the hitchhiker. I clearly had a preference for who won, and eventually succeeded in politely telling Creepy Dude that I preferred to be reunited with my tour partner, but thank you very much.

The campsite ended up being, finally, actually, only five miles away. Of course, if I had known this, I would not have pulled off to the side of the road and sobbed. I would have rallied and climbed that last short hill, and then enjoyed the massive and unbelievably fun (I'm sure) downhill which followed. But alas, my fear of the unknown, coupled with my exhaustion, and tripled with my frustration at having done "only 60 (Big Sur) miles" broke me. I broke me. I was so worried about total number of miles ahead of me, the total number of miles behind me that I psyched myself out of grinding through one more pedal stroke.

This summer has not been easy. In fact, more shit has happened this summer than in any other five month stretch of my life. And keeps happening. I've had to change flight plans three times in the last three weeks, all attempts to leave this coast and move to DC. This morning, I missed my flight (a first for me) and have been delayed until tomorrow. And I cried, but I also remembered Big Sur, and pulled myself together after only a few minutes. I can't worry myself over what tomorrow will bring, I just have to figure out how to proceed in this instant.

I wrapped him up in the softest blanket we could find. It was the only favorite thing of his left that he could still enjoy. He had stopped eating anything a few days earlier, while I was on a bicycle riding through Big Sur. I had tried popping some popcorn, one of his favorite snacks, but he was either too weak or too sick to eat any. He refused the broth I offered, the fresh tuna, and any of his other favorite treats.

He had lost 5 pounds since I had left him a week and a half earlier. He was coated in fleas, despite two treatments of the expensive flea medication. I was angry at the fleas as they crawled over his nose. They were invading my best friend, making his last days miserable as they fed off of his weak little body. But he no longer seemed to mind them, or at least, he no longer had the energy to mind.

I lifted him up onto the bed so we could snuggle on our last day together. He tried to jump down and his front legs gave out beneath him as his face smashed into the floor. He tried to walk a few steps, but his hip was giving out on him after 15 years, and he stumbled and collapsed. I moved him over to the rug in front of a sunny window, always a favorite spot of his.

Wrapped in his blanket, my friend sped us to the vet. It was an appointment i really didn't mind being late for. He slept on my lap, and let his face fall into my heaving chest as tears fell on his head. I carried him into the vet's office and a man rushed in front of me to the counter. i didn't think such a person should be allowed to have any pets. And then a lady went to the counter and said we could be seen first. She then sat down next to me, my cheeks wet with tears and my lip wet with snot, and asked what was wrong with him. I told her he was old, and could no longer walk, and was nearly blind, almost deaf, and hadn't eaten anything for a while. I didn't tell her how guilty I felt that my move to DC had probably overstressed my little guy, that the multiple moves and an unexpected stay at a pet sitter probably hastened his demise, that I wondered if maybe his little bed's absence through the last two stays had made him felt abandoned...

I will always remember stroking his little body, still wrapped in that soft blue blanket, as the doctor injected poison into him. I was telling him what a good little boy he was, and how much I loved him, and how sweet he was to stay with me for so long. I was looking into his huge brown eyes as the light left them and there was nothing but a furry body left on the table, but not the friend i had had since I was 14 years old.

I will also always remember one of our last walks to the pet store together, a few months ago. I had already paid for his food when I looked down and saw that he had quietly taken a pig's ear from the bin below the counter. He looked up at me with those huge eyes and began wagging his tail. I told him, "But I've already paid, sweetheart. Give it here, babe." I only weakly tried to take the treat away, and saw how happy he was to have it. I dug around in my purse again, paid the $1.79, and he carried that pig's ear all the way home with such pride. it was one of the quickest walks we ever took together. Precedent set, he got a pig's ear with his bag of food almost every time from that day forward.

He liked apple cores and the rind off of my brie. When he was a puppy, I would sit crossed-legged on the floor, cradling him like a baby, while he ate the apple core like it was his bottle.

He was fond of humping. Though he was fixed, he would become excited every time there was a party or a date over to the house. If the guests weren't accepting of his advances (and they usually weren't), he would find a blanket to hump across the length of apartment...looking up every once in a while to pant with satisfaction. I often told my guests, "Don't worry about it. I mean, listen, if you weren dependent upon someone else to masturbate, wouldn't you hope they would help you out?" Once, though, my friend's boyfriend was laying on the floor watching tv when of a sudden, he yelled out, "what the fuck???" Suki was humping his head. i think I might have peed my pants a little from laughing so hard.

When he caught frisbees, the wind would usually catch the frisbee and turn my little Shih Tzu into a kite. He ran into a screen door once, and never trusted patio doors again. In the wintertime in Indiana, he would often get stuck out in the snowy yard, one paw raised in an attempt to warm it. he couldn't bear to put that paw back into the snow to come inside. He could also jump onto pool tables, over the back of couches, and of course, over any child gates we set up during his potty-training phase. In the last months, of course, he needed help getting onto my couch--in any way. He was pretty excited about the sleeping mat arrangement I had during the last weeks of our time at the apartment in San Diego.

We could communite so well. Location+cry type let me know what he wanted, and motion+voice command let him know I wanted. If i wanted onto a chair he was on, I simply said "Down" and he jumped down. Or, I would pat the spot I wanted him to move to, and he would sweetly oblige. if he wanted to go outside and i was in the middle of some task, i would say "in a minute sweetheart," and he would wait up to five minutes before reminding me that he did, in fact, need to pee, and dude, I'm a dog, so let's step to it, shall we? Once outside, of course, when I needed him back, I had to yell "TWEAT!!!" and he would sprint to me. I think he probably couldn't hear that these last few years.

When they began to put the actual poison into him, I fought every desire to wrap him tighter in that blanket and take him home. But i didn't want him to suffer for me; I didn't want him to be hungry any longer and unable to eat, to want to move into the sunshine but unable to walk there. he didn't close his eyes and go to sleep, but he didn't suffer any pain or stress. I wish I could have saved my sobbing for afterward, and just let him see me smiling back at my very good little boy.

ouch

i broke my collarbone at track class (velodrome). be gone awhile.

Observations

I met a boy last weekend who is recently divorced. He's only 25, and got married when he was just 21. On his ribs, he got a tattoo with a knife piercing a heart upon which was written "forever." He explained that it was to remind him never to make any more "forever" decisions.

I wondered if his ribs caught the irony which clearly escaped his brain.

As I sat on my balcony last night, a tiny silver sports car parked on the hill out front of my building. A rotund man rolled himself out of the driver's seat and into the street. He was almost out of breath from maneuvering his large body out of such a small car. I began to wonder why such a car is called "sports." The sweat on his forehead came not from driving athletically, but from the thermal blanket of fat wrapped around his body. It's cruel, but I thought to myself, "When you speed down the road, it's a rush; when I speed down the road, it's an accomplishment."

And then I remembered that if I hadn't rolled my body onto a bicycle two years ago, I would be heaving my large body out of cars, too.

Odds and End.

I saw an emergency storage container on campus the other day...in big bold letters on a trashbin-looking metal container, it stated "EMERGENCY STORAGE CONTAINER." It was a few steps from the parking lot. I would love to know what one might put into an emergency storage container. I tried to think of emergency storage situations I, myself, have had in the past--instances where I would have benefitted from an emergency storage container. I could think of none. But I did enjoy picturing myself holding something which needed storage immediately..."Quick! I need to store this NOW!!!" Or imagining myself in the commercial for an emergency storage container: "Has this ever happened to you? You need to store something in an emergency and your tupperware are all dirty? We have the answer."

I saw a lone shoe on my way to work on Friday. We've all seen the lone shoe on the side of the highway, on the sidewalk, etc. Will someone else find its abandoned mate? Are there pairs of shoes out there, alone and useless, waiting for someone to reunite them? Or are there really that many frustrated one-legged individuals in the US and this is their statement against society's insistence on selling them TWO shoes when they only require one? How do you lose ONE shoe? This question has burned in my psyche since I was about two years old...how do you fail to notice that one of your feet is suddenly naked? A flip flop, maybe, but we're talking an abandoned tennis shoe, one red stiletto. How far could you really get before this information confronted you and you retraced your lopsided steps back to your shoe?

A Guide To Recognizing Your Assholes

Yes, this post has been ruminating for some time, a research project in the archives of my head. I've thought a lot about which characteristics actually work to form an asshole's nature; it is not the simplest task. The world is not divided into Michael Myers and Mother Theresa clones. The person I was seeing earlier this year was not a sociopath, was not malicious, did not put "Screw Slickaphonic" on his daily to-do list. I don't believe he is evil, or an inherently "bad" person, but he is indeed an asshole. So, my archival research has led me to conclude the following about assholes:

1.) Poor Theory of Mind
-The asshole is unable to conceive of emotions not felt by the asshole, him/herself. Therefore, the asshole will appear reckless in his behavior toward others. For instance, PIDE (person I dated earlier) knew I still had non-platonic feelings and was not completely okay with our new platonic relationship. Two weeks after the abrupt breakup, PIDE invited me to a house party where everyone in the house but me knew that he was sleeping with a very, um, not awesome person. The odds were outstanding that I would learn this completely unanticipated information in public, among and from his friends. He did not invite me to the party hoping to hurt me, but he, being quite okay with our platonic situation, could not conceive of my feelings in that situation. Nor could he comprehend how very terrible such a public setting would be for me to learn this information, given my, ahem, "issues." Again, not malicious, just a very poor theory of mind.

2.) Narcissistic Tendencies
-I've also recently learned to make the distinction between "Cares About Me" and "Cares About My Opinion of Him/Her". This subtle distinction implies very different behavior. Assholes generally do not actually care about a person; rather, they care about that person's opinion of him/her. For instance, after behaving badly, an asshole will not ask whether you are okay or what will help you to actually feel better, but will instead ask what you think about him/her. The asshole will most likely attempt to explain his or her behavior noting how very sorry they feel that you are upset. However, the asshole will not actually take responsibility for his or her actions and will instead attempt to assure you of his or her good person status. Note: assholes' apologies are frequently attempts by the asshole to gain assurance that he or she is not, in fact, an asshole. Assholes will pursue your affection despite being incapable of responsibly caring for your feelings. Your opinion of them is important; your well-being is not.

3.) Technicality Players
-This one most irks me. An asshole will hold you to all conversations which may have been relevant to the social contract you have been writing together. If there's a loophole, the asshole will seize upon it and claim awesome person status due to technicalities. Perhaps you have discussed monogamy with regards to intercourse, but did not specifically discuss oral sex. An asshole will truly believe that he or she is a good and honest person if he/she abstains from intercourse with others while blowing the Brazilian soccer team. Rarely is someone awesome by technicality.

Slickaphonic: Technically awesome since 1978.

All the King's Horses, All the King's Men

When she was little, she learned to do a one-handed cartwheel using her left hand on the ground. It was the consolation prize she gave to the left hand which no longer enjoyed the opportunity to write. And much later, in the background of her mind, whenever her Left Arm or Right Arm were mentioned, she still viewed them as separate entities, with their own distinct hobbies and goals in life. She still worried that her Right Leg might be jealous of the Left Leg, who never had to climb up stair steps first. And while she liked to think that this was just a manifestation of her obsession with symmetry, a sign of her intelligence and creativity, it was most likely a three-year old's defense against Him. She broke herself apart, so that she could ignore everything he touched. Those parts didn't matter, they had no personality. They had no important tasks in life, such as handwriting or cartwheels. And they were oddly mute in the inter-body conversations she sometimes played in her head.

she grew up, of course, and no longer sincerely cares about the inter-body rivalries. but I do wish someone might put me back together again.

Embrace Your Crazy.

I've posted on this before, my fear of being emotional or girly in "My Gender Bothers Me, or Yes I'm Messed Up". Sometimes I feel like I should print out that post and send it to all potentials: Listen boys and girls, make me feel and I will have a rage for you which you will not understand. Actually treat me badly and make me feel and a fury you thought died in biblical times shall reign down upon you. (Most likely in email format.)

I am emotional.

I have hated that fact for almost as long as I can remember. I say almost because I can remember a time when I wasn't ashamed to cry in public, or have feelings in general... I hurt my arm when I was about 6 years old. I ran to the church across the street with tears streaming down my dirty face, where my parents were lunching, where sympathy would most likely be found. Instead, my father told me rather sternly, "That's enough." For a week, I was told to stop being so dramatic about my arm, to stop crying about the pain. Finally, after my school teacher wearied of consoling me, I was taken to the hospital and officially declared broken by non-dramatic experts. It was now okay to cry, apparently. But only a little.

My father, of course, apologizes frequently for this, and especially lately as I suffer through feeling. The arm healed, but I still hate myself for feeling so emotional about experiences that my rational self declares trivial. I hate crying when I am in physical pain--it's gone so far that now I either hysterically laugh or angrily curse when I am in extreme pain. But I will not cry. And any time I do succumb to emotion, it feels as though my brain cleaves into two selves; Thinky Self hates Feely Self for being so fucking dramatic about everything, which makes Feely Self ashamed and even more emotional of course. And now all of us just feel outright crazy because I've officially given names to two personalities in my head. But I digress.

My absolute greatest fear in life is to break down in front of people. I can't remember a time I had a face-to-face screaming match with someone, or let the tears flow in front of the person who opened the floodgates. When I am upset, I become outwardly ice-cold while the emotions begin to boil inside. Only my eyes flash what's seething beneath. I leave the situation as quickly as possible. The only form of communication I allow myself with people when I am upset is the most impersonal of all: email. I will write to tell them I am hurt or upset or angry, but I will not let them see me in that state. Letting Times New Roman convey my message with proper grammar and complete sentences gives me some sense of safety--safety against others viewing me as an overly emotional, dramatic, weak GIRL. Safety against others seeing Feely Self. I realized that except for two individuals in my life (ironically enough, one being my father), I am actually unable to cry in front of others. My voice may tremble, but I cannot even force tears out (I tried both times I was pulled over for speeding).

But I'm beginning to see the problem with this strategy: Others know Feely Self is in there, but they don't know how big or terrible she is...They know there's a monster lurking in the water, but having only seen its tail as it retreats, they cannot gauge its true size. Every boy or girl who has broken up with me (with the exception of "Sebastian") has told me the same thing: "I'm terrified of dating you." Sure, they all choose their own special word combination, but it's the same cryptic message. What a relief it would be to hear "I'm just not attracted to you in that way", or "This just isn't working out" or even "I got someone else pregnant." And the breakup speech always contains the "I like you so much" and "you're so amazing" phrases for added frustration and consternation.

I have a hard time believing that I am *just. that. awesome.* I'm starting to wonder if perhaps some of my intensity peaks out, and my attempts to stifle this intensity make it appear all the more menacing. It does feel menacing to me--even though my emotions are rarely inappropriate, I just feel the intensity of those emotions is outright crazy.

It's time to embrace my crazy, folks. I am not a robot. I am not even a moderately emotional person. I am an extremely intense, highly emotional and sometimes jealous individual. I am passionate about almost everything. I am lukewarm about almost nothing. I will still use Thinky Self to make sense of things, but I need to let Feely Self socialize a bit more. After living with Real Crazy for eighteen years, I suppose I doubted anyone would want to be with an emotional person. But I don't think I've been fooling anyone, I've just been scaring the hell out of everyone. I'm not my mother, I'm not Real Crazy, my rational self does not turn off when the emotions turn on, but I do feel everything much more intensely than most. And my selves are trying to be okay with that...

I'm embracing my own crazy.

hey, it's not all dark!

from mcsweeney's lists:

Brews
to Accessorize
the Modern Hipster.

BY KEVIN SCHEITRUM

- - - -

I Liked These Guys Before Anybody Else Knew About Them English Bitter

Boys Don't CrIPA

Oh Fuck My Rent Check Didn't Come in the Mail Bock

Fixed-Gear Bicycleweisse

Essentially Empty Yet Always Present Messenger Baggleywine

Almost Stout of the Closet

All My Friends Are White Ale

So What If I Messed Up Your Starbucks Order Porter

Rummage Sale Pale Ale

I Don't Really Like This but I'm Drinking It to Get Back at My Parents and/or Friends With an Overt and Crass Display of Being Cultured Lambic

I Am Entirely Fucking Done With Society Because It Is Run by Corrupt and Criminally Exploitative Man-Machines Who Don't Give One Shit for Anyone or Anything Except for Money and Power Light Lager

Sleeping Pillsner

There's dirt in his veins, and i know this. that's why i'm here.
to be caressed and loved by muck.
he promised that when it got too violent behind our eyes we'd stop sleeping and we would walk through gas stations and truck stops instead, picking up more muck for our love.

and when he cuts his wrists on the bone of my hip, i'll let him cry and bleed for all of those promises he made but will never keep.
i'll take the crushed lightening bug off of my finger and press it to his lips, whispering for him to keep quiet.
it doesn't matter any longer.

he'll want to scream, of course. he always does.
but i'll slip on my suicide blue dress--the one as soft as cancer
and tenderly dry his tears with my kneecap
and leave our love on the bathroom floor where it ever belonged.

The Toothbrush

I only meant to take my own toothbrush out. I didn't even touch his, but the rubber on mine must have grabbed the rubber on his and out they both came. I saw it happening, but couldn't react in time. His toothbrush fell to the floor--behind the toilet where the shit-glazed plunger resides. It fell to shit. God, how it fell to shit.

My first instinct was grab it quick, clean it, try to salvage the brightly colored, $3.50 piece of plastic....try to make it useable again.

Then I remember, he hasn't used that toothbrush in two weeks.

It's still there, I need to throw it away but I don't want to touch it right now.

But I Didn't Mean To...

Accidents happen. I'm a klutz--both physically and socially, so I have much empathy for the spilled wine glass, or the joke that comes out poorly and unintentionally offends. I vowed long ago to never yell at anyone who spilled, broke or otherwise accidentally despoiled any items in my household. I always try to take comments with the best possible context from those I trust or care for. Intention matters--even our courts acknowledge this and mete out lighter sentences for manslaughter than murder, even though a person is dead at the end of both crimes. So, when uninformed pals make jokes about mental institutions, I do not hold their ignorance of my mother's frequent visits against them. If someone is late because their bike got a flat, I will not be upset at their tardiness. And when red wine is spilt all over my nice rug, I try as hard as possible to alleviate any guilty feelings the other party has (while pouring salt on the spill, of course...).

However, there are occasions wherein "I didn't mean to" just doesn't cut it. If you knock a glass over and break it because you didn't see it, I won't be angry. If you try to take the tablecloth out from under a fully set table and all of the dishes crash and break, then we're going to have words. In neither case does the individual "mean to" break something, but in the latter, the offender knew there was some probability of breakage and proceded anyway, hoping to land in the "happy" tail of the probability distribution--hoping to "get away with it." In the courts, we call this negligence. If you own a pit bull and build a ten foot tall impenetrable fence and the dog escapes, you are not held liable when Fido bites someone leg off because you took reasonable actions to guard against such misfortune. However, if you are a pit bull owner and built a 3 foot tall shrub around the back yard, you are liable under the law for negligence. Further, even if you are the responsible fence-builder, the second time that dog escapes, you're in trouble. Almost every known set of laws from Hammurabi's Code to the Laws of the Old Testament lay out punishment for such negligent behavior.

I have recently broken up with a pal. One evening, pal and I walked a mile to a local bar, reached the door and were phoned by her love interest--to whom I had introduced her a week earlier. Love interest had unexpectedly come back into town a day earlier than planned, and wanted to see "us." I begged my pal not to invite love interest; further, I said they could make out all they wanted to after we left the bar, but I had zero desire to feel like a third wheel for the next two hours, and really would not gracefully handle being ditched. Pal invited love interest, and then the two waited about three minutes before leaving me alone in the bar by myself.

My pal was confused as to why I was so upset. "I would never intentionally hurt you. Really, I did not mean for you to feel ditched."

Uh-huh. This felt to me like she tried to pull the tablecloth out and the dishes fell to the floor. I have no doubt there was no malice involved, no pre-meditation, no ill will. However, she knew before taking said actions that there was a very real possibility of my feelings being hurt, and she decided to take her chances. We did not land in the happy tail of the distribution.

There's also the problem of cumulative emotional neglect. When you see that someone has rolled the emotional dice with your feelings and their actions, you begin to question their innocence for past transgressions you might have assumed at the time were cases of true accidents. I have the problem that until some transgression really pisses the hell out of me, I smile, rationalize their behavior for them using much better excuses than they could ever contrive, and sweep it under the rug and out of my mind. It's like putting the raging pit bull back in the yard without telling the owner it escaped. When the dog finally takes a bit out of my hand, I'm out of grace and understanding and am ready for the pruning scissors.

We all know how I feel about conclusions by now.

9 out of 10 Dictators Can't Be Wrong!

I sometimes wish I lived in "communist" Russia (hey, I'm a political scientist, I get to use quotes around "communist"!). Really, any socialist country which offers only one brand of anything, and you stand in line for a few hours, relaxed because, the choice made for you, you know that you could have done no better.

I tried to buy toothpaste today. As per my usual routine, I was trapped in the oral hygiene aisle for about 17 minutes.

That's a long time to look at toothpaste boxes.

Some are gels and some are pastes. They all promise to clean my teeth--some "naturally", some with baking soda, some with fluoride, some with tiny elves with pickaxes. The fact that there is a choice seems to suggest that one might be better suited for my teeth's needs. What if I pick the toothpaste only recommended by 3 out of five dentists? What do those last two dentists know that I don't?!?

I just feel overwhelmed. And the fact that there are so many choices means there are so many opportunities to choose unwisely (I did this once when I bought the 'natural' toothpaste. "Natural", as far as I can tell, means squeezed out of Tom's rectal region and straight onto your toothbrush).

anyway. Some people think our society is full of depressed people because we have too much time on our hands, we don't have to hunt the wild boar and shuck the corn for dinner, anymore. Our houses come built by other hands; our clothes, by the good people of Taiwan. But I think it's a bit more subtle than that. I think so many first-worlders are depressed because we are given choices at every turn, and we must accept responsibility for most of our lives. If we don't like where we are, it's because of some choice we made at the beginning of the game tree. And knowing that every choice has the potential to ripple far into the future makes the breadth of options overwhelming and, for me--many times--a bit terrifying.

When do you stop trying to get 'the best' and settle for 'the good enough'? Given that you will never know for certain, will you ever believe you succeeded?

So, sometimes I wish I were in my Indian friends' sandals and could just leave the matchmaking up to the parents and the astrology charts. I could leave the toothpaste choice up to my dictator (or his sprawling bureaucracy). Or, ideally, that there was some sort of probe which could map all of my preferences and choose the best option for me given those preferences.

Of course, there would probably be 14 different models and brands of mind-probe machines to choose from.

My One-Month Boyfriend

My one month boyfriend will be like my other one-month boyfriends, only he will know his title. Knowing this, he will take me on the the trips we plan within a week. He will talk about important matters with the urgency that comes with a solid time table. My OMB understands that there will be much passion in that month, and he will make love to me as though every time were his last...because in a month, it will be. We won't waste time getting to know about each other's families. We don't care about those peculiarities which will irritate in the long-run, we're only in this for four weeks. We won't interview each other to see about the other's fitness for marriage, how much our friends will like each other, where we want to be in twenty years, how many boys or girls each wants, what kind of genes the other will pass on, or how much income we can expect to bring in. My one-month boyfriend will not care about dating anyone else; we only have thirty days with one another, the others can wait. My one-month boyfriend and I will not have "The Talk."

I want a one-month boyfriend. He'll last as long as the rest, but he'll know his expiration date at the outset.

Bleh.

A friend told me recently this would always be her home. I responded that I had none...not to be pathetic, but to explain my reality of perpetual foreignness: my family was never from where we were living--and living in a stream of small towns, my Otherness was quite palpable. Fleeing to cities and ignoring invitations to ten-year reunions, I realized how utterly free I am. I'm moving to D.C. in less than a year, and it's as easy to me as moving apartments. Moving comes naturally; transition comes naturally; being a stranger comes almost dishearteningly easily...But staying still, moving to the center from the periphery, becoming familiar: these things, they horrify me.

And now, I wonder if I'll ever feel the reverse freedom: the freedom of being tethered, of being comfortable and entrenched...
I kick and struggle against the lightest of reins--my commitment to a graduate program for 4 years has come with anxiety attacks--and I wiggled out of a final year by winning a fellowship relocating me to DC; my commitment to an occupation was only made palatable by the realistic possibility of complete job-switching within five years. I clearly have not yet found a similar fix for a commitment to a person.

I suppose it's all the same experience, but perhaps from the other side of the mirror. But it really can be quite lonely over here.