Loose Ends

My would-be cub stopped writing at the exact moment I relented. That didn't have legs anyway. Since then I've been chatting with a few guys, one divorced with three kids who threw down the gauntlet and said it wouldn't be very ninja of me if that scared me off (it does). Another who is doing his post-doc here but is originally from Europe and likes cartoons and general geekery. It would be nice the cartoon guy went somewhere-we'll see.

My grandmother is still alive and my father is coming back home today. Things are still not well and she's not expected to rebound significantly but she's better now than she was when he arrived. My father encountered incompetence and neglect to a degree that breaks my heart. It is a testament to his growth as person that he didn't just mow them down with a shotgun. She has two adults and their various relatives and children living in the house with her and no one does anything for her. To add insult to injury, he was hit up for money by relatives to help them get out of trouble as a result of their bad decisions. Example: person who can't afford a 40K truck gets someone to co-sign (never mind that it was stupid to co-sign). Person predictably defaults on the loan. Person asks my dad for money. Appalling.

LA Story

So the wedding was beautiful and the bride and groom looked like they had a great time together and with their guests. I saw some old friends and got caught up, answered the question 'what happened to your foot' at least a half dozen times, and managed to avoid dancing at the reception without seeming like a wallflower (I think). I also lost my camera which is more annoying than it is distressing because I don't think I actually took any pictures. We had a strange encounter at what turned out to be a gay bar during our bachelorette night. We abruptly left the bar without finishing our drinks during a lull in the techno house music and the remaining patrons descended on our half finished drinks like they were homeless. One of the girls yelled as we were leaving 'we have herpes!' but that did nothing to slow their consumption. Fucking weird.

The next club was great and provided almost non-stop entertainment. The music was good, yours truly even danced a little, and the patrons were awesome. My girlfriend is a really cute redhead with a great figure. She loves to dance and I don't think she sat down the entire time we were there. Several creepy guys kept trying to move in on her and not only did we get pictures of them as they crept towards her but the minute they started trying to work their way into the circle, one of the other girls totally cock blocked them. It was awesome because she would just hurl herself off the couch and on to the floor, rockin' it hard and getting between them until he went away. It was hilarious. It reminded me of the Saturday Night Live skit (and movie), Night at the Roxbury. That is how our friend danced between the bride to be and the host of would-be sex offenders in that club.

Then there was the free porn. There was a couple there that...wow. If anyone ever needed a room, it was these two. They weren't going at it frantically, they were going slow and sensual like they were absolutely alone in the room. It was out. of. control. My favorite part of that couple was when they made their way to the front and were up against the DJ's booth. Then there was the girl multi-tasking, freaking the DJ booth while waiting in line for the bathroom. The girls coming up behind her were so confused. As always, there was a line of guys up against the bar, watching the girls dance like they were at a strip club.

I returned home to an early 4th of July fireworks display. I had been trying to make it back in time to join OG to watch the fireworks at Penns Landing but I ended up spending an hour and a half getting home because I had to be a cheap ass and take the train and then the bus instead of a 10 minute cab. I was pissed as I walked the remainder of the way home but I ended up catching the best part on the street right outside my building. So I stood outside with my suitcase on a fantastic Philly Saturday night and felt like the city was celebrating my return.


Video courtesy of OG who is a dear and recorded this on her camera phone because she thought I was missing it.

What I'm looking for

Perhaps a clue into the mystery of my relationship status, this profile rocked my world. I totally wrote this guy and judging from the deafening silence, he wasn't feelin' Ava. Still, this is the kind of thing that catches my attention. Ladies, wouldn't you at least like to hang out with this guy? Is it just me? Be honest.

--------
Here are some solid reasons you can feel good about dating me:

1. My name cannot be found in any sex offender registry.
2. My name cannot be found in any bridal registry.
3. I have a cat who only gets poop on himself once a week, maybe twice.
4. I am not perfection and I require perfection from no one.
5. I'm loving, affectionate, loyal, bitingly sarcastic, shy, self-deprecating, honest, and drama-free. I open doors and pull out chairs. I cuddle. I give good foot massages. And I'm looking for my best friend. Admittedly, I'd like a best friend who'll do questionable things to/with/in front of/behind/above/below me, but the best friend part is most important.


Things to be concerned about:

1. I watch Total Recall once every 6 to 8 weeks. You don't have to be present if this bothers you.
2. Repeated from the first list, but I have a cat. Dudes with cats. Creepy.
3. I probably won't like your dog, especially if it shakes or yips. Maybe if it's a cool dog. Like a wiener dog. They're pretty awesome.
4. I'm a night owl, which is why I'm updating my profile at 3 a.m. on a Thursday.
5. I'm a homebody, which is why I'm updating my profile at 3 a.m. on a Thursday.

First Date
Three words: Red F*ckin' Lobster. When you travel with me, you travel first class. Air France. Concorde. Before all those people died.

Virgil

I've got to start bringing my iPod when I fly. Virgil had extensive mouth hardware that made his mouth dry and saliva thick. His hands were dirty and thick but looked strong. He was friendly in a classically Midwestern way that made it impossible for me to make a point of returning to my book in a way that didn't invite further conversation. He jokingly invited me to divert my vacation plans to join the rest of his family for a reunion and seemed honest, decent, and a little simple. Virgil's wife died from cancer about a year ago and he's lonely. He's been listening to a lot of talk radio hosted by self-help gurus and trying to figure out how to make himself happy. He asked me what I thought about all of that and I told him I thought it was BS and that those people make a living out of making you feel bad for not always feeling good. We talked about all sorts of random stuff and he unwittingly said something that made me feel better about the expensive and impractical purse I had bought.

I didn't expect for Virgil to ask to call me sometime, "just to talk." I couldn't reject him from the angle he approached me from. I could have actually, but I didn't. My compromise was giving him my work number so that I would probably miss his calls and had reason to keep them short or just not return them. I could not figure out what to say when he asked for my number. Here was this sweet, old, retired guy who just lost his wife (ironically enough, Virgil is white and his deceased wife was black--their son was sitting right next to me) and he, like all of us, is seeking companionship. If we had met when I was 23, I would have called him, not for romance (God, no) but simply out of obligation to be there for someone who needed company, certain that God would not have placed this person in my path if He had not meant for me to respond to Virgil's need for companionship. For a flash, I considered Virgil as the grandfather relationship I've never had. We could go fishing, he could give me advice and encourage me, we could go to family reunions and I could be a part of a family that celebrated family and welcomed me warmly. He would teach me how to take vacations and encourage me to spend what I work to earn without guilt. I wondered what the point of Virgil was, I'm always looking for higher meaning in strange encounters like this. I wonder if pulling the thread of that encounter would somehow lead to the person who will meet my own need for companionship. Stranger things have probably happened. Still, I'm hoping that he loses my number because it will be so much easier if he never calls at all because I won't call him back and I know I'll feel bad about it.

To Do: Get more black friends

So I'm at this wedding right now--not literally at the actual ceremony but on location in L.A. and I just realized that I might be the only close black friend of all of my girlfriends and possibly the only black friend they have period. Not that any of that matters one way or another but it struck me tonight for some reason while sitting at the rehearsal dinner. I kind of felt like a stranger in a strange land.

I think I need some black friends. The time zone change and general weariness makes it hard for me to chose the precise language necessary to convey why this is a nuanced and complicated matter. Perhaps it isn't nuanced and complicated. Perhaps it is just that like seeks like, zebras feel out of place with horses or some other nursery story way of talking about a sense of belonging.

Weddings always fuck up my head. Too much, too much. Too much thinking. Too much implicit rejection from the crowd that comes to weddings to hook up. Too much food, too much money--I am seriously sick to my stomach over a purse I bought today-I can afford it but it was an impractical and frivolous purchase. I told my table that I am like an overstimulated 5 year old. I can only take so much people stuff and then I start to get weird and need some time in the mental equivalent of the fetal position. Then people think I'm not having fun because they don't appreciate that sitting in the corner watching people is actually fun for me. The bride asked if I would get drunk as a gift. That kind of hurts my feelings on some level my fatigue makes it hard to express. What springs to mind though is Fun Bobby from Friends who was no fun once he stopped drinking. I'm thinking she's hoping for me to become Fun Bobby before sobriety.

But I am fun. I was totally cracking myself up in church with a friend mocking the ridiculously stern church lady who told us all that they believe Jesus is present in the church and thus applause was the only appropriate response to the procession of the newly married bride and groom down the aisle. She specifically forbade "whooping and hollering" and someone muttered allowed about what she would do if someone violated that rule. I said the marriage would be annulled on the spot and we would have to do the whole thing over again. That's funny, right?

I'm totally fun. What. Ever. My new black friends will think I'm a freaking hilarious riot.

So there.

Sun Tzu's Art of Distraction and Avoidance

Any distraction is a good distraction. Kept a date to go with a girlfriend to AC. Won six dollars at the nickel slots but mostly sat outside and read while she played craps. Called my mom, tried to talk to my Grandmother who didn't fuss and only repeated that she was Grandma Margaret twice before the home care person took the phone and told me she had fallen back asleep. Text messaged my dad, wishing him a Happy Father's day and letting him know that I loved him and was thinking about him. I'm dealing by not dealing because I'm not sure what else to do. I'm not very good at this, whatever 'this' is.

My dad told my mom that it was the weirdest Father's Day, he'd ever had. He cleaned his mother up, washed her face, feet, and hands, put something on her lips to keep them from chapping and bought her ice cream. She is emaciated and not often awake but she knows that he is there. She refused a feeding tube because she did not want to be cut and had not seen it substantially improve the condition of her late husband or her own mother, a long living woman who passed only 6 years ago. Everyone knows that my father is her favorite, although he is the only one who left Memphis.

My father is really good at caring for the infirm. He has a deep well of compassion for those who can not do for themselves and a strong intolerance for those who can do and do not. When my mother was in the hospital and not even able to leave her bed to use the bathroom, he cleaned her and did everything he could to make her comfortable and preserve as much of her dignity as could be had. My dad is a complicated man, and he is a hard man to live with. But seeing him with my mom, caring for her in that way, that is why we pair up. Why it is better to have a partner to go through life with. He may joke about his death not being an accident on account of all the Lifetime movies my mom watches and she may never take an interest in any of his hobbies or passions but for reasons that are an absolute mystery to me, they work.

All of this is naturally dredging up a lot of random stuff. Some things are of the cat in the cradle and silver spoon type of thoughts about how easy it is to put off being with family or doing a lot of other things in favor of the fleeting empty obligations of work. My family is HORRIBLE with that. My mother, bless her cotton socks, does dialysis 5-6 times a day and only recently made arrangements to telecommute 2 days a week. My father works all the time. He's even come to Philly for business and only had time for a drive by visit. He could have stayed for dinner but it was less wear and tear to just get back on the road to VA. He said once to me, "I want to live, I just don't know how." And I'm his daughter. The one everyone likes to joke is just like him. And I am. But I fight more to not be like him in that way. I'm not really that good at it but I'm fortunate to have the company of great friends who are nothing at all like me and challenge me in the way they live and love to channel their example from time to time.

I read something long ago in a magazine about a couple dealing with the loss of a parent they were both very close to. The wife asked the husband (it was his father who was dying) what she could do to comfort him. He replied, "Have sex with me every night." When faced with death, he wanted to affirm life. It was handled far more elegantly by the author but as I walked on the near-empty beach this morning in Atlantic City and thought about my mother at home crying for her husband and for her last child leaving the nest, my sister's text message at 5 am this morning asking me to call mom because it was going to be a hard day for her, my father traveling to be with his mother, and a kaleidoscope of other random images and thoughts, it felt like the right place to be. I was affirming life. I was affirming the inevitability of death. I was living. And it was a lovely day.

Frisky Dingo

A tiny snarky distraction-one more thing

Quiet= Q U I E T
Quite= Q U I T E

Very close and spell check won't catch it but if I read one more profile describing quite dinners, I'm going to spontaneously combust.

I expressed reservations with advertising boobs in previous posts. Well, I got my first boob question today asking for verification of cup size. I sent him back an e-mail with the subject line, 'you've got to be kidding me' and the message, 'It's too bad you won't get to find out.' Then I blocked him. Guys, I know you want to know but I expect you to ask yourself that question with your inside voice and if we end up together, you'll know that and a whole lot more about me. I suspect he was actually 12. Or Chris Hansen trying to get me on To Catch a Predator. Nice try, Chris.

Our Matriarch

It's always been complicated with Grandma Margaret. On one hand, the woman never forgot your birthday. Never. She didn't send anything but she always called. She called to wish you a Happy Birthday but mostly she called to fuss at you for not calling more often, extract some promises from you about the future frequency of phone calls, and give you a run down of what ailed her. Sometimes she would also put you on notice for what she was expecting for her birthday in addition to the obligatory phone call. If more than six weeks passed without her hearing from me, she would start calling my house at all hours of the day and night and leaving messages from stern to plaintive until I broke down and called her. She would often cry at some point during the call, wondering if she would ever see her first born grandchild again. I would assure her that she would and usually promise to send her a picture and a picture of her granddog too.

It's always been complicated for my dad, too. I don't remember the last time he was in Memphis. It was probably when one of my mother's relatives passed. I do remember my mother telling me that he seemed to having a good time and had not told his mother he was coming into town. He had planned to go see her but she got word somehow and called while they were at dinner and talked to him like he was a child. My mother said she could watch his countenance change as they talked. But she was still his mother. He sent money monthly and talked to her far more often than I did although she sometimes hunted him like she started hunting me. I haven't talked to her since her birthday last year, she didn't have my new number. My dad told me she seemed to be in decline. Neither of us had been home in years, me because I really don't know any of my extended family and I find it stressful to be around that many strangers who are supposed to be familiar because they are family. There is also the push-pull dynamic in Grandma Margaret who insists you spend the night and stops just short of timing how long the grandkids spend time with my mother's side of the family versus her. We stayed in a hotel the last time we travelled as a family to avoid that tearful confrontation.

Still, my father and I were talking about a trip together this summer to see her. I said I would bring a camcorder and get our oral history. Most of the people she would mention would have long since passed but it would still be nice to know who they were and have an activity to distract her from fussing at me or telling me about her arthritis or asking me to clip her toenails again. I will never ever forget clipping her toenails. How hard and thick they were, how the shards sometimes hit my face, how my father walked by and remarked that God would reward me for helping my Grandmother and helping her feel more comfortable. How my brother and sister looked at me as they walked by with equal parts of mirth and profound sympathy/horror. Before I got the text message tonight from my dad telling me Grandma Margaret was in hospice and expected to die soon, she had actually been on my mind last night as I clipped my own toenails after six weeks in the boot. I thought, 'this toenail reminds me of Grandma Margaret,' and then I got lost in thought wondering how toenails can become so impossibly thick. She would never admit to being well so I never thought she would actually get sick.

But today I feel bad for all that I can not make up. And I wonder if I should blow off this wedding to go see her because I was always sure I wasn't lying when I said she would see me again. As horrible as it is to say, I think I was saving up to see her before she passed but not so much I would have to go there every year. And now I don't know how I will see her at all. I feel bad because she chased me so and I resented it. It doesn't mean she was right to manipulate and control things but regardless of the motive and method, I think she just wanted people in her life. She wanted me in her life. Her first born grandchild. She liked telling me the stories about me pulling out all of her pots and pans and large chunky hands crushing donuts in my tiny determined (and greedy) fists. She told me once that my dad was her favorite but he was the only one who left and always fought coming back, so complicated were his feelings for his mother. So my father is sad this Father's day weekend to be facing the loss of his mother and my sister moving out completely unprepared and near the hottest mess of finances and long term planning I think I've ever seen. If I could do the "right" thing, I would drop everything and go be with him, especially on this weekend.

But I won't. No one will. My sister won't rally. My brother won't rally. My mother is going to be in Memphis on the 3rd anyway and she can't rally, her dialysis supplies can't be diverted that quickly. She can drop him off at the airport on Sunday and pray for him and pray for her. I will call my grandmother in the morning. If she's lucid I'm sure she will be happy to hear my voice. I hope she won't ask to see me but I kind of hope she fusses at me a little.

W.T.F.

ow are u doing my name is (name removed) and i was looking at your page and i would like to talk to u and see what are u about? and what do u like to do on your free time? if u free hit me up and if u single call me so we can see what we like about each other k until then i will know who u are if u call k can enjoy hearing your voice love but hit me up when ever! someone told me to get what u never had u have to do what u never done before that's why i gave u my # k xxx-xxx-xxxx later love and i hope your day goes well k until then.

What? Oh and the 'ow' at the beginning of that e-mail is not my typo. That man was 29 years old. Do people really talk like that to one another? I like the way he uses question marks like they are decorations between words instead of punctuation? I gather that I'm not the type he usually goes for which I'm not sure how to take. A guy who writes me a message like this, even if he is perfection to me in looks just isn't going to make the cut. Just like I haven't made the cut of scores of guys who opened e-mails from me and thought, 'crap.' I'm not going to write this guy back because I'm not going to lie and say I'm not single--dude I'm on a dating website, and I'm not going to write him to tell him I'm not interested. That doesn't seem to work.

In other sort of dating news, some random guy showed up as a match on two of the dating sites I was on so I wrote him and told him that and he actually wrote back. And it wasn't one of those, "Wow that's neat, stalker! Have a great life! (subtext: Please, Please, Please don't write me again or I will block you)." So we'll see.

Random Crap

When you're good at something, you think you like doing it. I think you like being good at something. Mastery is a powerful seduction.

This is my last weekend in the boot. When I teetered tottered out of the hospital almost six weeks ago, walking was taxing. On one hand having the ankle stabilized meant I could bear weight more evenly, on the other my awkward gait made me ungainly and attracted attention for all the wrong reasons. Now I move like a pro. I have my pro-boot routes worked out on the city sidewalks. I have some new dresses. I have a smaller calf but more defined thigh. Everything unusual becomes normal after a while. We have an amazing capacity to absorb and adapt.

I want to be around more disagreeable people. You always know what is on their mind. Few things put me as ill at ease as someone talking about someone with whom they seemed close the moment that person leaves the room. I assume for self-preservation's sake they are merely tolerating me as well. My boss does this often. My boss also likes bullies. I don't care for chest beating but I do wish sometimes that something could go down where he would gain appreciation for what provokes me to ruthlessness. But there really isn't much there. I don't like screwing people over to exercise my power. Even if I did, who needs the trouble of a lot of random people in the universe who relish an opportunity to pay it forward back to me ten-fold. I just want to be left alone. I realize that is very high school but it's just as much adulthood. As much as I have always wanted to belong, I can never seem to commit the random acts of belonging necessary to get in the club.

The first interrogation I assisted with, the other agent cursed at this girl and really bad copped it to the hilt. I worried I was going to suck at the job if that's what it took because I'm just not the person who is going to get you in a room, back you in a corner, and yell at you for a half hour until you ask for a lawyer. Thirteen years later, I still remember that girl's name. First and last. And she did ask for a lawyer. And we didn't make our case, if there was one to be had. It was great to see that way not work because it gave me some measure of confidence to figure out my way. I'm not sure it is good logic to assume because someone's method didn't work that it is faulty or to inwardly rejoice at friends and colleagues failures as implied superiority of my methods, if they are indeed 'methods' and not just habits (many of them bad) and preferences. Sure I haven't been on 3 dates this week but none of them worked out so sitting on my ass on a Friday night is just as an effective strategy for finding that special someone as OG's multiple free dinners. Plus she's missing out on all this:

True Story

Time: 8:45 pm, Friday 12 Jun 09

Situation: Sitting on floor on cell phone.

Friend: "Any big plans for the weekend?"

Me: "I'm going to cry in my cornflakes until I realize I don't like soggy salty cornflakes. Then I'm going to pull my head out of my ass and do something else."

Friend: "That was the best fatalist thing I've heard all week."

This just in; I might be a Cougar

Though I well documented my disappointments and rejections on match.com and e-harmony (worse than match) and it would stand to reason that I'm just not the kind of girl who conveys well over an internet dating site, OG signed up for plenty of fish (POF) and has been on 3 dates with 3 different guys in the last 2 weeks. So I thought, hey, maybe I should try this as well. Virtual rejection is now mere amusement for me. I expect it. And I know the guys who find their way to me are some version of inappropriate for me, either because of lack of attraction and general weirdness (Batman), age (60 and higher, and they did send me winks), or being this guy.

So far (I'm on day 4-the point at which OG had already been at least 1 date), my experience has been consistent across all sites. I write an awesome funny profile but Ava gets no love. What. Ever. Except for some random 22 year old guy in Jersey with a user name of PorkchopNJ who is sweating me. He sent me an e-mail on my first night with a subject line of 'hello beautiful' and a one line e-mail about wanting to get to know me better. I sent him what I hoped was a nice but clear note indicating I felt our age differences were too great and that I hoped he had fun meeting other people on the site. Tonight another e-mail, this time with a subject of 'hey beautiful' (you like the way he switched it up there with hello/hey substitution? dope, right?) and another one line of content requesting my consideration- 'couldn't we at least try it out?'

Try what out, son? Try out my comparing you to my sister who is the exact same age, as much a daughter to me as she is a sibling? Try out your one line communication style? Try out impressing you with things that seem far away but are closer than you think like graduating from college, first jobs, first homes, first loves? Go download The Graduate and leave me alone.

Still, I'm a little curious about this persistent guy. He may just be another 'Nickie' would-be Nigerian scammer with a white face. I'm going to mess with him a little bit. If he's real, he'll tire of me. If he's not, he'll move on even quicker. Either way it should be good blog fodder which is my silver lining in almost any crap sandwich. Stay tuned.

Taking suggestions

So...I need a vacation. The last time I took a day off and didn't stay at home and try to work thru my never ending to do list was 3 years ago when I went to the Outer Banks (3 days, two of them travel). I actually cried when I left, it had been such wonderful respite from absolutely everything. They rented a house that was so ocean front we were positive it would not be there next year. High tide sloshed under the stilts and random sea debris hit those same stilts with alarming frequency. The place also had fleas and we had to bomb it. But it was the best vacation ever and I only spent one full day there. An attempt to repeat that idylic vacation was scuttled last year. What was great about vacationing with those friends is the dogs were on vacation too. I didn't have to scramble to find someone to watch the dog, feel guilty and anxious about leaving, or try to minimize my time away so I could get back to her. She had the company of the two dogs she gets along with and we took them with us on all our beach walks and some of our excursions.

So I'm taking suggestions. I can't quite decide what would be restorative enough to mount the effort to do it. Isn't that sad? I'm so burnt out, even the effort to get away is hard to mount. I feel like I need to be away for months.

Heisenberg uncertainty principle*

There is a principle in mathematics or physics-the name escapes me at the moment-that says that the very act of observing something changes it. This last month has been great for the blog. Scattered friends, my previous blog patrons, aren’t really active on the web and are not inclined to check in everyday or even every week. So it’s been wonderful to have everyone here. Though readership is laughably modest, I still feel like a small time musician playing my first big venue. I’ve become a little unsure and hesitant because now I know someone will actually read what I write. Someone who doesn’t know me and doesn’t have to love me like I expect my friends and family to. Someone who has no context for the words I put down and only knows me by what I’ve written. So I’m doing a bit of regrouping, reacquainting myself with writing like no one is reading and writing to you, not for you.

*The phenom I couldn't think of above is actually called the Observer effect but people apparently use the Heisenberg uncertainty principle as if the two terms are interchangeable. I know, they are SO not the same thing, it's like calling black, white.

Private Dancer

No matter what culture you come from, there is some tradition of dance and music. I was watching some toddlers during an African drumming demonstration a few weeks ago and it's striking just how innately we respond to music, to strong beats, to rhythm. Those little critters were gettin down. Some just running around and bouncing randomly, some hypnotized and drawn to the actual instruments. There were some random adults having some Woodstock-esque moments as well, flailing about like they were tripping badly and others just totally digging the beat in an adult 'I-know-I'm-not-at-home-by-myself' way. The drumming was fine enough for being performed by a bunch of dreadlocked white kids and an old Jewish guy who continually gushed between numbers about how spiritual the music was for him but nothing that made me want to get out of my seat. Perhaps it was the absence of actual Africans in his drumming core, perhaps it was just the rudimentary beats they were churning out. Even if the music had made my hair stand on end and made my tummy flip, I would have become dewy with anxiety over actually dancing in public. I love to dance but not so much in public.

Over achiever that I am, I probably became self aware long before children ought to. I loved singing and solos and being in charge and out front and then I didn't anymore. I was so socially shy it was painful and was often mistaken by other kids as being stuck up because I didn't have a problem talking to teachers or people who talked to me first. People assumed they were being excluded but I really saw it the other way around. If we didn't talk, it was because you didn't talk to me and you didn't talk to me because you didn't want to. I also took myself far too seriously, kind of still do. If I was going to dance and couldn't be the best dancer ever or wasn't structured with actual right and wrong moves (think square dancing and electric slide), I didn't want anyone to see it. I think I can count on one hand, maybe part of two, the number of times I've danced in public. One of those times, I was absolutely plastered and soon lost the ability to control my limbs. Another was my best friends wedding, which I was in. Then there was a high school dance, a club in college when I was trying to pretend to be normal...maybe it WILL all fit on one hand (that's what she said).

Anyway, what brings this all up is my Friday night last weekend at a local herpes vending club and my trip in a few weeks to attend a friend's wedding. When I'm at a club (which isn't very often-not really my scene), I'm in National Geographic mode. I just want to watch people and find someone else there to watch people with. A good song comes on but I truly don't want to actually dance because I really can't get in my groove in public. I'll get home, as I did this Friday night, throw on the ipod and work out all that pent up dance until I get tired. I just don't like dancing in public. The thought of dancing on my one-week post boot ankle and looking goofy in addition to being socially uncomfortable just stresses me out. I feel like I have to prepare like I'm performing. And I am, because any time I DO dance, people make a big deal, applauding and drawing attention like people should pay to see it. Which freaks me out more. The last thing a spaz like me wants is that kind of attention. Just ignore me, and I'll probably find my way out to the dance floor if there is a song I'm really feeling. It's nothing personal and it does not mean I'm not having fun. If it makes you unhappy that I'm not dancing, I just feel like a failure on top of it all. Then I can't wait to get out of there so I can beat up on myself in private and wish you understood that while I'm sorry you are disappointed I'm most frustrated because I'm not holding out on you, I'm holding out on me.

Boy, you write the President ONE time...

Likely delirious and addled from the volley of unfortunate events during the month of March, I thought I would write President Obama a little note letting him know how the least of the things he does or doesn't do has an impact on many people. I had been scheduled to help a friend because her spouse was scheduled to be away supporting a presidential visit. The trip was cancelled several days before I was on deck to leave giving me a much needed reprieve from the crap storm I had been in the center of. So I wrote him to tell him that I, for one, was grateful for the cancelled trip. The President didn't write me back but now I get e-mails from the White House in my spam filter. Today David Alexrod was encouraging me to read or watch Obama's speech to the Middle East.

I'm going to have to unsubscribe from the White House. That is funny to me.

Intellectual Lust

I admire on some level women who for whatever reason have no problem propositioning men. My dog has no problem with this (see photo above). She's on her back in a flash. My father thinks it is vulgar when she splays out like that, soliciting a belly rub. There are times when I wish I could get outside myself enough to at least have the satisfaction of seeing the look on the face of a guy who has just been offered outright the very thing he would spend the night trying to gauge the probability of. I'm fascinated by our drives to couple and in awe of chemistry in general but have become fascinated with it as I realize a very real difference in how my chemistry works as I age. I imagine it is my body pleading with me in the only way it knows how to have children regardless of my intellectual ambivalence.

I've been thinking too of a world where people randomly rubbed, touched, and complimented each other like they do my dog. A nice looking guy walked toward us yesterday and as he passed, he stooped down to stroke my dog. Never looked at me but walked by me with a big smile of his face. I swear there would be less violence and random misery if there was a way we could do that for one another. I would be feeling down and I would just take a walk and someone would scratch behind my ear, tell me I'm beautiful and well behaved, and then walk on.

Some people randomly hook up to pass the time while searching for someone else. I am inclined to wait, eschewing the entanglement of something that doesn't seem to have any legs but will probably make me at least a little miserable when it ends. Sometimes though, I just want someone to touch me and tell me I'm beautiful.

A sexy song

The word well is a bit dry right now but the thought well is churning along. Will hopefully get back in the groove soon. Until then...

My most popular post

This post is sought the world over. I've written about it previously and invited the random people looking for pictures of fire to tell me why, why are they looking for pictures of fire. No responses so far. Apparently when you google for pictures of fire, I'm some where in the first few pages of results because people all over the planet arrive at my site looking for fire pictures. I understand the mesmerizing power of fire. I don't understand the global phenomenon that is searching for pictures of fire. Suffice it to say these budding pyromaniacs don't stay on the site for long. I'm sure they look at the post accompanying the picture and beat virtual feet out of the site.