Someone's Been Sleeping in My Bed

Sitting at home enjoying the quiet, sporadically interrupted by the clicking of cats’ claws on the hardwood floor as they try to gain purchase, and thinking of nothing more than the soft cashmere blanket on my bare legs and the way the ceramic mug transfers the heat of my tea to my hands.  I like this quiet, uncomplicated life.  I like this life free of the burden of loving or expecting.  I feel boundless, weightless, energetic and at ease for the first time in so long.  These few hours, I cling to, because I know that just outside the door or just one phone call away there is something or someone waiting to shatter my sanctuary.  That was me a few days ago, less than a week ago, until sexuality, sensuality muffled sensibility. 

My body craves what my body always craves but my mind, my heart, my soul want and need the uncomplicated just for right now, for these few months, for this one year.  So, when beauty calls, then knocks on my door and then steps over the threshold into my space I think, I can have this, I can have him - uncomplicated.  He'll stay for the day, he'll stay for two, maybe three and then he'll fly back across the Atlantic to his wood and water leaving my sanctuary intact and my body spent with promises to see him soon.  So, why is he still here, starring at me with a smile on his lips and deep open eyes? 

I smile back but don't say a word - conversation brings closeness, we're already too close.  I like the sex, I love the sex and a year ago, 18 months ago, two years ago, in the spaces between he and he I would have let him hold my hand while we walked down the street glancing at one another as we smiled, loving the idea of loving him but not right now.  Yet, nothing I've just written, nothing I've just typed will keep me from climbing up the stairs, climbing into bed and climbing on him. 

I'm greedy.  I'm stupid.  I'm going . . .

 

Maneater

Friends often tell me I’m not a people person, an absolute fabrication, a distortion of the facts.  I am not a stranger person, my defenses go up, my inner bitches flexes her muscles and waits for the moment when they say something reprehensible or simply stupid and then a evil horde of monkeys fly out of my mouth with the intent to kill, maim or at least invoke tears.  Generally, it’s best if you let me approach you rather than you attempting to approach me, if you are daring, then go for it, what happens happens, maybe it’s a good day, and maybe it’s a bad day.  I know this about myself, I recognize the limitations it places on my life but once a feral child always a feral child, always there lurking inside the adult you watching, waiting, smelling, ready to pounce, ready to defend, ready to attack the weak and stupid.  My friends know this, they do, they don’t want to know it, so they beg, cajole, harangue me into blind dates with their awesome “friends” and I try to fend them off, say no until it’s either give in or kill them.  I have so few friends that killing them would result in me one day far down the line missing them as I pushed the library cart from cell to cell saving the bestest book ever, something by Diana Gabaldon, for my prison soulmate/protector/lover.  I think I’d miss them most when late at night in my prison issue jumpsuit I was on my knees smelling the Ivory soap scent between Big Annie’s thighs, hoping and praying that this time her excitement forces her thighs closed and my neck snaps.  In that final moment and in the afterlife I would blame my friends and their need to see me coupled and contained.  I don’t mean to misbehave but then I thought my friends were smart, I can’t and clearly, they are not.  What I’m trying to say is that somewhere right this moment in Northern Virginia is a man sitting in his office still reeling from our blind date, hands trembling on the verge of tears as he resigns himself to either celibacy or a mute mail order bride.

On My Own

How fantastic, you find yourself suddenly single, more or less (more Monday, less Tuesday, and so on and so forth), and your friends suddenly find all of these great men, men they’ve never bothered to mention, we’ll call them invisible men or alternatively, men they themselves have never wanted to date because they are afflicted by a specific social retardation or are straight. 

Two problems, one the incorrect assumption that I’m looking to become part of some relationship resembling type thing and twelve that I love them enough to believe that their inability to find someone suitable for them makes them geniuses when it comes to finding someone for me.  Sex?  Why, yes, thank you I’ll have some and then some more.  Dating?  I’m open to the possibility of food and some other arranged activities, much like a day in the life of a kindergartener.  Relationships?  Hmmm, maybe next year, when I’m less like an angry snake that bites and poisons you simply because you interrupted an afternoon nap and more like a outdoor cat that only tries to kill you when you touch it.  Many people don’t see the difference, if you do, know that you are incredibly intelligent and I could and would be your friend. 

The reality is this, I am capable of finding, suitable and unsuitable men all by myself, without any help from anyone.  I’m adorable when I want to be, charming when I choose, incredibly self-sufficient and a hedonist, what more could any man want.  I’m also stubborn, an intellectual snob, incredibly opinionated and usually right – and unlike people who just say they are always right when they are in fact usually wrong, I am actually almost always right – what’s not to love.

I think those last few sentences along with a picture of me cupping my naked breast while sitting in a chair spread eagle in a pair of lace panties posted on Craigslist could land me a boatload of unsuitable men, which along with the right cocktail of alcohol, prescription and illegal drugs which would render me insane and susceptible to unemployed 23-year-olds living in apartments decorated with wrestling posters which would in turn lead to a refillable antibiotics prescription.  I think I’m better on my own, without my friends and without Craigslist, at least when it comes to men and dating and sex. 

Ankle deep shit is better than knee-deep shit.  Besides, I’m currently focusing on my latest crush/imaginary boyfriend whom I discovered last week on American Idol.  I haven’t mentioned him before because I wasn’t certain just how deep my love went, but it goes deep and my YouTube habits these last seven days would prove it, because of him I have a new appreciation for T-Pain and North Carolina.

Birds Do It, Bees Do It

Falling in love naturally, organically, one day someone makes you laugh, the next day you crave the sound of their voice, a week later you push your nose into their neck inhaling the scent of them as you run your hand along the nape pulling them into you for a whisper, for a kiss.  The next time you take in the taste of their lips and carry that with you, licking your lips throughout the day trying to taste a trace of their sweetness.  You spend Monday morning daydreaming about Sunday afternoon, the weight of them, the flush of their skin, the breathing from rapid to deep as sleep claims your wet tangled bodies and then again, on an on it goes pieces of them pieces of you mingling, in and out, pulsing and beating, what a beautiful thing.  I love the feel of eyelashes fluttering on my skin, the perfect kiss, the hand pressing into my back underneath the cling of my shirt, a nose running across my arm, cradling the phone while singing silly songs just to hear him say how adorable I am one time more, the story that makes laugh from the bottom of my belly, the aimless conversation in Strand, it’s all so effortless, at least the falling is.

It's All Connected

I’m spending this upcoming week in New York away from the throngs of people descending on the MD/DC/VA, I’m not resentful, the opposite in fact, grateful that so many from near and far want to be a part of something so monumental, so truly beautiful. 

I know for many it doesn’t transcend politics and though I am a sworn Democrat and Liberal, the two are not in fact synonymous, the inauguration of Mr. Obama is something I honestly never thought I would see, something I didn’t believe this nation was capable of, something that isn’t about victory for my chosen candidate but a real strike against this land’s short and ugly past, a slowly changing present and a sign that there truly is hope after all and the dream is not forgotten.  It feels good to believe in all of that every time I walk into a classroom in the inner city and see faces unlike mine, knowing they really can believe anything is possible, well almost anything – women, I think, still have a hill to climb, a hill that’s lost some of its steepness but a hill.  I’ll watch from New York and shed a few tears of joy, a few tears of hope and a few tears because though eight years have ended the damage left is large. 

I decided to come to New York on my own terms, for reasons that don’t involve wishes, whimsy or obligation, I’ve come for me, I feel the pull of home.  I don’t have plans to see my family or really any friend other than the one who has graciously offered me a place to sleep until noon and then spend the rest of the day watching Nickelodeon or Discovery Kids and maybe even the Disney Channel – I decided to stop making excuses regarding my penchant for children’s programming.  There is so little on television, nothing really, that catches my interest, so I watch what I watch when I want to watch it, I’m tragically unhip when it comes to television viewing habits and I truly love that about myself. 

Speaking of tragedy and unhipness, I’ve decided to continue my exploration of American Idol, even without my friend around this week I’ll savour the people that that make me look up from the book I’m reading – so far, there has been only one, Deanna Brown, in mere seconds she made me a fan.  Then there was the girl that proved, once again, how far women must come, how we must move beyond self-objectification, we need to stop participating in our own inequality.  I’m trying to stay hopeful, stay a believer, believe that one-day brain will trump booty, always. 

I’ll probably haunt bookstores and try to flavor my purchases with the old and the new.  I joined two book clubs last year, one I’ve stuck with despite my fair to severely negative critique of half the books we’ve read.  The other, well, after three months of reading about incredibly stupid women looking for a husband on 273 out of 300 pages or women unable to leave a cheating/absentee husband because their job skills were outdated and a baby was on the way I decided I had three choices: blind myself, become a book terrorist, or just walk away.  I walked away because holy fuck even Jane Eyre found her steel.  I’m proud that I’ve expanded my reading habits, explored the world of genre fiction and can now say that there are and were quite a few good books written after 1959, wonderful little gems.  Although, I’ve yet to be convinced that the death of Raymond Carver hasn’t forever doomed the short story, we’ll see. 

You know what else seems forever doomed – my love.   There, I said it and though this is how I’ll close, believe it or not I’m not sad, I’m typing this with a smile on my face wondering just what it all means.  

*SpellCheck is still a patriot I see.  Ass!

Back in the Saddle, Pt.1

I promised I would return unscathed though it took longer than you or I imagined, but here I am, back for worse or much much worse.  I think the best way to welcome in the New Year is to spend some time saying goodbye to the old but not in one of those hideous brag letters that I find pretentious and filled with lies painted as truth.  My letter will cover in the broadest of strokes, where the fuck I have been and what the fuck I’ve been doing?  Both excellent questions, here are some answers, which most of you deserve, the rest of you deserve nothing because you’re only here because a Google search promised you hedgehog threeways, frozen bananas and anal sex and glow-in-the-dark nipples covered in cum. 

* Happy belated denominational and non-denominational holidays to everyone, I hope you all saw the old year out and the New Year in with good cheer or at least false good cheer, which is code for drunk as hell.  My holiday was partially spent with family, my drunk mother telling me all about my 37-year-old cousin that finally married and how if I didn’t at least try to be more personable I was headed for a life of quiet loneliness.  My cousin married Jesus or God or whomever it is nuns marry.  I would follow my cousin into a nunnery but my mother intimated to the Catholic Church long ago that I was possessed by demons, she did it while I sat there dreaming of shoving and long dark stairwells.  Do you ever say something or in this case write something about your life and realise just how sad, yet ridiculous life can be when family is involved. 

* One of my reasons for disappearing is super secret, I wrote a book, co-wrote actually, with a good friend.  Before this moment, no one knew, no family, no friends, no nasty old incontinent toothless gas station boyfriends, but we did it, then we found an agent and so it goes.  It’s fucking hilarious if I do say so myself, mostly my co-author's doing, and the kind of book you only read on a beach far away where no one knows your name because you don’t want to ruin your reputation for being intelligent and hip by reading the equivalent of carnival cotton candy spun by a man that hasn’t washed his hands since he put on his fancy clothes to return his porn to the sex store 2 days before.  One day, your confection of a book becomes the must read of the month, albeit never a pick by the Great and All Powerful Oprah, and suddenly all of your friends are atwitter about loving this character and despising that one.  Next thing you know half of my hard work has turned into some shitastic movie starring Anne Hathaway, Kate Hudson and Jennifer Aniston.  Here is a sad fact, I couldn’t ever see the movie because all three of those women make my teeth hurt and my brain shrink in varying degrees.  That's bullshit, I can't fucking stand them, I was trying for a kinder, gentler me, but I'm almost 31-years-old and I won't change now. I suppose there will be more to tell when there is more to tell, however my need for anonymity will probably make it impossible for me to hawk my book on my blog, so, I’ll have to get clever.  Start nonchalantly mentioning books I’ve read so when I finally mention mine it won’t stand out as something special.  

*I gave up alcohol a few months ago after new events brought forth old memories and I didn’t want to swallow and drown so I simply stopped.  I’m over this particular phase, I missed my wine and in this economy who am I to not support the small business owner. 

*I started substitute teaching because I lost my way, I lost sight of the bigger picture, I needed more than the two sets of eyes filled with wonder and splendor staring at me as I rambled on about loving the way Fitzgerald’s words flow across a page or how Dickens though wordy built fully formed fully realised characters or how Poe was a master but he was preceded by Brocken Brown.  My ego is in the way, the need to make a grander impact, the need to change the world, my need to make children understand that education is their right and knowledge is within reach.  I’m willing to fill them with every morsel I know and take in return new insights and new ways of viewing not just every book and story we read but the world itself but I want too much, I want them to give a fuck about more than iPhones and Hollister. 

*Ricardo Montalban, Mr. Rourke to me, died today and I am seriously sad, he was part of my childhood, part of the afternoons spent with my great-grandmother while she learned English and so another component of my childhood is no more but the memories are there and they are strong.  

*My heart is still here, still beating, still wondering if there is really such a thing as forever and always.  I’m closer than ever to the answer, the wrong answer I’m sure, but it’s an answer and it’ll be fact until I change my mind.

And now, I need some sleep because exhausted is what I am, thankfully my bed is warm on this cold cold night.  Human bed warmers invest in one today.  Until tomorrow my friends and until then never forget the words of T.I. and Rihanna, "Keep on getting your paper."  That's money, right?