Lessons not yet learned

Ill-begotten pleasures inevitably lead to bitter endings.

The Games We Play

But he objectified me as surely as if I were a pretty little doll plucked from a fancy store window. He’d caught a glimpse of me fairly skipping down my street and he held it in his mind for months slowly turning it over like a piece of candy that one’s tongue probes repeatedly, savoring its sweetness. Of course he’d embellished things too – I wasn't really skipping, I was walking and my black belted coat became a dress in his mind, my hips swaying with assurance. I knew all this because he would recount it numerous times; describing my walk, my look, my attire and never accurately - the picture was always airbrushed for effect. It was as if I was more vivid in his fantasy than in reality. And he was never so amorous and desiring as when I was at distance from him, I’d wake up to ardent text messages describing his impulse to kiss every inch of my body, to lay his lips in my thighs, to taste my skin.

As for my part, I relished the fantastical element of it all. For we were alike in some ways. Two overgrown children heading toward middle age – indulgent and lazy, desiring a life of little responsibility; worshiping the fleeting high of momentary pleasure and likewise deploring the stodginess of propriety. How little we both cared for rules, and the delight we took in our frivolous role playing. We lost ourselves in each other sexually - indulging in each other’s bodies hungrily, hedonistically. We were greedy the way addicts are greedy – we could never get enough, we lived in constant anxiety of the last drop of our ill-earned pleasure drying up and escaping us. I don’t know about him but I can say I hated the prosaic reality of the day – to – day and I scorned any conversation or behavior which hinted at convention rather than what I believed to be a pure expression of intellect or passion. For his part, like most men, he lived in perpetual dread of ‘labeling’ our relationship and of my probing questions when I attempted to discern his feelings for me. Certainly, we were both arrogant and intent upon indulging ourselves. Yet there was true tenderness there, I could feel it in the way he held me and touched me, it emanated out of me accidentally - in the looks I gave him, in the way I kissed him.

Lady Lazarus

"Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air...."

Figuring it out

This blog is by nature about my relationships - as pathetic, fleeting, heartbreaking, glorious, fun, irresponsible, well-intentioned, sad, sexy, or otherwise, they have been. And sometimes its been a combination of the above! It ain't called LOVE & Mental Illness for nothin'!

I'm not going to write about my career (or lack thereof!), my friends and family (only vaguely and on rare occasions because I want to be respectful), politics, art, my hobbies, or other personal issues. But it IS about dating and sex and love and all those things in between.

Life is not always pretty or practical and I make lots of bad choices, but writing this is like keeping a journal; its cathartic. Writing down my thoughts helps me to clarify them. Why do I do it in a public forum? I'm not sure. Maybe to feel that I'm not alone in all this, maybe because I hope someone else can relate, maybe because I'm delusional and I think for some strange reason a couple people might get a vicarious thrill or derive some amusement from these stories and anecdotes.

Its also about my relationship with New York City, my relationship with myself and my patterns of behavior. I'd like to say that I'm learning a lot and growing wiser and more mature but that's not always true - sometimes I totally fuck up and engage in completely ridiculous behavior. But someday in the distant future I hope I can read over all this and it will make some kind of sense. Until then, the madness ebbs and flows...