Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Booty Call

So a couple of months ago I went on a date or two with a sexy, educated, funny and nice-enough guy. One thing let to another, if you know what I mean... and we hooked up. I must say he was quite well-endowed. Anyway, I didn't hear from him after that. I wasn't devastated, nor was I surprised. What did surprise me (and wake me up)several days ago, was my cell vibrating at 3:30am with a call from him.
Now I don't like to be awakened EVER, but especially not by a booty call from a guy I haven't seen or heard from in months. Though I didn't answer the phone, I lay awake in bed for several hours afterward contemplating my life and generally feeling like crap. So the next morning I decided to get in touch with him.

I started out innocently enough.
Me: Little tipsy last night, eh?

The Guy ('T'): Yeah. Fondly
T: Thought did "count" though.

Me: 'Thought' counted?! A random drunk phone call at 3:30am?! Come on, we both can do better than that!

T: I sure can. It's not out of disrespect. But in return, if you find I can fill any carnal impulse, you are free to share that anytime.

Me: I have no problem with 'carnal' impulses however, I prefer to fulfill them after a drink and a 'civilized' conversation at a reasonable hour.

Me: Next time a 'carnal' urge strikes you at 3:30 in the morning - though certainly less economical, and more morally questionable - I suggest you hire a prostitute.

T: I'm sorry for the bother last night but is that last statement some kind of joke?

Me: I'm not serious but just trying to make a point about how that made me feel.

T: I'm sorry, but my options in NY aren't just you...and prostitutes. That was absurd. Point taken though.

Me: Well clearly! I assume you went down 'the list' last night. Glad you got the point.

Heh, heh...maybe he'll think twice before he drunk dials a girl at 3am. Or not. But at least I know I won't be getting woken up by him again.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Smooth Operator

Oh.My.God.
So, I have this crush on a guy in one of my classes. He's exactly my type - which is to say that he's Latino and too young for me.

Last night was our final class for the semester, so I rounded up a small group of people to go out - me and 3 guys. Heh heh... We ended up at this kind of sketchy bar in Harlem. K, one of my classmates starts buying us shots of Tequila, meanwhile M (the guy I like) and I are chatting in a semi-normal manner. I say 'semi-normal' because we are both kinda weird. I think that's why I like him - well, that and I think he's hot! He's telling me about his White ex-girlfriend who was a 'nymphomaniac' and I'm showing him pictures of a painting I did on my cell phone and then there's a little accidental slip up...he was like "Uh, did I just see a nipple?!" Ooops, guess I should delete that old photo! We are also talking about cultural heritage, our parents, growing up without a lot of money, stuff like that.

Then the shots kick in - I take off M's cap and run my hands through his hair, then I run my hands over K's buzz cut too for good measure, just so it doesn't seem like I'm too into M. Next, insist on making both men feel my hair (the 3rd guy was smart and cut out after one drink to go home to his gf). "See isn't it soft?!" I exclaim. (I'm sure the women in the bar must have wanted to kill me). Then some other guy comes over. He's cute in kind of a ghetto way with tattoos all over his neck and a predatory look in his eye. He approaches me and says, "Hey which one of these guys is your boyfriend?" I tell him that they are my classmates. To which he replies, "Good, cuz I like you" and introduces himself as 'Butter'. When I ask why he calls himself Butter he says its because he's 'smooth and sweet'. Good lord!

Another shot later and in the company of 'Butter', we are headed out to another bar. M and I are sharing a cigarette and walking together talking. After I take the first drag and pass it back to him I say, "I have herpes". M eyes me anxiously, "Are you serious?!" I reassure him that I am joking. He seems slightly skeptical. He tells me "Sometimes people say they are joking but they are really serious". I try to explain that when I'm drunk sometimes I just say crazy things to see how people will react. Kinda fucked up but I'm a freak, what can I say?

The next place is a tiny Mexican restaurant/bar with a DJ. K orders an enormous pitcher of margaritas. Butter disappears, he is running around chatting with everyone, mostly young, thuggish looking guys. One guy in particular he seems to know well. The guy pulls up his shirt and shows us a big bandage over his ribs and tells us he got stabbed this week. Later Butter returns to our table and whips out a plastic pint of some sort of alcohol and dumps a bunch of it into my glass and then the rest in the pitcher of margaritas. I stare in incredulously. When I ask him what it is he says its vodka. Well, its COCONUT flavored vodka - cheap and sickly sweet. I tell him there's no way I'm drinking it. 'Only Girl in the World' comes on by Rhianna and he grabs me and drags me to the dance floor. The dance floor being a tiny corner of the dark room by the bar, with no one else but us on it. We put on a good show, with Butter laying it on thick, but not too thick, so I'm not feeling totally molested by him. The 4 or 5 guys sitting at the bar are gaping at us. Then we go back to the table.

I am pretty drunk by then and ask M if I can give him a hug. He says yes and I give him a big hug, then I jump over to the other side of the table and throw myself on K, who is sitting there innocently trying to finish his burrito. I am hugging him too, telling him how he's so nice and sweet, blah blah. He is really a good natured guy, so I wasn't being insincere but he looked a little shocked by all the affection. I went back to sit next to M and I started rubbing his leg under the table. Butter has disappeared and reappeared again. This time he was leaning across the table looking at me intently and sharing his life story - he just got out of jail, he was in for 10 years, he shot/stabbed/something (I'm not clear on this detail) someone who stole his mom's purse but... he's really a nice guy. When he sees my disapproval, he assures me it was only to protect his family, that he's the kind of guy who protects everyone he's close to etc, etc, and I would be safe with him. I am horrified, drunk and don't give a fuck. So I say, "Well, I would protect my family too. But I wouldn't go around and kill someone who stole my mom's bag."

Finally, the bill comes and no one has enough cash. K grabs it and puts it all on his card. M and I try to leave the tip in cash but Butter intercedes claiming he already left them 'something'. Suspicious, I asked exactly what he left. He states, "I gave them 2 bags of coke for their tip." OMG! Is this guy for real? M and I hand the cash directly to the waitress. Before heading out the door, I throw my coat and backpack on the ground in a dramatic gesture and grab K for one last wild, drunken dance before we leave the bar.

M and I quickly exit the scene before Butter can catch up to us (and presumably kill us - just kidding!) and walk to the train together in the rain. I don't remember quite what I was saying to him but I'm pretty sure that it was something kinda weird and out there. The good thing is I don't think he cares, since he's pretty eccentric himself. I give him another hug goodbye and tell him we should hang out again. Exhausted by the night's festivities, I fall asleep on the train home.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Existential Blehhhhh



Most people are protected from the horrors of existential angst by the daily routines and relationships that govern their lives. But when one is free of the grounding and purpose-providing entanglements of work, family and intimacy, their life appears arbitrary and unfathomable. The true nature of the world appears in all its random and callousness, so vast and insatiable as to rattle your teeth in the morning. And when you look in the mirror at the face that you know as your own, it appears strange and disjointed, an inscrutible sadness flickering behind eyes that observe themself blankly and without understanding.

Until the 20th century ennui was an ailment reserved for the priviledged classes whose education and idleness gave them ample time to ponder the pointlessness of existence. Now thanks to technology it is the providence of even the lower middle class.

Getting up, listening to Elliot Smith's Needle in the Hay, contemplating death, fantasizing about having sex with my classmate, selecting the right outfit and then going to church.
What does it all mean anyway????!!!

Friday, November 25, 2011

Too Many

from Circe/Mud Poems

by Margaret Atwood

It was not my fault, these animals
who once were lovers

it was not my fault, the snouts
and hooves, the tongues
thickening and rough, the mouths grown over
with teeth and fur

I did not add the shaggy
rugs, the tusked masks,
they happened

I did not say anything, I sat
and watched, they happened
because I did not say anything.

It was not my fault, these animals
who could no longer touch me
through the rinds of their hardening skins,
these animals dying
of thirst because they could not speak

these drying skeletons
that have crashed and litter the ground
under the cliffs, these
wrecked words.

I made no choice
I decided nothing

One day you simply appeared in your stupid boat,
your killer's hands, your disjointed body, jagged as a
shipwreck,
skinny-ribbed, blue-eyed, scorched, thirsty, the usual,
pretending to be -what? a survivor?

Those who say they want nothing
want everything
.
It was not this greed
that offended me, it was the lies.

Nevertheless I gave you
the food you demanded for the journey
you said you planned; but you planned no journey
and we both knew it.

You've forgotten that,
you made the right decision.
The trees bend in the wind, you eat, you rest,
you think of nothing,
your mind, you say,

is like your hands, vacant:

vacant is not innocent.

**************

There must be more for you to do
than permit yourself to be shoved
by the wind from coast
to coast to coast, boot on the boat prow
to hold the wooden body
under, soul in control

Ask at my temples
where the moon snakes, tongues of the dark
speak like bones unlocking, leaves falling
of a future you won't believe in

Ask who keeps the wind
Ask what is sacred

Don't you get tired of killing
those whose deaths have been predicted
and are therefore dead already?

Don't you get tired of wanting
to live forever?

Don't you get tried of saying Onward?"

Friday, November 4, 2011

Players' Club

If only I could get him out of my head. And what an ugly mess this has all become. I suppose it was inevitable considering neither one of us is exactly mild mannered, conventional or even sane, for that matter… When I told him I loved him I didn’t expect to be accused of being manipulative. And how I shriveled inside when he said definitively “I’m not going to fall in love with you before I leave.” I know it was crazy to let myself feel this way when he’s going back to Serbia for good. Maybe I was indulging my own emotions, letting them run free because I knew he was leaving anyway and it could never go anywhere. Was I being selfish and irresponsible? But after months of these games, I’m exhausted – him telling me he loved me countless times - was it for real? I saw him lose himself with me; I saw those naked looks in his eyes, felt his tenderness and his desire.
I was furious, how dare he toy with me, swatting away my feelings as if they meant nothing! The truth is few men catch at my heart, few men captivate me, excite me. Its been years since a man has evoked these feelings in me. Then I saw that book The Game, some hideous players' handbook lying on his bed. Was he playing some cruel trick on me? Manipulating me for his own ego gratification? He lay in bed, staring at me with those intense eyes, the blue-grey eyes I cannot get out of my head. I wordlessly picked the book up, meeting his gaze with mine - raw, angry, hurt - and tore the cover to pieces. Then I took my things and left. I doubt I’ll ever see him again. But I have to reclaim my heart.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

This is how I feel


My Maudlin Career
by Camera Obscura

You kissed me on the forehead
Now this kiss is giving me a concussion
We were love at first sight
Now this crush
It's crushing

I chased your steps the city through
I'm lost easily
I took to the desert but my heart just whines
and deceives me

Now we're in love again
And you're wherevers
I'm not a child I know
We're not going steady

You're pain's gigantic but it's not as big as your ego
Promise not to abandon you, please let me go

Now I've been wearing your feelings
Like they were worth protecting
They say I'm too kind and sentimental
Like you could catch affection

Oh in your eyes there's a sadness
Enough to kill the both of us
Are those eyes overrated?
They make me want to give up on love

I'll brace myself for the holiness
Say hello to feelings that I detest

This maudlin career has come to an end
I don't want to be sad again
This maudlin career has come to an end
I don't want to be sad again

This maudlin career has come to an end
I don't want to be sad again
This maudlin career has come to an end
I don't want to be sad again

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Getting Lost


Living in NYC is a constant reminder of your own smallness, insubstantialness and powerlessness in relation to the great crushing forces of capitalism and the ever flowing vast surges of humanity. On a bad day I despise the inconvenience, the inconsequentialness of my own tiny existence here. But on a good day I am empowered by the richness of the city's cultural fabric. Sometimes, when I am lucky, it feels as if an invisible benevolent hand is gently guiding me through the immense colorful chaos - preventing me from wallowing in my own ignorance and ethnocentricity - reminding me just how big and varied the world is.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

HORRORoscope

My horoscope for today:

There are some things in life that, no matter how hard you polish them, will never shine. You are considering the fact that a particular situation is likely to never change or improve, no matter how much effort or possibly money you invest in it. Don't see this as a reason to be regretful or despondent. It's this realization that will free you from an unhappy or undesirable scenario.

WOW. This could apply to SO MANY issues in my life that are at a complete and utter impasse. Dating, job situation, school, certain relationships I have. I appreciate the brutal honesty, guess I gotta figure out some new strategies, FOR REAL!

Monday, October 3, 2011

You Blew It...Again


This thought just occurred to me while riding the train home today...

That an individual could have had so many chances at love and somehow manage to blow them all is disgusting, sad and unfathomable!

Dum de Dumb Dumb

I finally have a new home! I'm away from the ceaseless background roar of the BQE! Horray! Away from the fake awkward conversations with my antisocial roommate. Away from my tiny cramped room. Away from my rickety metal IKEA loft bed. Away from the stroller pushing yuppie yoga moms of my former 'hood. Away from the morning smells of burnt coffee, the muted earth-tone decor, the 'Squeeze me, stomp me, make me Wine' plaque at my old house. Yay!
Of course now I am living with an eccentric playwright and some other guy who I barely met before moving in. I traded in the pristine, snobby, White affluence of Carroll Gardens for 'Do or Die' Bedstuy. And on my second night here my roommate and I managed to drink a bottle of wine and an ENTIRE bottle of vodka! When we finished the wine he said he was going to run out to the store to get some beer, then he asked if I wanted vodka. I was like 'Uhhhh...well that's not necessary. But well, I guess I won't say no.' I have a little problem turning down vodka, lord help me! He kept making me drinks in a pint glass and continually refilling it. We rambled on for 4 hours about organic farming, dating, sex, activism, politics, San Francisco, blah blah blah and before you knew it we were both wasted and the bottle was empty. I can't tell if its a promising start to things or not...