Protected: Pecan Pie

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Protected: My Former Favorite Pair of Pants

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Sour Grapes

I woke up a few minutes ago with my heart racing, unadulterated rage coursing through my body. I’d been having repetitive nightmares about last night, when I went to two of the oddest, most high-schoolish parties I’ve been to since high school. Both were heinous new (and old) media clusterfucks, and both contained unfortunately high concentrations of people (well, okay, two, but it feels like a lot to me) I’ve fucked. Or will, in all probability, fuck (why did that brand-new boy show up? the thing I was liking about him was that he’s not part of this world). Also out in force: people who would like to fuck me, but likely never will. Also: people I’ve fucked with, people I’ve fucked over. And one person, in particular, who I can say with complete certainty I’ll never fuck again.

The nightmares were about him, of course. Jake! I thought I was so over him. I mostly am! But there’s still this huge part of me that wants to punish him, or protect the world from him. I wince, of course, when I see girls fawning over him. But I’m not deluded enough to think that my impulse to warn them away has anything to do with protecting them. True, I don’t think he should be loose in the world, working through his issues on unsuspecting, vulnerable easy targets. But there’s no way any of those ladies is as easy a target as I was. And anyway, I don’t care about them, or him, really. I care about myself and my wounded pride. I care, mostly, about the idealized self I glimpsed, momentarily, through his eyes: a beautiful prize, something that someone as pretty and poised as he is would be proud to wear.

Ugh, and he is so pretty, and he so knows it, and it’s exactly that overweening confidence that makes him — made him! — irresistible. But my dreams last night weren’t about romance, they were about anger and competition: him fucking me over (professionally!) and me feeling impotent to stop him. And when he creeps into my fantasies, this is the context: I’ll flash on his prettiness — like, him asleep and innocent-looking at dawn, gold summer sun coming in through the window and slicing bands of light across his muscular back, his cherub-in-a-painting ass — and then immediately my thoughts will turn violent. It scares me, actually, how much the idea of hurting him (which I’d never actually be able to do; he has great reflexes from years of martial arts training) thrills me. Mostly I imagine the satisfying crumpling sound as my fist connects with the cartilage of his beakish nose.

And then I feel weird and gross and pathetic, because another odd truth of the situation is that there’s still this part of me that likes him. Not LIKES him, but just sort of sees the value in him as a person, likes talking to him, values his smarts and his skills. Above all, I think he’s funny and talented. He might be evil, but he’s interesting, you know? And how many people can you say that about? The other boys I’ve been killing time with lately, while they’ve got a ton of compensatory charms, don’t ring that bell. There’s nothing about them that makes me want to investigate, to get to the bottom of it.

But I’ll never figure Jake out. Duh! I’ll have to settle for trying to figure out me. Because seriously, what the fuck is going on there.

 

Protected: Call History

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Bacon

Today a schizophrenic homeless man almost punched me in the face. Earlier, I waited half an hour for the bus.  Earlier still, I waited half an hour for a car service guy who’d said he’d be there “in five.”

Oh, and I had a shrill conversation with my ex-boyfriend William, who is holding my digital camera hostage because he can’t find the cord that would enable him to download the pix he’s taken with it onto his computer.  “Have you tried looking for it?” I finally said, after weeks of politely asking to have it back.  “You don’t need to get upset!” he told me, incorrectly.

Also, I found out my cat — my fucking CAT– has a urinary tract infection, and I paid $50 for his antibiotics, plus $20 for the (tardy!) car that took me to the vet, arriving exactly one minute before they closed.

Oh, right, and!  I got screamed at on the phone at 9:00 by someone I’d written about for work, some I’d previously admired!  And then, half an hour later, I got an identical incoherent lecture from that person’s publicist.

On top of it all, a few days ago the Internet decided to cough up a clip of something vaguely humiliating I did a few months ago, instigating another barrage of hatemail and creepy fanmail (ex: “You stoopid cunt” “Fuck Jimmy Kimmel, yr hot! Lol”) in my inbox.  I can’t even read this shit anymore.  I can’t believe I used to be fascinated by it.  I guess I used to care a lot more what idiots and assholes thought of me.

I still care a bit, of course.

So, all in all, a la Alexander, it was a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day, made doubly so because I’m very, very tired.  But the reason I’m still smiling right now is that the reason I’m so tired is … well.

Ahem. Like I said, I’m not good at writing about sex, or maybe no one is.  But the way I feel about last night is the way I felt about bacon after I started eating meat again after 1o years of vegetarianism.  Which was: I wanted everyone to understand how important, how absolutely essential bacon is.  I wanted to tell people about bacon.  I actually did tell people, several times.  “Have you had bacon? It’s like a potato chip made out of meat!”  Bacon.  Man, bacon is delicious!

 

Protected: California, rescue me. . .

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What $125 An Hour Buys

Jake today, via IM:

“yes i would like to have sex with you more BUT am still not ready to get involved in any sort of relationship and I think to have sex with you, no matter how much i enjoy it, is not a very nice thing to do to you.”

Later, therapy with Susan:

Susan: You have to remember that you’re in process right now, and that the kind of person you want to be with right now probably isn’t indicative of the kind of person you’ll want want to be with in a few months.

Me: I just wanted … I mean, all I wanted was for Jake to, like, go live in an alternate dimension for like a few months or however long it took for me to get over William and become a whole person again and then he could come back to this dimension and, like, be my boyfriend.

Susan: Well even if that was possible he would have to be a whole person by then too.

Me: Maybe … like … scientists could do that to him while he’s in the alternate dimension?

Susan: (waits patiently for me to say something vaguely rational, which I think is a trick they teach you in therapist school)

Me: The other thing is that he did stuff for me that no one has ever done before. Like, emotional stuff but also physical stuff. And that is a BUMMER. I mean, there was this thing he did to my nipples … I’m sorry, is this TMI?

Susan: You’re paying me to talk to me so that’s not really a relevant concept here.

Me: Well. Anyway. IT IS A BUMMER. Will I ever meet another guy who will be able to do that stuff?

Susan: When you’re ready, you will meet that guy.

Me: I will? Um, how do you know? Are you psychic?

Susan: I’m not psychic. I’m just … confident.

Me: Huh. Well, I guess I will choose to believe that. I mean, why not, right?

(Stares at crumpled tissues in lap)

Is the hour up?

Susan: You have another six minutes.

Me: I think I’m going to quit while I’m ahead.

 

With A Side Of Suppressed Matricide

Here is everything you need to know about my mom in a brief one-act play.

Cast: Me (E), my mom, well-meaning waitress

Setting: Brooklyn Label

As the scene opens, E is very hungry. Why is she so hungry? Well, moments ago she was sitting across from her exboyfriend at the Pencil Factory. It was the first time they’d seen each other since she left him a little over a month ago. Their meeting was not planned. But? She kind of knew she’d run into him when she began walking past the Pencil Factory, and he had been waiting for her for similarly inexplicable hippie-vibeish reasons. So: he’s really happy, he’s really moving on. He’s smoking again (blue American Spirits) and he’s lost easily 20 lbs. Re: this last detail, part of E is like “Oh shit” and part of her is like “HA! My cooking rules.”

Anyway, there was honesty, looking into each other’s eyes and realizing that the other person is simultaneously the person who knows the other person best in the world and a complete stranger, and crying. This took about 10 minutes. Then E went to meet her Mom, move some furniture into the hippie loft where she’s temporarily quasi-living, and race to the nearest restaurant, which is an ambitious coffeeshop/brunch place called Brooklyn Label that’s been open for dinner for three days. They’re keeping things simple for now: three kinds of mac and cheese, entree salads, half a chicken, steak frites, and fish specials. To reiterate: there are not very many options.

Waitress:Do you guys know what you’d like?

E: Yeah I’ll have the steak frites and a side salad and an iced tea.

Waitress: And for you?

E’s mom: Well, I was thinking about the salad Nicoise. But then I realized that maybe I’m not in the mood for tuna? So I think I’ll have the avocado salad. About how big is that?

Waitress: (gestures)

E’s mom: Oh that’s very big.

E: I’ll eat some if you can’t finish it (edge of desperation already entering voice.)

E’s mom: Well ….

(interminable pause)

Okay I’ll have the avocado salad. That’s what I’ll have.

(Waitress makes as if to escape)

E’s mom: But wait, maybe I need some protein! (Studies menu for fourteen years) This side of black beans? Does it have pork in it?

E: (beginning to lose it) Mom you eat pork.

E’s mom: Sometimes I’m not in the mood for pork.

Waitress: (tragically) I … can check? But I … really don’t think there’s pork in the black beans.

E’s mom: (as if a General conceding defeat in a Civil War battle) Well then I’ll have the avocado salad and a side of black beans.

Waitress: Thanks so much!! (takes menus and runs)

E: Thank you! (overcompensating with chipperness. Beginning to crumble inside as the knowledge that she will be spending the next 48 hours eating in restaurants and walking and driving [oh god no DRIVING] and caring for a diabetic cat at her exboyfriend’s apartment which just the thought of entering it and seeing all her books piled in a corner makes her want to cry and caring for a dog and fielding endless questions about what, exactly, her plans are DAWNS IN EARNEST).

Aaaand: scene.

****

The thing is that I love my mom more than I love probably anyone else in the world, really. Also, she is more like me than anyone else in the world. But I often want to kill her. The thing that keeps her alive is how incredibly sad I would be if she died.

 

Protected: Car Crash Burritos

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