Camel caravan in New York, 1942

A reader emailed me the link to this photo. I love it! Maybe someday I'll incorporate it into my layout... Maybe someday I'll have something substantial and profound to write again...although I guess I'm not doing so bad with that, even with the kickass, ass-kicking job. I've also still somehow managed to be out and about with friends having fun, loving life, and absolutely not dating, not even the nice girl (so nice, but our schedules are just not working out--I did have the decency to tell her though, instead of just letting it fizzle).

My new and lovely friend Payroll and I had a talk about how much dating is not fun, especially when you haven't been in the game for a long time. So for now, forget it! Friends with everyone! Stupid moony girl to no one! Ginger passion fruit martinis for all!

And now, the camels:

Exhausted, no more social life, but happy, I swear!

Actual Post Date 4/17/08. Miss A is no longer able to churn them out... Without further delay, I give you the completely nonlinear stuff I wrote last night before I passed out with my computer on the pillow next to me. And now that it's done, I'm gonna catch a few Zs before I head back out...

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Thoughts are racing through my mind this evening, but in no particular order. I'm pretty exhausted tonight--another 13 hour day--and this time no martinis to blame it on. I actually had a good day at work... although the APOC commented on me looking worn out. I am kind of worn out. I'd like to think it's holdover from the nice evening I had with the IT crew from Womens Rights, but I know that's not true. This isn't physical.

In the interest of keeping it real I gotta say that I'm emotionally exhausted after a couple of weeks of people being noncommittal and flaky about hanging out (not Auntie though! And not my favorite IT department!).

I have a constant nature vs. nurture battle waging in my head. My nature is to trust people, to see the good in their hearts and to enjoy their company worry-free. The events of my life however have made me wary and skeptical, and I often project my own unrelated doubts and fears onto others. This is especially true when my mind is idle and left to entertain itself.

But, as we say in Brooklyn, Fuhgettaboudit! I am back to a place where I'm busy all the time and wiped out in the other two hours of the day. I no longer have time to worry about what anyone else is thinking. My body and brain are too wrapped up getting used to this work pace... Both of them have been kind of lazy the last few years, although taking Hurricane Katrina into consideration, several people have argued to me that I had a good excuse.

Back to the topic at hand though, I am off the market from Sunday at 10 pm through Friday at 8. Bye bye, social life, I loved you well, but I'm living my dream. Or something.

The producer even suggested a meeting tomorrow, but I just didn't have the energy to deal with his maybes and perhapses. I want him to be noncommittal about some things, but hanging out with me is just not one of those things. Now I kind of regret my impatience, both over the last few weeks (too much of that girl kind of impatience) and tonight (irritable and tired). Really I don't know enough about him to make any kind of real judgement call, but I do know that I'm starting to feel jerked around. That's nurture talking. My trusting nature tells me that he's really a great person who genuinely wants to be friends. It'd be nice to know, but I'm over worrying about it (especially since I gave up caring and blogged it).

My heart is in a good place, I'm feeling free and happy in spite of, or perhaps because of my exhaustion. I'm learning to let go of expectation and to replace it with hope and the joy of being a shiny little candle flame and living truly in the moment.

To Do, Tout Doux

Tout doux:

-Put NY Crosswalk software on iPhone
-Remember to leave the key in the production van
-Drink water!!!
-Leave early to pick up bagels and stuff
-Don't worry, you're doing fine
-Help J update the checklist thingies
-Buy tp and shampoo for home
-Budget double extra time for runs during rush hour
-Get directions from GARAGE, not office
-Figure out how to see AJ before Iraq
-Call Mom
-Start a binder for crew lists, et al
-Keep your chin up
-Work on speaking more clearly and directly

-Above all, hope. But do not expect.

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The first day was just as I expected it with a little more traffic hassle, our garage being very near the entrance to the Holland Tunnel (and me trying to turn the van in at 5:30!) I wrote that little checklist on the subway while bringing music to some child actors. Now I'm exhausted and finding solace in coconut ice cream with pineapple chunks. It's delicious, but I never wished so hard for a bottle of rum in my life!

I promised myself I wouldn't write about dating anymore, but I gotta wonder.

Well, now you know the news! I'm beaming. Beaming! It's kind of weird that life is just moving right along in ignorance of the fact that I'm about to begin this new job... I almost wish I had no time to prepare so that I could just jump right in. Patience, as I'm sure you realize, is not my strong suit.

Anyway, I spent the earlier part of the day having an English brunch with Aunt J, who also showed me the best place in town to buy overpriced recycled goods and then gave me a really neat little table that fits into my apartment all perfect-like. She brought it (and me) to my apartment in her car, which is like a roller-coaster when she drives it down 7th Avenue at 40 miles per hour! It was shaping up to be a good day. I ran, I ate, I received furniture, things were going very well.

...and then I sort of went on a date. No, sorry, I did go on a date.

On paper everything looked good; a grad student, in pursuit of a MFA in Media Studies. By day a graphic designer. Likes a lot of the same music I do (which isn't a big deal, but it's something). Friend of a friend in Chicago, who told him to get in touch with me.

We talked on the phone yesterday and agreed to meet up for dinner. I told him to pick a spot and let me know, since I like to see what other people come up with. On the phone I was bored with the contents of my music library and he recommended a new band that I wound up really liking! Nice. It's not a date, I kept telling myself. I was just meeting a new friend. I ignored the fact that I told myself that the last couple of times I've met up with people.

We agreed on a street corner (what is it about people in New York meeting on street corners instead of at specified locations?) on the East side of Midtown, which is like no man's land for me...I don't know a damn thing over there. We did that thing on the phone where you're looking for someone in a crowd and can't quite find them, only to realize that the person was standing ten feet away from you the whole time. I turned around and smiled a smile that quickly became forced.

First of all, he immediately asked me, "where would you like to go?" I had already delegated the responsibility of finding a dinner location, and was a little irritated that he hadn't followed through. But it wasn't just that, it was more the way he asked the question. It was marked with a quality of tone that made me understand that, at least as far as he was concerned, this was indeed a date.

It shouldn't have been a problem for me, really. On some subconscious level underneath my denial, I had known it was going to be a date... I guess I just hoped it would be a better one, and for all intents and purposes it should have been. He was good looking and smart, successful in his endeavors and ambitious to learn more. He was interested in my work and was not shy about telling me I looked nice. He talked about art and music and film theory (hey!) and academia... He's a year older than me, we're both from Northeast Ohio, and we like a lot of the same books and movies...

But he was so... bland. There's some X factor that just wasn't there, and I couldn't place my finger on it. I put on my happy face anyway, chatted about our mutual friend, laughed at his jokes, had reasonably engaging conversation, told him my Katrina story, nodded when he suggested we check out a museum together.

If he calls, I'll go, I guess. It leaves me wondering though, what's the X factor? Is it intrinsic geekiness? Is it something about the sense of humor? Maybe I need someone to challenge me on many levels. Is there some physical chemistry factor that left me tingling on the subway a couple of weeks ago? What exactly is the thing that makes me click with someone? And why did this nice guy leave the sour taste of disdain in my mouth?

The Walk of Shame

I read BNY's post mentioning the Union Square Green Market a week ago but I'd kind of forgotten, so it was a pleasant surprise to wander through it on my way to the Q. I got a little inspired by the flowers and the springy weather and took some phone photos. They came out pretty well considering I had no macro capability and was just snapping them off willy nilly. Here's the resulting eye candy for ya, courtesy of a couple minutes spent on iPhoto:





In college we used to call it the Walk of Shame, this homeward trek in yesterday's clothes, but I don't really feel ashamed. I feel pretty good, considering the mild hangover...and that I got sent home instead of going to breakfast. I don't really get what that was about, and I was a little irritated by it, but I'm not letting it get to me.

It's kind of weird that today I'm heading home from the Producer's apartment and yesterday at approximately 6:30 I was snuggled up next to Funny Dave at a table at Marshall Stack, drinking wine and playing a weird knee version of footsie. FD marveled at how hard Mrs. 2.0 made me laugh with her amazing true story about fecal exhibitionism in the famous Victoria Gardens, and he and the 2.0s' cool friend the Artist kept me giggling all evening over cookies, English muffin pizzas and sloppy Joes that were more sloppy than Joe. I haven't laughed that hard since I was a kid and Salty and our cousin Jeff pinned me down and tickled me till I stopped breathing. We had a great time out, and between the story and FD and the amazing bartender my sides were sore by the time we all walked to the F train together.

Nobody else wanted to stay out, so I met up in the Village with PDF and his Boyfriend, who were entertaining some nice folks that Boyfriend had been working with. After laughing at some horrific karaoke, we wound up at this awesome lesbian bar. At first we were turned away, but PDF worked some magic and in a moment we filed right in ahead of the crowd waiting outside. It was jam packed full of gorgeous women...and I mean PACKED. Like sardines. Someone shoved a drink in my hand and then I remember dancing with a blonde to George Michael's "Freedom." I chatted up a cutie from Boston but that's about the time my memory starts swimming. I wish I could remember what the bar was called...or even where I was. PDF kept plunking Cape Cods into my grabby hands, and after Boston Girl all I can remember is rainbows all over the ceiling and a little tiny straw in my mouth and dancing all squished up with all those girls.

The next thing I knew I was stumbling down a side street with PDF in tow, shrieking "[PRODUCER]!" at the top of my lungs. And nearly falling over laughing when I finally found the Producer and his poor sweet friend who both looked like deer in the headlights of my giggly drunkenness. There was some pizza involved and I think more drinking, but I really get a little fuzzy until I was put to bed.

This morning was actually a pretty nice walk. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and it was shaping up to be a pretty gorgeous day. I wandered into a store on 14th st and ogled some jewelry, but the stuff I wanted (Kuchi pendants and an "antique" Afghani torque) was kind of expensive, so I moved along. I called PDF while I walked. "so what did you think?" "He's great," he said. "Just be careful, honey." I know, I know.

I think the hardest thing about moving on from breaking off an engagement is how hyper protective people are of me. But it's nice to know they care, and I'm glad they're reminding me to be cautious and above all to concern myself with getting what I deserve. ...And believe me, even though I'm doing the whole live in the moment thing, cautious is my middle name right now.

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Speaking of BNY, this is kind of funny, since I just moved here four months ago, and technically from Ohio.

I told you I used to be cool. Here's how cool I was:

That said, I have a memory I'd like to share with the class.

April 9, 2002. The day I was cooler than cool ever cooled.

It was, weatherwise, the first real day of summery sunshine in Dayton, Ohio, and every bright, hot spring day since has made me think of this day. The brick-paved quad at my university, teeming with students in short sleeves and flip flops, looked just a little bit brighter through the red lenses of sunglasses I had stolen off someone's head a day earlier.

My own black flip-flops had little pyramid studs all up the straps and flopped in time to the beat of this song, which was blaring throughout the campus, courtesy of the dj booth that was randomly set up near one of the science buildings. Delicious and sultry, it was the perfect tune for that day and that moment. I remember feeling the warm sunshine on my bare arms and the breeze on my bare legs under my plaid miniskirt. On this day I was a rock star clutching a 3-subject notebook to the front of my black tank top. I was 21, feeling sassy, and about to break some poor little punk-rock wannabe's heart.

I sauntered up to him, pushed my sunglasses back over my black highlights and gave him a wink. I distinctly remember the wink because it was the first and only time in my life I have ever felt that good about a wink. I turned. He followed. He, three years younger than me, was my trained puppy. After discovering his crush on me I had spent well over a month shaping him like a fine hedge. I saw him every day and treated him like a lucky little fan boy, "allowing" him into my good graces and gleefully amusing myself with his continued descent toward worshiping the ground I walked on.

Half leaning, half sitting against a cream colored brick wall I reached out and put a finger on his lips. He knew instantly what was coming and I watched with reptilian detachment while he realized he had been a tool in my heavily orchestrated plan to ensnare someone else. "I'm sorry, honey," I told him. But I wasn't and he knew it.

After leaving his side I turned and immediately saw my new quarry, a new pair of red lenses shading his eyes. He looked good... He was tall and dark haired and had been as mean to me as I had just been a moment earlier. I remember grinning at him as if showing off what I'd done.

Cool? Sure. Nice? No way, Jose.

Late Night Thinkin' on the Q Train

Why do I like the subway so much? Nobody else seems to like the subway. Is it weird to like the subway?

Even at midnight I love being on the train. The gentle rocking motion, the ka-chunk! of the bumps, the screechy screechy of the wheels. I love watching the dingy tunnel walls go by, and especially passing other trains--I love how passing other trains looks like you're watching an 8mm time lapse film. I love riding the B train in certain spots when there's an F or V on the adjacent track, and suddenly the B dips down underneath....it looks like the F/V is climbing a mountain. I love how, after the last Manhattan stop, the black bricks and pillars suddenly give way to what used to be tenements on the Lower East Side. In hardly any time at all the buildings sink and pivot in view, and I can see red Chinese characters stacked on yellow squares...I imagine they say something like "No Vacancy." Lit up floors of cubicles and computers wink and blink in the night, then woosh! They're behind us and then we are soaring over the East River....soaring! It's a little cathartic for me.

Maybe it's the river thing... When I used to ride the ferry in New Orleans I fell in love with the Mississippi chugging away underneath my feet, splashing flecks of slippery silt (mud from Minneapolis or St. Louis? Memphis mud?) onto my waitress shoes.

It's the platform that bothers me. I don't like standing around with all those creeps and feeling like I can't escape without jumping and risking a third rail zap. They hover, those creeps. Tonight at the Union Square station there were some gutterpunk kids, complete with dingy dog and two flea-ridden pet store rats (so gross). They were pretty wrapped up in conversation with some thug wannabes, who were totally perplexed by the grimy gutterpunk style. Otherwise I would have been a little nervous, since one of the gaunt, slimy-dreadlocked guys kept eyeing my bag. As annoying as the gutterpunks are, it's not so much the homeless that get me, it's people who are drunk or mentally ill, or some combination of the two. They hover unpridictably. In my head I often play out a scenario in which a drunk accidentally bumps into me a little too hard and I fall onto the tracks. It's not the train that worries me; it's the idea of touching the grimy innards of the City mixed with trash and bugs and rodents.

This might sound weird, since I think it's gross to have pet rats, but I love watching the rats go. I keep imagining their lives like Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Like they have this whole society underneath New York that is holding the fabric of the world together or something... Goodness knows, it's very apparent to me that they're smart enough. I always catch them making and carrying out plans and using tools and helping each other with little projects. It's very fascinating.

And where was I coming from so late on a school night? Well, if you must know, I had just slipped away from the Producer's apartment. We went to see No Country for Old Men, which was...wow, weird. It's practically a crime that I haven't seen this movie yet, being such a big fan of the Coen Brothers, and for that same reason I feel a little put off that I just don't get it. Not yet, anyway. I'm sure the third or fourth time I see it it will all make sense.

The Producer didn't have any new profound insights for me tonight. Instead he was just his pleasant and sweet self...maybe a little too salacious, but it sure is flattering. He's a doll really, but--and this is kind of typical of guys (even when I was practically married) and it bothers me to no end--he seems to be so caught up with flirting and being suggestive that I'm having trouble accessing who he is. And since my attraction to men is far more cerebral than it is physical, well...I'm not sure if it's gelling. But it sure is flattering.

Now if he stepped on my shoe and pulled my hair...

Now what am I going to do with all the call-girl flyers I had made up? And other, more morbid issues

Hung over as I was yesterday, I left work all geared up for an awesome night cuddling on my couch, ordering pizza, and watching the French Connection. My first New York pizza! It didn't work out that way, and although the night wasn't totally great, I'm actually pretty glad!

Basically, I was invited to meet someone out. A dude. A dude I barely know. A...dare I say it...date....sort of. I was hesitant, but I decided to go for it. After all, Newbie NYC says to never refuse an invitation...and having whined last week about not going out at all, why not!?

So I went. Two major things happened.

1. I saw a man fall down the stairs on a subway platform and crack his head open. Hemophobic as I am, I was scared as hell, but I just couldn't leave him! And other people were just stepping over him and going about their business....I know this is New York, I know people are busy, but GOSH! COME ON, people, have a little human decency and at least go the other way! I had these visions running through my head of me lying on that concrete, moaning unintelligibly, barely breathing, a pool of blood and fluid pouring out of my skull, suits and skirts stepping over my twisted legs... I called the station manager. Another nice girl stopped and called 911. I stayed until the help came. It was all I could do to keep from crying; I have never seen that much blood before. I kept wondering if that's how much blood came out of my dad... I felt so bad for that man, for his family... what if he has two little girls at home? What if he...

I couldn't stay. When they got there, I just couldn't stay to find out if he was... I just never want to know, because this way at least I have some hope.


I almost went home, but I didn't have R's number to cancel, and I also...kind of didn't want to go home. I kind of wanted a drink at that point. So I got on the train and wound up meeting him around 68th and Columbus...

2. R was...really cool! The only fault I can see so far is that he doesn't drink (not even a glass of wine with dinner? I don't know). And that's really just not that big of a deal, because he may have a very good reason for it. After I explained why I was late (still shaking), he read my palm. Very cute, and it totally helped to calm me down. He was still dressed for work, in smooth business casual--and me in my hipster uniform from casual Friday! He looked great in a tie. I only hope I looked great in glasses and pigtails.

I must have, because as the evening moved along he seemed to get closer and closer. We had the most amazing conversation about god and pain and living in the moment. I haven't talked like that with someone in a really long time. After two hours of thinking and talking about thinking and then thinking more, he suggested we grab a slice of pizza. Perfect! Ironic! Funny!

At the pizza joint he spoke Spanish to the guys behind the counter. And he's not just bilingual, oh no. He's multilingual. Amazing.

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PS - Speaking of call girls, go check out my sister's awesome post about Eliot Spitzer.

One New York first that I could do without....oh wait, this morning makes it two.

Last night I went out with my coworkers! It was fun! I got drunk! Really really drunk! And so, for the first time, Miss Adventurous rode the subway home feeling like she just might vomit.

It all started out alright...I hopped on the E train with the Data Guy and AIG (who is still A but, I have discovered, not really at all the kind of G for me). I was feeling all skippy and cute because I'd been on all evening and showing my coworkers how dope I am because I lived in the 'hood in New Orleans (read: I started talking like a Yat and acting like I knew everything). I was so on I was actually annoying myself a little bit, but everyone else seemed to enjoy my company and they kept talking about how fun I am, so whatever.

Anyway, I danced off the E at 4th street and suddenly, as I was decending the stairs toward the orange line, my fourth, on-the-house, glass of wine hit me in the face and the world began to turn a little. It was about this time that I remembered that the B stops running at 9:00 and I would have to take the D to Atlantic, and make a really obnoxious transfer to the Q, and do it all without losing the baked potato I had eaten earlier.

I thought about getting out and walking up to Union Square--after all, it was only 9:30 and being on terra firma couldn't hurt, in my nauseous condition. Just as I had decided to stumble back up the stairs though, the D train came and I forgot what I had been thinking a moment ago. I found a seat right away, and sat down. Eughhhhhhh... I got dizzy, so I stood up. I tried listening to my iPod, but it caused my vision to tunnel a little bit and I could feel the booze jostling in my tummy with every rock of the train. So I put the iPod away and just stood there, drunkenly staring into the black window and trying to look not drunk. I made it home, but I barely remember the clumsy trip from D to Q. And I'm super lucky I didn't get mugged en route to my apartment.

Once home, I promptly ditched several things: my coat, my bag, my hat, my retro-cool fingerless gloves, and then the entire quantity of wine I had drunk. Awful!

This morning completed the whole experience when I woke up with a particularly bad hangover. Somehow I managed to be out the door at 8:00, but I definitely learned a lesson about school nights.

Okay, never mind. I didn't learn anything from The Feminine Mystique.

Shit! I'm doing it again!

Shit!

I had no evening plans this weekend, none at all. You know what I did last night? I watched a Netflix movie (Michael Clayton) and made brownies. Not to eat, mind you--not to eat! I made the brownies...oh, I'm pathetic...I made them to take to work on Monday. I made them to take to work in hopes that AIG will come hang out at my desk.

I winced while typing that.

Number one, I have placed far too much import on this stupid flirting game. Number two, I stayed in all weekend. Number three...brownies? Am I Betty Crocker now? Number four, I STAYED IN ALL F'ING WEEKEND. Shit Shit SHIT. I'm waiting to be rescued. Not good.

I am not supposed to be doing that. I'm supposed to be 'out there.' I'm supposed to be meeting all those cool New Yorkers I came here to meet. I'm supposed to be livin' the dream. I'm supposed to be finding out where all the PAs and ADs hang out. I'm supposed to, you know, have a life. Or something. I didn't move here to watch dvds and wait for a life to fall out of the freaking sky.

I should have been in a bar somewhere drinking cheap non-champagne and smiling lusciously at potential dates who are cuter than AIG and chatting up groups of strangers. I should have been making friends...doing my charming thing.

I'm just so sick of being alone that I can't put up with having to sit in a bar and feel like an asshole for sitting in a bar by myself. I don't want to eat dinner alone in a restaurant. I don't want to be 'out there' on my own. I don't even really and truly want romance. I just want some friends that I can call and say, quite honestly and comfortably, 'Hey, I'm bored and lonely tonight. Can we go out?"

(PDF does not count here. He has a dog and a boyfriend. Going out to him consists of spending two hours or less in a restaurant on the UWS.)

I've been all happy bouncy blogger lately too, trying this new thing where I keep a positive attitude. But no, not today. Not after I woke up this morning and realized how pathetic I've been this weekend. Desperately lonely blogger has reappeared, if only for a few moments, to reach out to the Internet with a measure of honesty--not that I haven't been honest with all my stupid crush and my chipper 'I heart everything' posts, just that there's this side too. Not in absence of minor social anxiety do I get bright and cheery, but in spite of it. So after this spasm of dismal and pathetic gloom I will once again put on my brave smile and step out into New York.

Good thing I'm off to bellydancing shortly. I hope we do shimmy drills today...there's nothing like jiggling your ass with a room full of other jiggling asses to make you feel less alone in the world.

The grumpy happy person who is a little bashful, often sleepy, and occasionally very very dopey

My Mom called and asked how I was. She just got back from a week in Florida with my grandparents. It was lovely. Did she see manatees? Yes, but they just looked like submerged fuzzy blobs (my mom has MS, and she can't see very well). The dolphins were much more interesting; they jumped out of the water and she could hear them chattering.

So how was I? You're dying to know, aren't you.

I told her I was crappy. I was feeling cantankerous because I didn't get a chance to blog at work today. And Adorable IT Guy (heretofore known as AIG) was out today. Then I got caught up in my book on the subway and missed my stop. And when I got off the subway I had a voice message from JH. Grr.

My mom, having spent thirty years peeling ill-tempered veneers off Salty and I, somehow knew that I'm not really in a bad mood, I'm actually quite well. See, I do this weird thing to my demeanor that involves acting the opposite of how I really feel. If I taunt you incessantly and criticize you, it's means I love you and admire you very much. If I chatter incessantly, it's because I'm nervous and I don't want to do anything stupid. If I don't talk to you it's because I want to know absolutely everything there is to know about you and more. If I complain, I'm in a generally pleasant mood. If I'm acting bitchy and superior, I feel fragile and I'm probably about to cry. The more confident I look, the less confident I am.

(If I say something nice though, I'm genuinely being nice. I don't play that game.)

There's something wrong with all that. It's not okay with me that I act opposite of my feelings, and in fact, it has been a driving force behind many serious conflicts with others. It does, however, ensure that my friends are really good friends who have taken the time to learn about this, my heroic flaw, and who know how to operate within my system. It's kind of like switching to a Mac; it's a little uncomfortable at first, but once you get used to me and learn about all the great things I have to offer I grow on you in spite of the inability to right-click.

Anyway, since I am actually a pretty good-natured person, I'd like to lose the sour puss and start acting in line with my feelings. Trouble is, I'm not really sure how to do it...maybe I'll actively think about it this week and try to just let it flow.

But what if I have to talk to AIG?? Actually, I know I have to talk to AIG tomorrow, he's supposed to help me with a networky thing. Acting how I feel is one thing, but flirting is just way out of my league! Yesterday I asked him to help me with something for my boss and he said I looked like I was irritated with him. Thinking about it now makes me laugh a little, since at the time I sort of had no idea how I could look irritated when my brain kept flashing AIG and me in trashy romance novel cover poses. Thinking about it now though it all makes sense! I was acting irritated, opposite my cheesy, goofy, girly feelings.

I didn't tell Mom about AIG. I told her about speed dating instead.

Speed friending would really be a lot less pressure.

Oh. My. God.

Speed dating is SO much fun. And SO weird and awkward. I love it. I want to do it again!

---

Some things I learned about speed dating:

1. Eat something first.

2. Don't drink too many of the cheap martinis.

3. Write down notes on your "dates" in case you do drink three martinis on an empty stomach.

4. 9 times out of ten you are really glad when the bell rings

5. Beware of the "regulars."

--

Other things I learned:

1. I am picky and judgemental (this is not really news).

2. The women who attend these events are far more appealing than the men. This could be a function of the number of women who appeal to my interests being greater than the number of men (generally, not necessarily romantically). It could also be a function of my not having any real female friends in New York. It could, then again, just mean that I need to go same-sex speed dating.

3. Arvind is cool. He was my buddy, and my first/last "date." Poor Arvind got to deal with me at my drunkest, after the 3rd lychee martini... Although he and I weren't really a match per se, I really think he's a great guy and I'd love to be friends with him. I hope he matched with Michelle or whatever her name was.

4. People get nervous when you say you're going to blog about them. Not Arvind though--He thought it was cool (probably because I drunkly leveled with him about how weird and awkward the whole evening was)

5. There are a buttload of lawyers in New York, and apparently none of them have time to meet women. It seemed like every other guy in the room was a lawyer! That's fine with me, I guess. Salty's a lawyer and I like her well enough.

And now, the answer to the million-dollar question: did Miss A make a match? Well yes, actually, she did. One of the lawyers (well, lawyer-to-be) was cute, and we seemed to have a common sensibility, so I checked the little "Yes" box next to his name. The next day I learned by email that apparently, he thought I was cute too. Still, it's all awkward! He still hasn't emailed me yet.  I haven't emailed him either.

And if he emails though, then what! Ahh, pressure! I've decided the best course of action is to do something super low-key and non-datey. Like a museum. I don't know if I can do the whole formal date thing--too much pressure! Much better to make friends than to "date" people. The two formal dates I've been on (with people not already comfortably in a relationship with me) seemed like going to a job interview for a business you don't know anything about. It's better to get to know the company first, I think.

Ohhhh, I get it! They're here to meet women!

PDF left for New Zealand yesterday to see his boyfriend (who is working on a movie there), and he'll be gone for ten days. At first I was a little worried that I would be bored without my gay slave driver to order me around, but then I remembered that I have lots of stuff to do! I have to find my next job, I have to clean my apartment, I have to do laundry, and I have to go speed dating tonight.

Yes, I tried to slip that last one in there unnoticed...I'll provide a full report on my speed dating experience after it's all over. It will be way more interesting to write about it when I actually have something to tell. I'm approaching the experience with plenty of irony, so I can't wait to write it up!

I started my assignment at the women's health advocacy group on Monday. In an unexpected turn of events, it is a repository for cute straight men! Weird, huh? And bonus, they all support women's health issues and reproductive rights! I got flirted with yesterday, and I was a little rattled... After spending five years nailed to a mediocre relationship I'd quite forgotten how to flirt, so I got nervous and started talking too much. Other than adorable fellas, the job is pretty much your standard, run-of-the-mill admin position, and of course, well below my skill level. Hopefully this will motivate me to search high and low for a production gig.

Instructions for anyone who might ever want to date me

I’ve been contemplating blogging about this since it happened, but I’m kind of embarrassed about it because it’s totally something out of a twelve-year-old’s diary. Seriously though, it’s all I can think about, so grudgingly I must submit the cheesy, terribly girly shoe story. In order to reconcile posting the shoe story, I’m going to date it on the day it actually happened so that it won’t ever be front and center on the old blog page. The actual date of composition is Friday, March 7, 2008. This ish has been stuck in my head for ten days.

So I took notice of AIG on my first day, of course. He’s cute and he gave me an email account; how could I not notice? I’m used to noticing cute people, but not used to doing anything about it. Day 2? I went about my business and noticed nothing. Day 3 I was in meetings quite literally all day, and emerged at 4:30 to help the VP with some menial task or other. I finished up at 5:15 and headed for the door.

As I passed his cubicle, AIG was leaving too. Usually I hate walking with people, I hate standing in the elevator with people, I don’t even like passing them in the hallways. I get nervous and awkward…I hate small talk.

Catching up with me at the elevator, he teased me about hurrying. I don’t even remember the words that came out of my mouth, because the way he was looking at me made me blush. I hopped onto the elevator, and as the doors were closing, he said “Those are too new.”

“What?” I looked up from fussing with my bag. I’m always fussing with my bag to avoid human contact.

“Your shoes. They’re too new.”

I had bought my Chuck Taylors the week before so they were pretty new and shiny and the white parts are (still) all white. I have some cute brown One Stars that I’ve been wearing around and I love them…I’ve been feeling the burn for some comparable shoes in black. Remember a few weeks ago when I was jobless? Well to add insult to injury, while I was working at the tanning salon one day, my black patent leather ballet flats literally fell apart, and that’s when I bought the black and white Chucks. I smiled at AIG and said, “Yeah well my old ones fell apart, so I had to get these.” It was sort of true…except the part where I implicated myself as some cool hipster chick who had until very recently walked around with ancient black and white Chucks crumbling around her feet.

(When I tell you what happened next, you’ll just die!)

He stepped on my shoe!

I had been a wobbling pile of Jell-O already, standing there and talking to a dude A) my own age, who is B) not gay and more importantly, C) was flirting with me. When he stepped on my damn shoe (with the exact same, though older, shoe on his foot) it was like someone left the damn Jell-O on top of the stove. I melted into a green puddle on the floor of the elevator. My heart started racing. I didn’t know how to compose myself. I got terribly nervous.

I started jabbering like a crazy homeless woman who got shut out by a government agency with no resources to take care of mental illness.

“Where are you going? I’m going to the 2 train and I’m going to take it to Hoyt Street, because someone told me I could buy a dehumidifier cheaply at a store near there. No, I don’t mean a dehumidifier, I mean an actual humidifier. Yeah, I live in Brooklyn. In Prospect Lefferts Gardens. It’s nice, but kind of boring because it’s so residential, there’s just not a lot to do there. The air is really dry, that’s why I’m going to get a humidifier. I like humidity; I just moved here not too long ago from New Orleans, and it's very humid there. Yeah, I was there during that whole Katrina thing…well not really there while it happened…I evacuated to Houston in a pickup truck with my cat and my ex-boyfriend. I didn’t really lose my house, no, but there were strangers living in it when I came back. I got stuck in Colorado for a while and then I graduated from school that semester, and then I went back to Cleveland, and then finally I went back to New Orleans, but I really shouldn’t have done that because in retrospect anyone could have predicted that the whole thing wasn’t going to work out. When the storm hit I was about to move here anyway, but after something like that you just want to go home, you know? Okay, well there’s the A C E! See you!”

He did prompt me with questions during the chatter, but in my memory, this all fell out of my mouth like it was one sentence. First of all, I’ve told the damn Katrina story but a million times (and I’m kind of sick of giving the two-minute run-down because that doesn’t do the whole experience justice), so that just falls out of my mouth anyway. Second, the entire time I was talking, all I wanted to do was talk about him…I led off with “where are you going,” but he just said “To the A C E trains” and then asked where I was going and continued questioning me from there. Sure, that's well and good, but I don’t want to tell him about myself, I know all about myself! I want to learn all about him!

AHHH!

So this is the third day in a row that he’s been out of the office and it’s driving me insane. I swear, he’s half the reason I look forward to coming to this job in the morning, and he’s definitely all of the reason I started wearing perfume again. I walk to work in my Chucks every day now. I keep hoping he’ll step on them again.

I have turned into a twelve year old girl. I’m all awkward. I can’t look at him, but all I want to do is look at him! I want to talk to him, but I just don't know what to say! While he's been away I started getting chatty with the other IT people in hopes of gaining some insight, but to no avail. For the love of god, who is this guy??

Get out your rulers, everyone, we're gonna see whose sense of self is bigger.

I just got off the phone with JH, the ex.

He called me, and was so flippant, telling me his life was great and he's doing all these great things and then he told me he wants to be friends or whatever, as if that's okay. I tried to pretend it was okay, to pretend that I didn't care at all and that I was just fine, and I told him about all the great things I've been up to lately. I was detached and cool. Steely, even. Really I just don't want him to know anything about me or how hard this has all been for me, to give up the ease and convenience and comfort of my life as a woman defined by the man to whom I was attached.

Unfortunately for my ego, somewhere along the way, something he said just made me pop. And I cried and told him all about my growing pains and how overwhelming it is to have all this amorphous, abstract, amazing, artistic....stuff...inside me and how overwhelming it is to find an outlet in this place where so much is happening all the time. My pride has been scarred indefinitely. He knows that he's better off than I am, and justice has not been served. I am the wronged one! I am the better person! I should be better off, and if I am not, he at least should never know!

Why it has to be a race to see who can self-actualize faster, I just don't know. It's probably got something to do with my self-actualization having been stifled so long by my inability to break free from my relationship with him. Whatever the case, I know I am better off without him, and in the long run, I know that I will move on with my life, and that he will become a shadow in my past. I just wish that he'd called me then and not in the middle of my near-desperate struggle to get over it all.

At least he was very gracious about it. He always was really good at making me feel better... Even so, his ideal of being friends will never happen. We're done.

How did I lose 40 lbs? Ancient Italian Secret!

There's this cute guy who lives in my 'hood. I see him around with his cello, or whatever, strapped to his back. I see him walking to and from the subway. The thing he carries on his back might not actually be a cello, but it's too big to be a regular guitar (I think), and too small to be a string bass. So I'm operating on the assumption that it's a cello. This guy is a straight guy. With a cello. What I really think is that he's not actually that cute, but the fact that he carries a cello around on the Q train makes him cute. Also that he lives in my neighborhood and doesn't have Carribbean music blasting on his ipod on the subway. That is definitely a plus.

I held the door for him one day. I think if I hold the door for him again I might actually say hello too.

Man, New York is a really hard place to meet people. I thought it would be easy; less cars, more real interaction, more people in general.... but really, everyone is very guarded. Nobody looks each other in the eyes unless it's an accident. Being a young, pretty girl by myself, I certainly don't. But I've been having this sort of fantasy lately, and it goes like this:

Single, twenty-something, hipsterish-without-being-too-trendy GAL (not me) on the subway platform notices that I'm reading The Feminine Mystique. She remembers hearing somewhere that it redefined modern American society.

Gal: Hey, is that any good?
Me: Excuse me? Oh, the book? Yeah, actually it is. If nothing else, it offers a really nice history of feminism, but I also found the theme applicable to trends I've seen within the last few years.
Gal: Oh yeah? Like what?
Me: *insert profound wisdom here*

The Q train arrives and we take it to Canal St., where we skip off to Little Italy and have a pizza feast, which miraculously causes us both to lose 15 pounds! Then we go to the ATM, where we both discover that there was a bank error in our favor, so we go shopping! And since we ate magic pizza, everything fits perfect!

So what do you think? It could happen, right?

Okay, maybe not. But I am seriously trying to meet some new people. I took a bellydance class today, which was GREAT! I'm totally going back; the teacher is nice, the class is just challenging enough without being draining, and the other students were really friendly. It's promising. I tried going to a movie discussion group I found on meetup.com too... The results were not nearly as good as the dance class; the vibe just wasn't there (and the movie sucked big time, although I won't mention titles).

Oh yeah, at the end of my fantasy, I find out that my new friend lives in my building, and during our subway ride home, we see cello guy and I work up the nerve to smile and say hi. He smiles back and tells me I'm the most interesting person he's ever seen. I find out he's not available, but we become great friends (he teaches me to play Twinkle, Twinkle on the cello), and I always have just the tiniest crush on him--because there's something really dorky and adorable about a dude who carts a large viol around with him all day.