Coney Island Pun of the Evening That Keeps a 2-Day Riff Going

Ace: How is Big Al's Chicago Hot Dog Palace supposed to compete against Nathan's?

Aileen (gesturing at closed corrugated gate): Well, you can see it hasn't done so well.

Ace: I guess Big Al is defunct?

(Pause while we wait for light to change)

Aileen (with slow headturn and slower grin): Like Lionel Richie, baby.

Ace: (facepalm)

I'm Done With the Pity Party

Because I am tired of all this navel-gazing crap and honestly, being an absolute shithead.

In the last few weeks more people have been kinder to me than I've been to myself, which has been maybe the only thing that has carried me this far...the kindness of others, many of them strangers who have never even met me.

That has put paid to my snotty notions that it's impossible to be friends with people you only know online. It's only impossible to be friends with them after you meet them in person. KIDDING (sorry, I can't seem to control the urge to crack jokes, it's just what I doooo.)

So thanks. Thanks for recognizing and acknowledging how much pain I've been in.

I think I'm ready to let go of the suffering now.

My favorite zen teacher says, "Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional."

I seem to have forgotten that along the way. I don't know what it is that happened to me today to slap me upside the head one last time (I think).

I think I just got tired of suffering so much.

The Man Who Broke My Heart, broke my heart. It will heal.

Mambo is a very old cat and will die soon. I will be sad. But I will heal.

My mother is very old and riddled with dementia. I will be an orphan soon, and I will be very sad. But I will heal.

Life goes on, eh? In all its shitty, nutkicking, terrible, fantastic, amazing ways, it goes on.

Now I need to try and find out where my equanimity went.

Pottery, Or My Search to Re-Learn What I Already Know, Which is That Sometimes, In Fact, I'm Pretty Fucking Awesome

Anyone who's been paying attention knows I've been having some real issues for the past few weeks, mostly because a dumb boy hurt my feelings. On the one hand, it was as much suckage as I could handle, but then my old cat started declining FAST even though I had given him a very stern talking-to about not dying until after Labor Day. Then there's of course my mom, who seems to be on the same path as the cat, and my big financial cleanup, and well, you get it. My life is pretty fucked right now. The cherry on the sundae would be a call from my doctor saying, "Ummm, we found a few abnormal cells we'd like to discuss." I figure after the shitstorms of May and June, that one would only be worth a shrug and an "oh, well."

Well, after writing and writing and venting and being just about as awful a person as possible on my private blog, I just got tired of thinking about what a stupid, dumb, ugly, shitty person I am. Hey, I said to myself, that's my FRIEND you're talking about. Knock it off. So after one final vicious purge, I'm done looking for the ways I suck and the ways he sucks. It ain't makin me feel any better, that's for fuckin' sure.
With that in mind, I pulled down the following poem from my refrigerator. It was written for me by a guy way back when, after we'd had many multi-hour late-night conversations, but had not yet met in person. The first time we met, he handed me the pages torn from a spiral notebook and I have kept them ever since. It's not the best poem in the world, but it's not the worst, either, and it takes a strange dogleg in the middle into Springsteen lyrics, but what I remember about it is that he incorporated so many things from our conversations into it. He was listening and paying close attention. That matters. I don't remember his name. It's the only time I have ever inspired a man to write me poetry.

Here it is:

To Be Read Under The Influence of Alcohol In An Irish Bar In The Company of Beautiful Women

To the bartender: Be sure
That when you mix my drink
The water is holy
And blessed by barmaid
Assassins trained by the
Vatican to cross their hearts
Before overpowering defenseless
Men

When you've lost your drinking
Contest with women who
Outdrank Thor
You'll stumble into the street
Asking for directions to
The nearest bowling alley
To volunteer as a spare
Pin on the slow day after
Christmas

You will have learned never
To bet against pool shark honeys
With a low angle of attack
And to take care with
Long haired vixens whose
Merest glance ensnares you
In a tangle of lusting probation

And you will know there is a
Woman who sings behind
Thick doors on cold nights
Who whispers in your ear
That nape is a word best
Said slowly

One brush of the lips on
Her neck grants eternal life
Which will be spent
Massaging her feet and
Anointing the small of her
Back with cardamom oil
And devastating kisses

She's a traffic jam, a pile-up
No simple misdemeanor
Her kisses on the lam break
You down, thankful that to
Others she's meaner

So be warned men who
Fear dying and going blind
She'll stop your breath
During the total eclipse of the sun

And when the sun shines at
48 SxSW she dances to
The skiffle of Japanese gongs and
Jewish trombones singing
Songs she's never heard
From the
Rooftops of Hell's Kitchen
Straight to the other side
Of the Hudson

Boys in warehouses will kneel
And pray that her call is
To them for they are true
And not art dealer junkies
With too much cash and no
Command of her mother tongue

She knows then that you are
Mad and weak where
Others are strong and that
She can follow the footprints
Of men or walk with you
Barefoot in song.

I Think I'm Done Now

Enough, she said.

Next time, make sure you're sure, she said.

No, not love, she said, don't you know that it's different for girls.

I have been processing this for long enough and now it's time to close the door and move on.

No more speculation and meanness and indulging the bloody-fanged monsters of my soul, for what? To let them rampage for awhile, I guess. Time to wrangle them back into their cages before they consume ME and drag me offstage by my face.

Plus, it's much more fun to read and write about sex.

In Self-Esteem Nation, Everyone Gets To Be Valedictorian!

Oh you fucking assholes blowing smoke up your kids' asses and creating another yet-more-entitled group of motherfucking spoiled brats.

Now we don't have one valedictorian in high school, we have to have MULTIPLE valedictorians? You know what, I can't wait until your kid gets out into the real world and learns that out here we advance on MERIT, and there are no school boards you can complain to when your kid gets passed over for his first promotion.  I hope your kid gets his or her ASS kicked in the real world when they learn that there are no trophies for everyone at the end of the work day. Or are you going to call your kid's boss when he gets reprimanded for turning in shoddy work or being late every day? When your kid gets fired, what are you going to do, hire a fucking LAWYER?

I am very upset that it is parents my age who are making this kind of BULLSHIT happen.

Stuck on Repeat

Damn that Throckey.

Because of him I had to get out my old Commodores Greatest Hits CD.

Listening to the really old stuff, I am reminded that Lionel Richie once had the funk.

What the hell happened to him that crap like "Hello" was foisted on us later on?

Okay, I will give you: "All Night Long," has held up quite well

Forensics III

I'm still gobsmacked at how hard this thing with the MWBMH(tm) has hit me.

I was all "oh, can't we just love each other without all those strings and expectations?" and he was like, "LOOK at the TIME, have I got to GO!"

I miss his emails so, so much, you can't even begin to imagine. I mean, every single thing I did or said charmed the hell out of him, and he told me so, frequently. I got spoiled by it if you want to know the truth.

My mother always warned me not to think too much of myself, and maybe she was right.

But -- I will admit that there's a petty, vengeful Sicilian hiding behind the woodpile of my heart that hopes he's gone back to his life and that his wife has gone back to being unsatisfying and now that their kids are out of the house, he looks at her, and his life, and says to himself, "Holy fucking shit, what did I DO? I could be in Brooklyn right now having those mind-blowing and sometimes incendiary conversations with Aileen, and I chose THIS?" Though I do frequently underestimate the power of denial, so who's to say?

I once asked him if his wife found it strange that he spent hours holed up in his home office (emailing with me), and he told me that was normal in his house, for him to be in his office and for her to be elsewhere in the house, for hours at a time. I can understand that, sometimes, but every single night? Really?

I mean, this was EVERY FLIPPIN' NIGHT, folks. He would literally start emailing me as soon as he got home from work (with an email that said, "I'm home,") take a break to eat dinner, and then come back and email me until it was time for us to go to bed. It was nonstop conversation. EVERY SINGLE BLOODY DAMN NIGHT! Oh, and then it would resume at about 7 or so in the morning, with those "good morning" emails I mentioned in a previous post.

Does he look at those hours, when he and his wife are sitting under the same roof ignoring each other and think, "Yeah, you know, this is a what a successful 30-year marriage is supposed to look like? Two people who don't talk to each other for the six or seven hours they are awake and in the same house, yup, that's what I signed up for, and oh BOY, I can't WAIT for the next 20 or 30 years of THIS! This is exactly what I wanted!"

Or who knows, maybe now that last kid is out of the house, he thought, "Let's give this another go and see if things can be different." Good luck to ya, buddy, is what I say. Have at it.

I dunno, maybe what I am is a deeply-closeted idealist who thinks a relationship ought to include conversation and laughing together and sex, interspersed with those alone times to recharge the self, and that if it's ALL alone times, is it really a relationship or are ya just roommates?

Look, when you can't wait for a Family Gathering That Celebrates a Really Important Thing to end and for your wife's family to get the hell out of your house so you can get back to emailing your girlfriend in Brooklyn and telling her you thought of her the whole time they were there, perhaps it's time for a major life assessment.

Shit, for all I know, maybe he did make that assessment and that's what he really wants in the end.

There I go, making up stories again.You see, I will never know, that's why I'm in the making up stories thing. And I know, I know, he's just not that into you, blah blah blah, so can someone explain how a guy goes from being totally 100% into you one day to not? Christ.

I know I once wrote that if he changed his mind I would fall into his arms, but I've thought about what I know about ME (the only person I'm really an expert on) and now I'm not so sure. I'm not so sure I wouldn't be a little handshy and distrustful of someone who brought so much hurt into my life and made me lose faith in my judgement, my instincts, and myself the way I have.

IGNORE IGNORE IGNORE

This dude I went on ONE match.com date with in 2001 keeps tracking me down.

Emailed me last year out of the blue. Ignored.

FOUND MY NEW YORK CELL PHONE NUMBER. Ignored.

And now just tried to friend me on Facebook.

Dude, give it up already. Really.

It was ONE date.

An Enigma Wrapped Around a Puzzle Overlaying a Riddle

True story:
Old friend calls me awhile back and says, "I need to talk to you because you're the only person I know who won't judge me."
Seems this old friend, who's been.married for about 20 years, started having an affair with this married guy who has been married for about 25 years. Her kids are HS age and younger, his are grown and out of the house.
His wife has health issues that have kept them from having sex for years. She still sleeps with her husband fairly regularly.
Other married guy is ready to divorce his wife because he stayed "for the kids" and because his wife is sick, but now she wants to move back to the Midwest where her family is, and he doesn't want to leave Jersey.
She (my friend) isn't in any rush to do any such thing.
He's upset because a) she still sleeps with her husband, and b) she won't do things on his timetable.
Apparently, now that he's just about free and clear, she's supposed to move at his speed.
As for the "still sleeping with her husband" part? Get this: he's upset because he's an old-fashioned guy who thinks sex should only take place between people who are in love. So, I guess it doesn't matter to him that they are both married to other people, huh? Try and wrap your brain around that one, wouldja?
I'm a little worried, because she told me that he has started doing things that to me, sound vaguely stalkerish, like taking classes near her work, and moving to a house in the same town where she lives. I think it's only a matter of time till this guy does something like show up on her doorstep, because he's getting antsy for her to do what he wants her to do, on his schedule.
I told her his behavior was a little creepy, and that I don't want her to end up on an episode of "Dateline." She's a smart, tough, logical cookie, who doesn't seem to be swept away on the irrationality of romance (like some people I know, ahem, ME, ahem).
So as you look around at all the seemingly happy couples at your next neighborhood block party, you just never know what might turn up, and you might not be so quick to judge people you don't know for what they're doing.
When I feel a big fat judgement coming on (and trust me, I am judgemental and awful about some things) I always try to ask myself, what if it was someone that I loved doing this?
Tangent: I also don't get the being mad about sleeping with her husband thing. I think this may be the psyche place where I am sooo different from everyone else that I truly am a freak of nature. Look, if my Special Naked Friend went home after being with me and fucked his wife until she bled out of her ears, I would think, "That's great!" Seriously. What am I supposed to be -- jealous of a guy who sleeps with his wife? I say, "goodonya, mate."
I also had the MWBMH(tm) go absolutely apeshit on me when I mentioned another guy (a friendor) in an email. He made up a story in his head about me and this friend without asking me who the guy even was, and delivered an email smackdown that actually made me cry it was so harsh (maybe I shoulda bolted at that moment). When the reality is, there are no explanations I have to give to anyone. As he wrote remorsefully later on, what does he expect me to do, sit around and knit?
One of the other things I won't do is rearrange my schedule around what is convenient for the SNF.
A. I have to continue to have my life, and it certainly can't be contingent on whether it suits his schedule. He is going to have to work into mine, too, thank you very much, and he knows that.
B. I have nooooo problems, none whatsoever, when I get the "can I come over tonight?" text, saying, "would love to, but I'm busy." Punto. End of story. No further explanation is forthcoming. You know those women who try to soft-sell their way into a refusal because they are afraid of hurting someone's feelings? They offer detailed explanations of why they won't go out with someone because they have a boyfriend, or they just got out of a relationship, or have to pick up their drycleaning, blahblahblah? Well, I'm not one of'em. If someone asks me out who I'm not interested in dating, I simply give a firm and polite, "No, thank you!" as if I'm refusing a refill on my water. No explanations owed or offered.
Look, if some guy happens to come along who captures my fancy, and who fancies me equally, who knows, all this shit may change overnight, you know what I'm saying? Who knows? I'm not writing off any thing that may happen tomorrow or the day after or the day after that. I may meet someone who captivates me so much that I walk off arm in arm with him under a bower of wisteria with little rainbow heart bubbles exploding over our heads. But since that seems unlikely right now, I've got enough of a job to do taking care of myself.
So there.

Quote of the Day: OK Cupid Profile

This guy had more than one quotable quote, and the balls to use his real name as his user name:

I don't think I'm supposed to live alone. But other people's domestic situations make me want to flee into the woods.

I liked working at newspapers. It gave me a professional excuse to gossip and look at house fires.

When people act like you're stupid, it's often because they themselves are stupid, and this is how they hope to have it pass unnoticed.

For The First Time EVER, Jane - er, Aileen - Answers One Of Those Meme-y Things

Copied and pasted from Tsaphanbabe.

1. What curse word do you use the most? "Fuck." Followed closely by "asshole." I used "love" recently and got my mouth washed out with soap.

2. Do you own an iPod? What's an iPod?

3. What person do you talk to on the phone the most? Vendors. Ed and I talk about hockey every morning. My sister Anne.

4. Do you still remember the first person you kissed? Fred Scafidi from South Philly, on a vacation in Wildwood, NJ. I was 15. He was the first boy who ever wanted to kiss me. Then he spent the rest of the summer writing me passionate letters declaring his undying love and how he wanted me by his side for-evah. I was like, FEH.

5. Do you remember where you were on 11/9/01? On my knees in front of the tv in my just-purchased house in Breckenridge, CO, in my bathrobe with the phone in one hand, watching friends die on live television.

6. What was the last movie you watched? Honestly don't remember.

7. Has anyone ever called you lazy? My mom, every time she found me reading a book instead of doing my chores.

8. Do you ever take medication to help you fall asleep? Valerian drops in my water before I go to bed. The occasional Tylenol PM. I don't like to medicate.

9. Has anyone told you a secret this week? Yes.

10. What is the first thing you notice about the opposite sex? How tall he is, if his hands look useful, and whether he has kind eyes. Unfortunately you can't see a dirty mind.

11. What are you looking forward to? Being finished paying off debts. And going to California a few times in the coming months. There are Woodpeckers in California.

12. Do you own any band t-shirts? Not anymore. Lots of AIDS ride t's, coney island, and of course my Sidney Crosby 87 shirt.

13. What will you be doing in one hour? Who cares? I'm on vacation!

14. Is anyone in love with you? No. No. No. Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuckety-fucking-FUUUCK (see #1)

15. Last time you cried? About a half hour ago.

16. Are you on a desktop computer or a laptop? Blackberry!

17. Are you currently wanting any piercings or tattoos? Nope.

18. Would you ever date anyone covered in tattoos? Why wouldn't I? Except if they were covered in white-power, swastika kind of shit.

19. What were you doing before this? Checking work email even though I am on vacation. WTF is wrong with me?

20. When is the last time you slept on the floor? So long ago I don't remember. Does the floor of a tent in Palmer, Alaska count?

21. How many hours of sleep do you need to function? Seven? Eight?

22. Do you eat breakfast daily? Oatmeal and a banana every weekday. Sometimes I make myself a country breakfast on weekends, other weekend days I forget to eat altogether. I know, who forgets to eat? That must take a special kind of stupid.

You Know What?

I miss him.

I just do.

So sue me.

Perhaps I'm Really Just a Gay Man

I couldn't stand having the sad dead-cat post the first thing on this page so I have added this post.

Eat THIS.

Here's another book I can't wait to read:  Sex at Dawn

Some quotes from the interview with one of the authors:

"People have said that we’re arguing against love — but we're just saying that this insistence that love and sex always go together is erroneous."

"I think the Bill Clinton and Lewinsky situation could have been such a great opportunity for the culture to grow up instead of wasting so much time and money and political capital in this investigation of a victimless crime. If the Clintons had gone on their "60 Minutes" interview and just said, "You know what, our sex life is nobody’s business but ours," I think the country would have been so much better off."

"I think gay people have an advantage because they’ve already gone through a process of saying: "Look, my sexuality is what it is. I’m not ashamed of it. I’m going to live openly and in accord with it." That puts them on a different level than most heterosexual people who are able to pass along and pretend that they fit into the normal parameters."

"...the United States looks very adolescent, in a positive and negative sense. There's its adolescent energy — its idealism — but there’s also an immaturity and intolerance toward the ambiguity of life and the complexity of relationships."

"And the American insistence on mixing love and sex and expecting passion to last forever is leading to great suffering that we think is tragic and unnecessary."

I'm moving to France.  Oh, and the knee-jerk male chest-thumping "I am the MAN" commenting that happens whenever Salon publishes an article like this has already begun.  I'm always surprised how much the supposed lefty-liberal readership actually hates women who own their sexuality.

Look

I spent part of last night and a good part of this morning laid out on the kitchen floor next to my old dying cat, whispering in his deaf old ears, "let go, let go, it's okay to let go, old man, we had a good run of it, didn't we, it's okay to go now.". He'll lift his head a bit and stagger to his feet and wander blindly in a circle, and stretch out on the floor again. He can't see or hear me anymore, but if I touch his head he turns it toward me and quietly says, "meow."

I think it's time, and I'm so scared to do it and I hope the vet has a needle for me, too.

Forensics II

Once again, I'm up earlier than I need to be on a Sunday morning. I'll probably go into the office for a couple of hours but right now I'm just going to sit here for awhile and listen to Brooklyn being quiet. No TV, no music, no nothin' -- just me, the fans, the cats, and the squeaky hamster wheel of my brain, which is what woke me in the first place.

I don't sleep much lately.I go to bed at night with my head whirring, I wake up the same way.

This is a problem. I'm a little nutty right now and I don't like it.

The Buddhists say that when there is all kinds of mayhem happening, it's a sign that something beautiful is trying to be born. I'm waiting for that beautiful thing, and my problem is that I'm impatient. I keep wanting it to be born RIGHT NOW, on my schedule, so I can go back to center and start moving through life like an ocean liner once again and quit this "dinghy on a stormy sea" Winslow Homer stuff.

I don't like much of what has come up inside because of what happened to me.
It was easier knowing and more importantly, being okay with knowing, that the thing that everyone else seems to do with such ease is just not in the cards for me. Keeping an ironic distance was easier.

Having had it just beyond my fingertips is so much harder than not even considering that it was out there. Better for me that I hadn't even gotten a glimpse of it on the horizon. I got closer and closer and it seems it was just heat waves off the road after all.

Look, just because I don't want to get married doesn't mean that I don't think it would be nice to have someone love me. It would. There is no nicer thought than the one that someone woke up this morning and one of his first thoughts, after "Coffee," was, "I MUST say good morning to Aileen." And he would do it, and those early-morning emails were always sweet and funny, and made me feel, for the first time in forever, kind of cherished.

I discovered I liked feeling cherished.

It made me feel clean and new. Like I didn't have to go through life with my elbows out ALL the time.

I'm working really hard here, trying to keep the clean and new feeling on my own. I know -- intellectually -- that the clean and new feeling really didn't come from him, but my heart is having a harder time with this than my brain. Someone wrote me a note soon after it happened (the Hurty Thing, that is) saying he hoped now that I've dropped armor that my exposed skin stays baby soft.

What I'd like to do is actually grow some skin, if you want to know the truth. All of these exposed nerve endings may kill me. I would like to stop feeling the urge to poke at the sore tooth with my tongue.

What I'm working on is figuring out how this emotional affair got so out of hand so quickly, while our behavior was actually quite chaste. We never slept together, do you believe it? Despite opportunity and desire, it never happened.

Had we done so right from the start, I would have known what to do next. Proceed with life, be as loving and kind as possible in the moments you have together, and ask for nothing more than what is put in front of you, accept what is given to you gracefully, let him go back to his life while you have yours. Never talk about expectations -- yours or his. Expect nothing, get nothing, and you won't be disappointed.

I can't make up any more stories in my head about what happened to make him take himself away from me. Because it doesn't change that it happened.

I was given all the little why's, but I will never, ever know the big WHY and I am working on being okay with that instead of listening to the evil little voice inside of me that keeps poking me in the back, saying sotto voce, "defective part, defective heart, and you let him SEE it. You fool. You stupid, bloody fool."

For some reason, this evil inner gremlin has the voice of Michael Caine. Why is that?

Forensics

My boss once listened to me question a vendor about some printing error, at length, and in detail. After I hung up the phone, she looked at me and said, "What are you? The district attorney?"

I'm the nicest pit bull you'll ever meet in the printing business. Maybe I'm the grinning scary junkyard dog behind the fence, the one with the slowly wagging tail. You're not sure if I'm going to lick your hand or eat your face off.

Anyway, it comes down to a need to solve a riddle, doesn't it? A need to get to the bottom of something so that It Never Happens Again.

One of the things that has been rattling around in my peabrain is how Mr. MWBMH(tm) came to me believing that his marriage was over.

Now.

A man who has been married for decades does not reach this conclusion whimsically, in a moment of "Oh, she was awful to me this morning while I was having my coffee, I am so outta here!"

One would assume that sort of decision is reached gradually, carefully, over much time, and a guy would have to spend many, many hours watching his unsatisfying spouse with the cold remorseless eyes of a shark, or Tony Soprano.

So that being the thing we know, why would a person who has decided his marriage was over suddenly say, "oops, I was wrong! I actually DO still love my wife! She really IS still the person who has my heart despite the fact that it's been you, you, YOU for all this time! So too bad! Sucks to be you, haha!"

This is one of the mysteries I am pondering on this hot summer night and trying to examine with flat dead shark eyes of my own.

And it is a huge mystery to me.

It makes me feel icky and stupid and hopelessly naïve, like that girl who believed the quarterback when he said he would respect her in the morning, only to find that he and all his friends were whispering and pointing the next day, and she realized that she was totally played and had been a sucker. She wishes that she hadn't had that third wine cooler, and that he hadn't been so eloquent in his persuasion, and that she had tightened her thighs against him while he was whispering, "please, please," with moist hot breath against her neck. She wishes that she could go backwards in time and shake that tipsy, weak-willed girl by the shoulders and say, "Stop! Stop! Stop now!"

But too late! All she's left with is an ache between her legs, a pair of bloodstained panties, and a sense of tooth-grinding humiliation.

From there, she will build the rest of her life.

And listen, folks, I think I'm going to have to put Mambo down this week and I'm really scared to do it, so any words of advice anyone can offer would be really welcome right about now. I've lived with this fucking cat longer than I lived with my parents, and frankly, I don't know how to do this. Be a murderer, that is

One Last Mermaid -- Have a Great Weekend Everyone!

Have a Good Weekend, All You Perverts and Masturbators

Not Special and Basically Unlovable

The next person who asks me, "Soooooo, why is it that you've never been married?" is in for it.

After I've belted him in the face and knocked him out of his chair and he's on the floor searching for his teeth, I will straddle his supine body and scream at the top of my lungs, "It's because I'm not special and I'm basically unlovable, you stupid fucking asshole."

Because what they really want to know is, "What is your defect? Where did your o-ring failure occur?"

I will get this tattooed across my forehead so no one ever has to ask me this fucking stupid question again and so no one is stupid enough to venture within swinging distance in the first place.

Fuck this endless navel-gazing.

I am not just an Edsel. I'm a fucking CORVAIR. I'm a PINTO with a defective gas tank.

I'm taking my not-special and basically unlovable self elsewhere.

Good Things

1) My best friend from college is bringing her daughter and four of her friends into the city tomorrow for Savannah's 16th birthday. I had thought I would neet them after their dinner and show and have a couple of drinks with Kelly after the show. So when I talked to Kelly tonight to confirm this plan, she said, "What are you talking about? I have a 10th row ticket to "Billy Elliott" for you!" So I will get to see a show and then spend the night in a hotel with my old friend, drinking wine and talking about how we are both managing, in fine operatic fashion, to fuck up our lives.

2) Miss Midwesterly has invited me to dinner in Westchester on Tuesday, and I will finally get to meet her dog Sprocket.

3) I felt the earthquake yesterday, but just thought it was a big truck passing by. Idiot.

4) I am not sad all the time anymore. Now I'm only sad SOME of the time.

5) I have decided to bag the internet dating thing after one perfectly acceptable date with a perfectly nice, age-appropriate man. I realized about halfway through our date that I just don't have the energy to try to be charming and clever. So I'm going back to being plain old me. I'm done trying to be interesting or special, and I'm going back to being average ole me, with my average ole life. This is a very liberating thing. I just don't have "winning" in my repertoire right now. Too fucking exhausting.

6) The handsome Scot may have saved me and/or Roni from something terrible happening, just by being with us on Saturday night. He foiled a creep who followed us home from Coney Island! Weird story for another post. So cheers, handsome Scot, and thanks for everything.

Amanda Marcotte Love

I have only recently re-linked to Pandagon.  I don't know how Amanda got un-linked, probably lost in a format change, as people do get lost when you change formats.

I have something to say about this article.  But I'm too tired to do it now... will work on it at home and try to post something tomorrow.

I thought I was sitting here looking for a way to compare Amanda Marcotte with Caitlin Flanagan, and I finally realized that what I really wanted to to do was find a way to call Caitlin Flanagan a cunt.  So Caitlin Flanagan:  You're a cunt.

Got a Case of the Mean Reds Today

I'm feeling all mean right now.

I finally broke down and told my office mate the story in the broadest strokes possible. She honestly had NO idea what was going on with me, in fact she had told her fiance how excited she was for me because I had lost all kinds of weight and was looking great and wanted to start dating (more on that later -- I just don't want to DO it.)

Then I sent her the link to the car crash story and went into a meeting.

When I came out, she said, Aileen I read your blog, and I'm so, so sorry that someone hurt you like that.

And I said, well, thank you, stuff like this does happen to people, doesn't it, but I'm over crying about it, really, I've cried every tear I'm going to cry, because it's actually kind of pointless to cry, don't you think, and would you look at this, oh my god, I'm crying, wow, I honestly thought I was DONE with this, shitohcrap, do you have a Kleenex?

Now I just feel mean.

I think it may be better for me to just crawl back under my rock for the rest of the night.

Oh, the mood swings of recovering from a broken heart. I didn't miss THIS.

Steel-Eyed Vampires of Love

Cross-posted from an old Bigger Boat post. Worth the re-post (for me, at least). 

No more mirages.

When you lead me to the cool water and bathe my heated nape with it, then we can talk.  Just try me.




Thank you for this bitter knowledge
Guardian angels who left me stranded
It was worth it, feeling abandoned
Makes one hardened, but
What has happened to love?

You've got me writing lyrics on postcards
Then in the evenings looking at stars
But the brightest of the planets is Mars
What has happened to love?

So I will opt for the big white limo
Vanity fairgrounds and rebel angels
You can't be trusted with feathers so hollow
Heaven's invention, steel-eyed vampires of love

You see over me
I'll never know
What you've shown to other eyes

Go or go ahead
And surprise me
Say you've lead the way to a mirage
Go or go ahead
And just try me

Nowhere's now here smelling of junipers
Fell off a hay bale, I'm over the rainbow
But oh, Medusa, kiss me and crucify
This unholy notion of the mythic powers of love

Look in her eyes, look in her eyes
Forget about the ones that are crying
Look in her eyes, look in her eyes
Forget about the ones that are crying

Go or go ahead
And surprise me
Go or go ahead
And just try me

I Have Finally Folded

And turned on the air conditioner.

For the kitties. Yeah. For them.

I know, I'm so weak.

Me Devolva Seu Carinho

Been sort of obsessively listening to one song on one cd for the past week or so.

So Pra Contrariar e Gloria Estefan, Santo Santo

Big Brazilian samba sound, and it resolves up and up and up something like three times.

Why is when white people write a prayer song it makes you want to kill yourself, but when Latinos do it, it's a street party?

Video quality is pretty crappy, but the song is amazing. Makes me want to mix a batch of caipirinhas and go watch the World Cup. Plus Alexander Pires is so fine.

So Much Cute I Almost Can't Stand It

I am so tickled the New York Lottery Sweet Millions commercials are back.
Just youtube them and try telling me they aren't the cutest
commercials you've ever seen.
Piglets in bunk beds!
Corgi puppies in onesies!
A kitten with a foot twitch!





Bunnies on carnival rides!

They just make me happy.

Splurge

If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft,
And from thy slender store two loaves alone to thee are left,
Sell one, and with the dole
Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.
- Moslih Eddin (Muslih-un-Din) Saadi (Sadi), Gulistan (Garden of Roses)

A friend of mine posted recently about a little splurge she treated herself to. I believe the occasional splurge is a good thing. I'm not talking going out an buying a Maybach with your Centurion card. Sometimes a Venti Vanilla Creme Latte can be a splurge. Sometimes a new book. Or a skirt. Or shoes.

I do tend to think small when I splurge. No, seriously. I would be a TERRIBLE 2nd wife, because I don't really want STUFF. This is a problem for men. They like to show the length of their penises by buying stuff. The more expensive the stuff the longer their penis is. (The deBeers "2-month salary guideline" scam plays right into their tiny wiener insecurity.)

Remember, I'm the girl who has been wearing the same pair of Frye boots for almost 20 years. Today I'm wearing a polka-dot dress that I bought 15 years ago at a sale in Macy's. (How many people asked me today, "OOOO, I love your dress, is it ours?") I tend to buy new stuff only when the old stuff is beyond repair, or when there's a wardrobe gap that needs to be filled. Ok, call me cheap. Tyra and I would be pals.

So -- Brown Sandals. I've been looking for a dressy pair of brown sandals that aren't beach shoes, but aren't Louboutins that would require me to give blow jobs in the Port Authority to pay for. And so I started right at home, on our own website, to see what kind of things were there.

And I found the perfect, no, beyond perfect brown sandals. On Sale no less. With my discount, they were -- get this -- FORTY DOLLARS. No one ever clicked a "buy now" button as fast as I did last Thursday.

They arrived today, and here are the hyacinths to feed my soles:

Be kind about my hobbit feet, please. They had a very hard day on Saturday.

Old Posts

Ok, I just freed a bunch of old posts from edit bondage and mistakenly forgot to keep their original post dates, so I'm not really THAT prolific.  Just a moron.

Quote of the Day: OK Cupid Profile

This guy clearly never, ever wants to have sex again:

On a typical Friday night I am
Either at home online playing poker, or out at a buddies place having a couple of beers and playing rock band.

Who admits that?

I Don't Think We Actually Are. Friends, That Is. And That's A Damn Shame.

I know how big Paulie felt at the end of "Goodfellas," when he handed Henry Hill three thousand dollars and said, "And now, Henry, I have to turn my back on you."

It makes me so incredibly sad to write this post.

I am a woman of few virtues, but one that I do possess, in spades, is the ability to stare down the truth without blinking.

Even when that truth is sad and upsetting, I am forced, by my inner clockworks, to acknowledge what is true, and real, and not to deceive myself that things are anything but the way they are, rather than the way I wish them to be.

All nice words at the end aside, I don't think we really parted as friends.

All nice words at the end aside, I don't think we will really be friends.

All nice words at the end aside, I don't think we are friends.

See, even though we made all the right friendish noises, and wished each other well, and acknowledged that we started out, sort of, as friends, and hugged it out at the end, the truth is that we won't be friends.

Maybe that's why, when he dropped me off after our coffee, I insisted he get out of the car to say a proper goodbye. Maybe, in my primal lizard brain, I knew that this was a forever kind of goodbye.

It's not because I don't want us to be friends, for I could wish for nothing more. His is one of the sharpest minds, and most slashing wits I've ever encountered.

He is the kind of person that I would fervently want to call my friend. He is the kind of person I would be proud to call my friend.

It's not because of residual romantic feelings that may cloud any encounters further down the road. These too, I know, will pass. They do, after all.

It is because it is not permitted.

He told me this openly, from the beginning, that he is not allowed to have friends that haven't been vetted and approved. He smiled when he told me this. I don't know if it was the nervous smile a dog gives when it is waiting for you to reprimand it, or if it was the smile of a man who is perfectly contented to have things this way. It was some sort of baring of teeth, whatever the hell it meant.

We won't be able to do the things that friends do, like share a laugh over coffee, or have one of those 15-minute phone calls where you check in just to see how things are going. We won't even be able to trade emails in which we tell each other what is going on in our lives. We won't be able to have a drink and have those long, pleasantly rangy conversations that I like to have with my friends that veer from pants-wetting hilarity to deadly serious, the ones where you talk about the world we live in and life in general.

And all because it is not allowed.

I know.

This is a foreign concept to me, too, as so many of my friends are men whom I knew in the wild and wooly days before they got married, and now a good number are men whom I've met in the last few years who are my own age and long-married, who don't actually have to qualify their friendship with me.  Of course, there are also a couple whom upon marriage began the slow withdrawal, the gradual hurtful coldness that was essentially the bridal herd culling, or the couples that turn into permanent "we." You know them. One cannot move without the other. There is no plan with one without the other. I dunno. Why don't I respect these people?

Statistically, in this day and age, and especially at my age, it's impossible to avoid becoming friends with married men. And do married people stop making friends with people on their own upon saying "I Do?" (If that's how it's gotta be, then fuck marriage! Seriously? That is some kind of fucked up.  Is putting on a wedding ring the same as lifting the velvet rope? "Sorry, we're at maximum capacity. Fire Department regulations. No one else allowed in.")

How sad, and how limiting that is. How constricting that must feel.  I find myself looking at every person I meet and speak to with curiosity, asking myself, "Is this my next friend?" And I'm usually the slow one! (Someone said to me, a couple of weeks ago, "I tell you these things because I consider you my friend," and I was both delighted and surprised. I know the weight of the word, and I thanked him for using it.)

It is one thing to remain hidden in shadow by the choices I've made in love, but to have to do so and still pretend to call something "friendship" that isn't really friendship is false, and frankly, that's a plate of shit I'm not willing to eat.

It's insulting. And I won't do it.

I am an insightful listener.  I am smart to talk to and funny as hell. If I had a million dollars and you needed it, I would give it to you. But since I don't have a million dollars, I will give you my time, an ear, a shoulder, and a hand.

I am a great, great fucking friend.

So now you know, I have lines to draw in the sand, too.  And here, right here, this is my line in the sand.  Being friends with me should not be a shameful secret.

He would have to step forward and state, out loud and in public, "This is my friend Aileen. She's fantastic, and smart, and funny, and people like to be around her because she makes a a room seem fizzier, and bigger, and sunnier.  She is my friend, and I picked her."

And I know he won't do it.

So, in this new, seeing "things as they is" (to borrow Suzuki Roshi's words) phase of my life, I have to admit to myself the really, really, really hard truth, which is:

As much as I am capable of being friends with someone I have loved -- another one of my meager fucking virtues -- and as much as I would like it to be so, I don't believe we actually are, nor will we be, friends.

So I will just retreat, and retreat, and retreat, until I've disappeared again and become a handful of pixel dust and a few funny words sprinkled across his screen once again.

And all because it's not allowed.

And that is perhaps my biggest heartbreak of all.

test post via email

Is this thing on?

I'm Sorry If I've Been an Asshole on the Internet Today

Ok, so maybe MY flying monkeys aren't so scary. But still.

I realized it's because I'm still dehydrated from the weekend spent in the sun, drinking beer, staying up most of the night on Saturday, walking around in the heat on Sunday, then eating Indian food on Sunday night.  Boy, I'd really like some of that Korma chicken right now, in fact.

I should know better, because I know all about "clear and copious."  My idea of fun used to be 6-hour bike rides, for christ's sake.  I know what I'm supposed to do.  And still, I didn't do it.  Nothing has been "clear and copious" for a couple of days, at least.

So, I'd like to offer my apologies for being an asshole all over the internet, and maybe on your blog, and maybe on someone else's blog, and maybe on Facebook, and perhaps via text message.

I'm still dehydrated and working very hard with the good people at Pepsico who are mainlining blue Gatorade into my system to get my electrolytes aligned with the summer solstice so I don't yell at someone's dog or kick their kid on my way home tonight.

I'm sorry if I have been an asshole on the internet today.

Coney Island Mermaid Parade 06/19/10

Another Mermaid Come and Gone...

As you can see from these photos, Roni and I are more delighted with ourselves than anyone has a right to be.

On the Boardwalk



Mike, or Mitch, or something.  I am so pleased with myself here, and even I don't know why!


And neither does Roni!... But we will permit you to buy us beers.


Ma'am, the Mermaid Parade is not the place to bring your existential angst. Sorry! LIGHTEN UP!

 
Mermaid bride (of Frankenstein?)



Maybe the last Gulf Shrimp?



Samba Mermaid



No one's flying colors these days. These are interesting times for bikers on the East Coast.


Tommy. Of COURSE he's a retired firefighter. Doesn't he just LOOK like a retired firefighter? Blue-blue-blue eyes. Actually knows an old friend of mine from the job.  And best of all, a hockey fan. We spent a good half hour deconstructing how Glen Sather is a huge idiot and is ruining, absolutely RUINING the Rangers.




I don't have the energy to put these photos in order. Back to Roni's house to get ready.


It's almost like getting ready for a wedding...



Finally, ready to head out. But not before Roni has to do something else. Oh, wait! No! She forgot to do another thing! Oh, shit! Something else! To get her out of the house, you practically have to drag her by the hair.


Trapped in the subway by one of those "investigations."  Why not take pictures?


At Lola Starr -- Doesn't everyone need a Beethoven action figure?


More of being pleased with ourselves.


There's always that one weird guy who hangs around. Every time I lifted my camera to take this shot, this one darted in. Wish I could have gotten his shoes in the shot. They were the best part of his outfit.


Mermaid neophyte who approached us and said, "It's my first time!"  A mermaid virgin, how sweet!


Betty Boop mermaid. Or maybe Bettie Page?


The hot dog girl at Ruby's gets into the spirit of it. Look how freakin' adorable she is!


Derek and Eric, who slept on the beach on Friday night so they wouldn't miss a minute. This was at about 3:00 and my man Derek (r) was already HAMMERED. They coined the phrase for my outfit, "Fak-ed," as in "fake naked."


There was a parade. Somewhere in this scrum are Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson, the King and Queen of the day.


Proof that there is entirely too much self esteem in the world. Too mean? TOO BAD. Or as my brother would say, "Oh, man, cover that shit up. PLEASE."


Gothic, undead mermaids...


And their sharkbit victim... I'm not sure what the blue-faced guy is supposed to be. Blue?


Oh, wait, we haven't taken a picture of ourselves for a while. Yep, we're still having more fun than you.


We were definitely having more fun than her. Every time I saw her, she looked more miserable.  Not sure how this is possible on Mermaid Day.  Another shitload of existential angst caught in a net? "May I take your photo," resulting in a mug shot like a ten dollar hooker. She needs to work on her mermaid attitude.


Ok, my girl with the sandcastle on her head? I LOVED her. Look at the gleam in her eye. She GETS it -- Life is supposed to be a fucking banquet and most poor sons of bitches are starving to death. (everything I've learned in life I learned from -- Auntie Mame?) I wanted to make out with her.



King Neptune and his Lingerie Mermaid. I thought he was a Roooooosian, because he was speaking with a flawless Roooooosian accent, until he dropped it and was just another white guy.



Random sea creatures. Man, there are an awful lot of beer bottles in this shot, aren't there?


I loved this little Nellie Forbush corn-fed girl -- she's also delighted with herself!  "Look how cute I am!!!"  I have a cat who does that.


Stilt-walkers on the boardwalk. Now THIS is the way to see a parade. I commend them for stilting in this crowd, on this crappy boardwalk surface.


Stilt-walker II


Damn, I wish I had gotten her whole seahorse getup. Instead, my camera focused on what looks like her freakishly large hand.


You know what? You either get the Mermaid, or you don't. Another one who gets it. If I had her body, I'd totally go tits-out on Mermaid day.



God, look at her profile. How exquisite is she?


Scary sea creatures through the crowd.  Very dark and Marianas Trenchy.  Wish I could have gotten close to them to get a better shot.


Janis Joplin mermaid. Love the beer and ciggie.

Some hot Scot. End of the evening. Babysitter mermaid and her assistant.

Not For Nothin' But Sometimes It's Good To Start the Week With Some Yeats

Her Triumph

I did the dragon's will until you came
Because I had fancied love a casual
Improvisation, or a settled game
That followed if I let the kerchief fall:
Those deeds were best that gave the minute wings
And heavenly music if they gave it wit;
And then you stood among the dragon-rings.
I mocked, being crazy, but you mastered it
And broke the chain and set my ankles free,
Saint George or else a pagan Perseus;
And now we stare astonished at the sea,
And a miraculous strange bird shrieks at us.

William Butler Yeats

Evolution is a Fact

Old article, but Dawkins is always worth the read:

Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact. The evidence for evolution is at least as strong as the evidence for the Holocaust, even allowing for eye witnesses to the Holocaust. It is the plain truth that we are cousins of chimpanzees, somewhat more distant cousins of monkeys, more distant cousins still of aardvarks and manatees, yet more distant cousins of bananas and turnips . . . continue the list as long as desired. That didn’t have to be true. It is not self-evidently, tautologically, obviously true, and there was a time when most people, even educated people, thought it wasn’t. It didn’t have to be true, but it is. We know this because a rising flood of evidence supports it. Evolution is a fact, and [my] book will demonstrate it. No reputable scientist disputes it, and no unbiased reader will close the book doubting it.

Sometimes The Easy Ones Just Come to You

The other day, a friend of mine called me the "Queen of the Metaphor."  What can I say? I love a good metaphor. When you want to say something without actually saying it, well, you can always say something else to say it.  You could call it doublespeak.  You could call it being a Libra.

Sometimes you search and search and search for the right metaphor. You go digging deep. You start writing something. You trash it. Oh, wait! Let me try this! Nope, this won't work either. Crap.

Then, some days, like today maybe, you will be sitting at daybreak, having your first cup of coffee, casually perusing a news site that you haven't visited in a while, and the metaphor will find you. Actually, the metaphor doesn't just find you, it stands next to you and pounds you on the head with a Lodge 10-inch cast iron skillet until you're dead on the floor.

*****

Way back in the 1990's, after "Into Thin Air," was published, I got very interested in reading mountaineering books. I've always loved adventure and danger stories, especially the true kind (I remember re-reading again and again my father's copy of "On the Bottom," by Edward Ellsberg when I was a kid), so ITA sort of re-awakened that love in me.  I started devouring mountaineering stories because these guys just seemed so cool. (I was also on the verge of bolting New York to Colorado, so maybe it was some kind of premonition. Who knows.)  The top shelf of my bookshelf has books by Conrad Anker, Anatoli Boukreev, and the super-hot David Brashears.  Conrad Anker movingly tells the story of finding, after nearly a century, the body of George Mallory, he of "Because it is there," fame (NO! IT WAS NOT SIR EDMUND HILLARY), and burying it under a cairn and never telling anyone where it is. (The incredibly sad photos of Mallory's body still haunt me.)  And of course, Ed Viesturs. In any mountaineering story, Ed Viesturs turns up.  He's a mountaineering legend, fachrissakes.

*****

So here comes my metaphor.  It's sneaking up on me with that skillet in its hand, as I sit down with my Bustelo, a cigarette, and my Blackberry.

Ahh, good old slate.com. I loves me some slate.com.  And ooh, look, here's an interview with Ed Viesturs!

I was going to excerpt portions of this interview to demonstrate how parts of this article basically describe -- to a fucking mechanically-drawn T -- what happened to me and Mr. MWBMH (tm), but then I realized I would end up just cutting and pasting the whole damn thing. Every fucking word of this interview could describe my life in the past two and a half months!

So yes, even though the metaphor smacked me over the head with that Lodge skillet, making a beautiful hollow "CLONG" sound, and raising a hell of a monkey bump on my skull, I am still laughing about this.

Morons

Stupid fucks built a giant dual lightning rod and covered it with flammable petroleum-based crap.

Serves them right.

Dumbasses.

Random Thoughts from the Hog Wallow

Are you sick of me? I'm sick of me. I'm sick of me so hard.

1) You can only listen to "Something Stupid," by Frank and Nancy Sinatra four- or five-hundred times in a row before you stop thinking boohooingly about The Guy, and start thinking things like, "Wow, Nancy Sinatra has a singing range of three notes!" and "It's really kind of creepy that a father and daughter sang this song together."  It's a little icky, when you think about it. And I mean in a "Papa John Phillips" icky kind of way.

2) A smart Opinionator piece from the NY Times about Tea Partiers.

3)  A co-worker called me "The Incredible Shrinking Woman" today, then cornered me and wanted to know how I did it.  (I gave her the abridged version of How I Did It:  "Eat Less."  I left out the part about subsisting on coffee, cigarettes, the occasional half tomato that I didn't need to salt because I just cried on it.) So Ha Ha Ha.

4)  When I met Mr. MWBMH (tm) on Sunday, I had a giant red pimple on the side of my nose. We're talking a Mt. Saint Helens-sized pimple, folks. It burgeoned all day Saturday and finally blew late that night with one of those satisfying shplats that leave you searching for the Windex. It felt like an exorcism. Maybe it was. But that meant I had to try to spackle it with cover-up on the most humid day of the year, mostly unsuccessfully, when I would have preferred a burlap sack over my head like the Elephant Man.  In the meantime, all of this feeling stuff  has left me with the complexion of a 13-year-old girl having her first period. I look in the mirror and say, "REALLY? At my age?"

5)  I do wonder if Mr. MWBMH (tm) thinks, at all, ever, "Holy shit, I broke JANE."  I wonder what that feels like? Is it like the guy who shot King Kong off of the Empire State Building, or more like the Enola Gay pilot looking back and going, "Uh-ohhhhh. sheeeeyit!"  Anyway, oh, well.

6)  If nothing else, it has set Aileen free, which feels kinda cool. Part of me wants to rest here in the mud of the hogwaller where it's cool and quiet for a little while longer, but the part that's been freed almost wants to gambol.  Maybe after I get my legs under me, to try to throw a half-assed herkie.  Is that strange?

7) When Miss Midwesterly came over on Friday night, the look on her face told me everything I needed to know about how bad things had gotten on the home front.  She was, literally, agog.  And I saw my place through her eyes.  My apartment looked like a crack den, like Bushwick, August 1977, like Robert Chambers' apartment.  So I swept my floors, then vacuumed, then mopped with the good-smelling Murphy's stuff and changed the utterly disgusting litterboxes. Coming home on Sunday night, I was quite pleased.  Then, I got home last night after work, and the Little Cat had apparently developed opposable thumbs during the day and gone to work, like a good little Tinkerbell. There was kitty litter strewn all over the fucking place, from the front of the apartment to the back. How does she do it? Perhaps I've underestimated her. Litterbell.

8)  Two days to MERMAID.  There will be photos.

9)  Name the movie reference in the subhead of this post and win a prize!

10)  I just went off a little on a vendor. Now, it takes MUCH to make me go off, but when I do, it's not with yelling or anything. I just become hyperarticulate and very quiet. The thing that most people don't realize is that when I am yelling, they don't need to worry.  It's when I get reallllly quiet, that people should be afraid. Because then I've passed blowing off steam. Then I'm enraged. See, I had asked for something last Thursday that I needed by the end of the day Tuesday.  Nothing hard, just some rough dates for delivering files to them in order to make a delivery date in September.  This is something any experienced production person who owns a calendar can ballpark in 10 minutes.  So Tuesday comes, no dates. Wednesday comes, no dates.  Promised I'll have them this morning. At 5:00 I called California and said, "Where are my schedules?" and get the same old song and dance about the production manager over there is a temperamental sort and you don't want to piss off Beckie, blah, blah, blah, and the coordinator has been having a couple of bad days, so she was allowed to leave early, come in late, blah, blah, blah. I closed my eyes, and took a really deep breath and said, "Please let me stop you right there. I am tired of having MY reliability jeopardized and MY requests held hostage to Beckie's bad temper and Shawna's bad days! I have had a MONTH of bad days, and you know what? I show up and do my job! Would it help you if I called Jeff (company President)? Would that make Beckie do her job? Because I will do it. And there, now you can go down to your production department and say that they have pissed off Aileen S___ enough to make her yell at you."   I don't understand people who seem to be mad all the time and who yell at people a lot.  Let me tell you, folks, that didn't feel good. That didn't feel good at ALL.

11)  I've been listening to an old friend's CD for the past couple of days.  Sort of alt-country-ish in a Ryan Adams way. He was never going to be the next Dylan or anything, but he did write respectable, catchy pop songs. Singable.

He wrote on the cover "To Aileen, my best friend and biggest fan, XO Will." I am named in the acknowledgements on both of his records. We had a terrible, stupid fight a few years ago, said horrible things to each other, and we haven't seen each other or spoken since. After a fifteen year friendship, and I mean, we were like Mutt and Jeff, I told him I was sick of his shit, gave him the backs of my hands, and stayed gone. For some reason, I felt the need to pull down his CD and listen to it, and now it's making me miss him and wonder if I should reach out to him on Facebook or Linked In or something.

Maybe the Buddhists are right about that whole "broken heart = open heart" thing. When your heart cracks open you never know what is going to fall in -- or out.

Awful Crap on Facebook Today

Facebook is a really good place to nurture a superiority complex.

It also reinforces my belief that I may be, quite possibly, the meanest human being on the planet for making fun of the people (some of them my OWN BLOOD RELATIVES) who are posting godawful greeting card shite like this:

Fathers Day Approaches:
Roses grow in Heaven, Lord, pick a bunch for me.
Place them in my Dad's arms & tell him they're from me.
Tell him that I love & miss him & when he turns to smile,
place a kiss upon his cheek & hold him for a while.
Because remembering... him is..easy.. I do it everyday.
There's an ache within my heart that will never go away.
Copy & paste if your Dad is in Heaven. Love and miss you Dad!

If there turns out to be an afterlife and I find out people are using my name in the same ROOM as shit like this, I swear I will come back and haunt them. And not in a good way.

Maybe I Should Go Outside And Play Or Something, Instead of Being a Pixelated Vampire With My Ass Parked In Front of My Computer

Brendan Leonard, in Mountain Gazette, has a few words to say about our stunted-by-the-internet lives. He observes that we are so busy trying to document our experiences while we are having them, that we stop actually experiencing them. (Twitter, anyone?)

I remember when the Internet was half porn. Now it’s one-third porn, one-third Facebook. Our love for talking about ourselves has nearly outgrown our love for looking at naked people. And that just makes me sick. Do you have a blog? Of course you do. Tell me some more interesting things about yourself. Oh, you eat food? And you breathe air?

I agree with him, though I do wonder what he thinks makes up the other third of the Internet.
 
Even though most of my blog posts are composed in the wee hours of the morning between 5:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m., I suddenly feel very ashamed for blogging so much.
 
So I am going outside to take a walk.
 
In New York Freakin' City.
 
I will sing as I walk,  because I am feeling better, and because I am wearing a pretty dress and nice sandals and because it is a very nice day, and because this is the first day in absolutely weeks that I've walked around the office singing.
 
(Walking around singing is just something that I do. Someone commented today as I strolled down a long hallway singing "My Cherie Amour," paying special attention to that bent note in the line, "In a ca-aaa-fe, or sometimes on a crowded street..." -- "Aileen! I haven't heard you sing in WEEKS!")
 
And I'm not gonna tell anyone about it afterwards.

No One Is To Blame

During some debate, Joe Biden once said something about how you can question a man's actions, but you should never question his motives.

This spoke to me, and I still go back to it again and again. Not just in general, but especially in my current situation.

I just need to be really clear: There are no villains here.

What we have are two people who made decisions that ended up hurting one, and perhaps both, in deep ways. People who thought they knew what they were doing, who went into a relationship with an outline of how it was supposed to progress but ended up, as we all do anyway, making it up as we went along.

I thought I was the girl who couldn't be got, the Chupacabra of every married man's fantasy -- the girl who could be had without being had. I subscribed to Chris Rock's notion that the only thing that keeps men faithful in their marriages is opportunity. (Okay, I still do subscribe to that notion, for 99.9% of men. I just happened to meet and fall in love with one of those 0.1% guys)

I don't know what his deepest motives were, and I never will. He did tell me the most blatant -- that he thought his marriage was over and that he was ready for an affair. So why pick the girl-formerly-known-as Jane and not someone nearer at hand? Who knows? Maybe because I had been so open about things on my blog and he thought, here is a girl who will walk me into this new phase of my life and she will come out unscathed? Maybe because there was something gettable about me? Maybe because he didn't know me at all before we met and the strangers-passing-in-the-night-with-no-hard-feelings had some sort of romantic appeal.  Maybe he just liked how I wrote and that made him want to fuck me.

The point is, I am not privy to that information and never will be.

So I can't write his larger motivations for getting into it, or for getting out of it. You have to take some things at face value, don't you? You can wish a single had Ben Franklin's face on it, but don't try to buy dinner with it.

Women, being women, have some reflexive need to try to find reasons for things happening. And, oh boy, will they go off on wild flights of fancy to do this. They will make up stories out of whole cloth to explain away the end of a relationship without even realizing they are doing it.  When they've constructed a satisfying narrative to palliate their insecurities and fears and ignorance, then they feel safe walking away from a hurtful relationship.  (This explains all that bullshit they do about "Maybe he got scaaaaared." God, I hate when chicks do this. You women give the rest of us a bad name sometimes. Me? I've always believed in the "he's just not that into you," explanation. I just wasn't smart enough to parlay it into a bazillion-selling book and a TV talk show like Greg Behrendt did.)
 
I'll be the first to admit I  do this, too, but my instinctive reason, my go-to choice in self-hatred is, "It must be because I wasn't pretty enough."
 
It frankly bugs the shit out of me when people say, "Everything happens for a reason."  You know what? NO...it doesn't.  Most times, things just happen. The universe isn't out there constructing some fairy tale for you out of events and people.  The universe isn't personal, folks.  Sorry to break that to you.
 
So, for me, things happened.  I got hurt. This doesn't mean I am a good person, and he is a bad person. In fact, when people feel the need to ascribe shit to him in order to bolster their idea of who I am, that's when I take a step backward and say, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on there. I then have to remind them:  Hey, do you think I would choose an ASSHOLE to fall in love with?  Do you know me at all?
 
Neither of us did the right thing.
 
Neither of us did the wrong thing.
 
We were both right, and we were both wrong.
 
We did human things, and we have to forgive ourselves and each other.