centre of attention

I woke up at 4AM. I dreamt that I was with The Tenor at his office. He was sitting at his desk. I had to use the bathroom and the only place to go was at this toilet in the centre of the room. I pulled the curtain around me, which was the hard kind on a track (like the kind they have in schools and synagogues to split a room). The enclosed area was so small that my ass was pressed up against all sides. I felt enormous and I was terribly self-conscious. I could not go. I awoke having to pee (of course) and couldn't get back to sleep.

psycho killer

Driving downtown with Anna today, the warming spring sun shone, melting snow. Psycho Killer, by the Talking Heads was the soundtrack, playing from a CD I burned before we left. The moment was buoyant - it seemed there was nothing more to the world than absurd fun.

it feels like a forever

There is this subtle but insidious feeling deep in my lungs. It is almost like an itch that you can not scratch, but diffuse. To distract myself I have taken to drinking diet coke, or eating food with strong flavours. There is a risk of getting fat from this, and I know if this happens I will start smoking again. The thing is, smoking suits my angst and creativity. On the other hand looking and feeling good are essential. The only other thing that scratches that itch, at least temporarily, is exercise. Today I went for an hour-long run and I feel great, though the itch is slowly returning. How long will this last? It feels like a forever.

write wrong

Goodbye $20.00 Israeli lesbian rug. I have had enough of you. Your padding endlessly sheds crumbs of an unknown substance, and you have started framing my life at home with a subtle gloom. Goodbye plaid InWear pants. I love you. It is hard to give you up because you were such a trade mark of me, but I have tried you on periodically and you aren't fit for the public eye. ....Maybe I should keep you for myself... Goodbye 4 pairs of everyday staple black shoes that haven't been an everyday staple for 2 or more years. Goodbye bad fake burberry bag. I wouldn't really even want you if you were real.

This weekend has been set aside for paper writing so I am cleaning my apartment. I can't write when my apartment feels wrong.

Do you think it is strange that I am watching Days of our Lives, a soap opera I haven't watched since highschool, and I pretty much know what's going on? Let's put this into perspective. I am 30.

My father called to tell me he is engaged. Why is it that my 58 year old father is getting married for the third time and I can hardly find a decent date. He can barely keep it together. I am financially resonsible, independant, only mildly neurotic (ok medium), intelligent, ambitious, creative, funny, semi-adventurous, easy on the eyes, great with kids and pets. What is that about?

scabs and scrubs

I have a scab in my nose that hurts. I just had the best dinner - smoked salmon and cream cheese on rye toast. I am finished my work and I am settling in to watch Arrested Development (great show). It is up there with Scrubs and Malcolm in the Middle. I recently discovered that not everyone has the sense of humour for these shows.. I had some friends over the other day and I made them watch Scrubs. I don't think anyone but me laughed - at all. Very strange.

skin and bones

This afternoon I met The Tenor. He looked good today. He looks great in black. We talked about aging and why it fills me with dread and fear. It endows me with x-ray vision and I plunge straight through the flesh, transforming life to the structure that supports it. No skin on the bones when I start to think about the series of turnstile disallusionments ahead.

rusty hunch

It has been a while and I thought I would take a moment for updates. I went out on the limb, emailed the guy (Simon), thanked him for coffee and told him I would like to go out again next time he is in town. In contradiction to my hunch (which has of late been rusty), he responded promptly, and sounded very enthusiastic. He even told me I was pretty (which is hard to do without sounding gay).

Since then we have been carrying on a sordid (I wish) email affair. If I could draw the progress on a graph it would start low and cautious, swing up to a dramatic peak, stay there a while, and then as of yesterday, drop down significantly (precisely when he let me in on his dream of being a busker, called me "Dude", and raved endlessly about skiing and "chilaxing"). Today there has been a modest recovery. I have a tendency to see things in black and white when I get stressed. I guess today I feel a little more chilaxed and his most recent email was a little less dormitory-cliche.

It has been 3 weeks since I stopped smoking - I think that is part of the reason why I haven't posted. I am not in the mood to attend to the obligatory stop-smoking dialogue. I just haven't been smoking, so far so good. I don't really feel like I am missing anything at this time. My life feels normal. I whitened my teeth as my incentive - which I love, and I have been going to the gym. It feels really good. Enough said.

Oh, hair!

There I was, O'Hare International, awaiting my connection home. At my gate sat: a man I was sure was a terrorist, Jerry Garcia, the character from old SNLs who wore all black and used to ask people to pet his monkey, a man who was so greyish yellow I was sure would die at any second, and a women breastfeeding what looked like a 5-year-old.

Bienvenito a Chicago. PS: don't eat the deep dish pizza. It bites.

More about my trip later.

hebrew hammer

I had a great time on my date this afternoon. I thought he was cute, funny, intelligent. Despite this, I left feeling a little down. Toward the end of the date I think I felt some preemptive defensiveness. Either I got a sense that he wasn't as interested as I was or I am not used to feeling anything beyond neutral. I became very casual. I said, "it is too bad you live so far away," (he lives about 4 hours drive and was in to see his family), "but it was nice meeting you". He agreed and we parted ways. I did mention to him that next time he was in town he could call, but wasn't I again closing things off in a way? Was I not saying, nice meeting you, but unless you are back in town, there is no point? I don't know if I feel like he didn't like me or that I ruined it even if he did. I think I might email him to say thanks for coffee etc... I am not sure how, but I am willing to go out on a limb and give him the message that I would like to go out again, even if it means he may not take the bait or he may not feel the same way. What do I have to lose?

I won't bother getting into the list of things that weren't ideal because that is too easy for me. It is one thing I know how to do, but suffice it to say that for now, I was not put off.

I just got home from a friends where we watched The Hebrew Hammer. A great movie that every Jew should watch. I am going to have an annual Chanukah party and screening. Just imagine: latkes, gelt, manischewitz drinking games...

stemming the flow

So far this weekend I have been very productive. I got my laundry done last night (I didn't say I was social) and this morning I made breakfast (smoothies and waffles) for myself and my classmate so we could work on our seminar. That was fun and semi-productive. Now, I have time to download some music and create new playlists. This afternoon I am going on another blind date/coffee. This guy sounded cool on the phone, so I am looking forward to it. It is pretty amazing when you have never met someone but can joke around on the phone and 'get' each other. From my experience, that doesn't necessarily foreshadow a successful match, it is just of note that people can be in synch having never met.

I leave to go south on Thursday, so this week is going to be busy, what with the waxings and mani/pedicures. My throat has been sore for a few days so if it isn't better by Monday I may have to get it looked at. I want to be fully healthy there. I feel fine otherwise.

Last night the tenor used an amazing analogy to describe the way interpersonal process plays out. He likened it to those magnetic gadgets, with all of the little metal pieces. When you drop them onto the surface, they fall into the shape of the magnet. Preverbal experiences can behave as a magnetic field. Interactions are shaped by these pre-determined patterns. Two people with similarly shaped magnetic fields, so to speak, are in synch. In my field, the hammer is always about to fall. Humanity opposed by the mechanistic. The morning after, stemming the flow, being put in your place, the obligitory anti-climax, the final solution.

get the message

A couple of months ago a man accidently left me a messsage on my voice mail at home. It was a man calling his sister to tell her that their mother had taken "a turn for the worse". He said that she was "on a lot of oxygen now". He finished off the message sounding unsure, "...I just thought you should know".

That messsage was of such consequence. In just a couple of sentances I gathered that the mother was dying and that the sister may not be closely involved. I was terrified that the mother would die and the sister would never get the message and so she wouldn't get there in time. It occurred to me that the brother would assume she got the message but decided not to come. The whole situation was brimming with disaster. I had to do something.

I found the number on my call display and left the man a very clearly articulated message explaining what happened. It was like their whole world hung on my ability to get the message across. Hanging up, I worried something would happen and he wouldn't get it. Maybe he would erase it by accident or maybe I dialed the wrong number. I contemplated leaving a second message.

Every week now, my machine plays the voice mail back to me and every week I re-save it. I can't bring myself to erase it.