Le Fail

I’m in Paris for a study abroad.  Correction: I am single in Paris on a study abroad.  Watch as I crumble under the weight of 50 movies all telling me that I must, as a matter of course, have an affair whilst here.  That, and eat many baguettes.  Although I’ve managed the latter, the former is proving problematic.  It turns out, I’m far too reliant on language for connection, and not the body kind.

So when I found myself, on Gay Pride no less, lumbering through a Parisian alley densely packed with more lesbians than I’ve seen since a Melissa Etheridge show, I wasn’t sure what to do.  Oh sure, there was wanton eye contact and whatnot, but I seriously can’t keep a straight face with that sort of thing in that sort of context.  I’m cute, not sexy.  I own this in the States, not here.  In France, cute is kitsch; cute is the ridiculous Pompidou; cute is mispronouncing the word for pepper.  I do THAT very well.

No, I need to talk about Foucault to get my flirt on.  Wait, he’s French, bad example, but seriously I can’t even manage to ask for moutard on my fucking sandwich, much less engage in verbal nerdy foreplay.  Some women I know would find the bright side in this and revert to a more primitive sexuality.  Perhaps I’m too cerebral?

Regardless, I did get my dance on with some friends last night at a straight club (damn the majority).  Truth be told, I love dancing with men or women; I just like to dance.  However, my dancing partner (who has a lovely boyfriend back home) is the kind of beautiful that makes the earth turn more slowly.  You’d think this would be a plus, yet much of our night was devoted to brushing aggressive Frenchmen off of her as nicely as possible.  We both have that absurd “please like me even though I don’t like you” gene.  The French sense this weakness.  For instance, while desperately searching for a cab, walking arm over shoulders, a man asked us, in French, if we were lesbians.  In unison, we said,  “Oui.”  He then said in English, “I’m gay, too.”  <beat> “I’ll go home with you.”  Au revoir, mon idiot.

Sadly, I found myself thinking about my last date in New York with a skinny Cuban bottle blonde.  Let’s just say you didn’t need a dry ice machine around us on the dance floor.  Plus, she went to Cornell.  Superficial of me?  Guilty as charged.  Some people like T&A, while I usually go for the TA.  Looks like I might be the fluer de wall here.

C-Stand Crush

I’m supposed to meet my crush for coffee tonight.  I have no idea if she is interested in me.  I only just worked up the courage to speak to her last week, after months of debating on how to recover from our first meeting during which I actually said the words, “I’m not stalking you.”  Gah!  Did I really say that out loud?

I think it was January, and I had time to kill before class.  I wandered into the department lounge overlooking Washington Square park.  As I sat down to finish my reading, I noticed this striking woman eating a Subway sandwich.  Brunette, tall, skinny, glasses…your basic librarian dream.  I read the same sentence three times as I thought about what I could possibly say to this random, beautiful person sitting next to me.  Veggie delites are the best, eh?  No, weak.  Um, you have some mustard there on the corner of your mouth…here, let me get that.  Hmmm, desperate, and not true.  She left; I was sad.

About twenty minutes later I headed around the corner and up the elevator to my department office.  The doors opened and there she was sans sandwich, drinking from the water fountain.  I froze and then muttered the stalking line.  Why was she in MY department!?  Was she (shudder) an undergraduate student?  I scurried away to the safety of the classroom and tried to focus on privacy law.

During a short break, I left the room, thinking the route would be clear from crush girl by now.  As I rounded the corner, I spotted her at the front desk, working.  Of course, she works in my department and now I’ve said something about stalking and I feel awkward and how am I going to get past her to go to the bathroom and what if I trip and fall through the glass door.  Would she call 911?

I returned to class without incident, or speaking to the file clerk from heaven.  I saw her countless times after that.  She even smiled at me once when I was laughing, walking out of the office with my adviser.  That time, I really did almost fall through the door.  Yet, I said nothing, until last week when I realized since I always said hello to the other person at the front desk, it was really rude of me not to include her.  She seemed delighted to talk to me, or she was just glad to have a distraction while affixing folder labels.  That’s me, better than sticking labels!

Turns out she just graduated from Tisch (pant, pant), and she’s a filmmaker.  She peppered her conversation with all kinds of technical jargon about cameras and angles.  Normally, I find such speech pretentious, and mock people (including myself) in my head while they spout off about semiotics.  Not so with my little femme Kubrick.  Leica lens?  Swoon.  She’s off for principal shooting on her first film tomorrow so I spoke to her at literally the last opportunity.  We live five minutes away from each other.  I wonder if she wears contacts when she shoots.  I hope I don’t trip.

The Story of B.

I’ll be in the Time Out New York Singles’ Edition coming out this week.  Confession: I’m participating as much for blog fodder, as I am for dates.  Yes, gentle reader, I am devoted to you.  I’ve also joined an online dating site again.  I’m kicking this ginger snap into high gear.

After a history of epic online dating folly, I blame blind faith for forging ahead with this method.  Aside from meeting one of my best friends on Jdate (see Shalom post), I’ve only had one decent date from the online world out of at least 20 meet ups; and it was the first one.  “Decent” is woefully inadequate; it was the best date of my entire life, the slow-motion movie montage this-can’t-be-happening-to-me sort of date.

B. found me first.  In fact, my age filter was set so that I would not have seen her; she is ten years younger than I am.  She sent me the following note, charming in its brevity: “you’re neat.”  One contraction and one adjective, backed up by one intriguing profile page, and I was determined to meet this woman.  She put up a chase, but after one month, multiple emails and one awkward phone conversation, she agreed to a non-mediated cup of coffee.  She walked in wearing a fedora.  Let’s pause for a moment.  A FEDORA.  Who does that?  A fragile, beautiful artist who tells stories with words, pictures, music, martial arts, even haberdashery.  B. does that.

Coffee turned to dinner at Three Doors Down, a charming Italian place I’d been meaning to try.  We talked for hours, and for once I was appreciative of soft restaurant candlelight. We shared a fondness for Maleficent, the big bad in Sleeping Beauty.  I walked her home.  On her porch, she said something that made me blush, and made it wonderfully clear she wanted a second date.  I’ve fallen in love before and after her, yet no one moment has compared to the astounding joy of possibility I felt on the drive home that night.

We did not last, obviously, and no, she’s not my Big nor my Burger.  She’s older than that; she’s just B.  I’m not going to talk about the break up, how we went from that electric start to me holding her on my kitchen floor to me showing her the door.  And then driving all over NE Portland trying to find her, and failing.

No, I’m not going to talk about that, because if I do, I might not fill out the next profile summary, or answer what I do or where I’m from.  I like a varied cheese course, Almodovar films, Buffy the Vampire Slayer on tv; and I believe in love, despite knowing better.

Big Burger

It occurred to me recently that my Big might actually be my Berger.  Sex in the City fans will recall that Jack Berger breaks up with Carrie via a post-it note.  My Big dealt her blow via a long email that bandied the word friend about like a weapon.  I submit that the difference between a post-it and an email is about as slim as she is.

Like the Bradshaw-Berger relationship, ours was one of unprecedented chemistry (at least for me), yet troubles with her then recent ex and certain insecurities on both sides reared immediately.  One of our major differences, the deal breaker in the second end (because she had to essentially tell me twice since the first time was basically a “not now, but maybe later”) was our opposing view of what a relationship dynamic looks like.  She believes in the idea of “sameness,” that you feel the same way about each other all the time, a sort of balance of power although she would never use that phrasing.

Before I get to my view, I must interject what most of my straight female friends are thinking at this moment, some variation of: “Jesus, I’m so glad I don’t date women.  Guys are simple.”  As one friend recently put it, “You just sort of kick ‘em in the balls, and move on with your shared lives.”  Ahem, no thank you.

So my conception of a relationship is that, when it comes to dynamics, the minute-by-minute roller coaster cliché is more apt.  Even my best, long-term relationship fit this mold, and it wasn’t as exhausting as it might sound.  We learned to have fun with it, and there were many more common highs than discordant lows.  Yet, Big runs from such pitches.  We, in an ill-advised attempt at friendship waaay too early, got into an epic argument over this because, not understanding it, I questioned her sincerity.  I threw bombshells around like “fear” and “you only want what you can’t have.”  We did not speak to each other for months.

Regardless of my accuracy in that moment, I have since learned from observation in her new relationship that, in fact, she still holds this sameness value in high esteem.  I feel like this aspect, this fundamental relationship expectation is crucial, yet it’s not something you’re likely going to discover early on.  The practical side of me longs for a drop down menu of compatibility options including, but not limited to, your preferred side of the bed.  One need not meet all the criteria, but at least you know what is coming to the table.

Perhaps I’m too high maintenance, yet that’s the nasty chaffing bit because my unicorn interpretation of her view seems to me to be the untenable part.  My coaster leaves loads of room for ambiguity, realism, love, growth, and admittedly, sadness.  One of my favorite SITC episodes is called “La Douleur Exquise”, when Big breaks up with Carrie unexpectedly before he heads off to France.

In response, she hurls a Filet O’ Fish sandwich at him and it hits the stainless steal surface behind Chris Noth’s head.  You see the mayo streaking down—a disgusting, perfect visual juxtaposed with the gut wrenching look on SJP’s face.  How odd, then, to realize I’ve been mourning a faux fish moment, a Berger moment in disguise.  My torrid love affair may have been a brightly colored sticky square all along, ready for the trash can before the ink had dried.

The side of fries here is that if she is not my Big, then someone else is.  It only took me one year and nine months to realize this.  Quick wit, turtle heart.

Love’s Fire Heats Water; Water Cools Not Love

The title of my post is from a Shakespearean sonnet.  Basically, a really hot chick steals Cupid’s torch and dips it in a well.  Instead of going out, the torch sets the well en fuego!  Then, our poet goes to the well to take the cure/water and finds that his passion is only kindled, and not by Amazon, although the object of his affection may have been rather tall and forceful.  This is debatable.

Technology, myth and our Bard’s sexuality aside, the fact that I adore his words with such fervor has set me to wondering.  Did my romanticism come first or did Shakespeare?  Am I perpetually besotted because I mainline Keats and Neruda or was I predisposed to be an orange-topped sap on two strong, somewhat frog-like legs leaping into love?

This question is classic poultry huevos territory, but I’ve given up on other questions when it comes to me and love.  Just last night at Barcade with friends, we were laughing about how I’ve even located my point of no return—the moment where I fall somewhere beneath the earth’s molten crust, yet rise to race Voyager at the same time.  The obvious answer to avoid this lover’s fate, we all concurred, is to not pass this point, or rather to pass it LATER.  In other words, slow down, Harley*, there’s plenty o’ road with you and that gorgeous, stunning, insanely intelligent woman.

The latter string of adjectives hints at why I’ve given up.  I can’t even write a sentence without waxing something or someone.  So I’m swimming to the green light on the dock to ask F. if he’s at all to blame.  Something tells me he’d tell me it’s Puccini’s fault, but being in New York and not Italy, I’d go pester Bernstein instead.  (If you’re letting me swim to West Egg, then surely you’ll let me time travel and break into song, too.)

Maria!

Say it loud and there’s music playing,

Say it soft and it’s almost like praying.

Lenny would humbly remind me that dear Sondheim wrote the words, and redeem me from the future and unforgivable mistake I made whilst playing Trivial Pursuit for the win in a Scottish manor.  (How could the musical theater kid miss that?)  Sondheim is mine!  After playing a few bars of Sunday and imagining Seurat, Steve turns to me and gives all credit to William.

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

And I drift to sleep, perchance to dream.

*Harley was my nickname in college.  Before I tell you the story here in the world’s longest footnote, you should know that I went to a religious liberal arts college with literally 600 or so students.  You do something once and everyone will know it–no Internet required.  Here, in this tiny enclave by a wheat field, I accidentally became synonymous with the stuff of biker gangs.  Put on your black chaps…

At freshmen orientation, we played a “get to know you” game called Honey, I Love You But I Just Can’t Smile in front of a huge bon fire.  Of course, someone made me laugh and I was in the middle—of strangers, keep in mind, when I trotted over to a handsome soccer player to try and make him smile so I could get out of the middle.  Also, keep in mind I had no idea I was gay at this age, but there is no argument I have great taste with either gender to this day.

So I crouch down on one knee and stare directly in his magically delicious shamrock green eyes and say…

WAIT.  TIME OUT.  I also need to tell you that a few days prior to this moment I received a care package in the mail from my best friend who was attending William & Mary.  She sent me a college newspaper clip containing the top ten pick-up lines on campus.  Number one struck me as particularly funny, and so I said to the unknown Greek statue before me…

“Hey, baby.  I wanna ride you like a Harley down a baaaad stretch of road.”

He DID NOT laugh.  I think I frightened poor Danny boy.  Go figure.  For weeks after this, when I would get introduced to people, they would say, “Oh, you’re THAT girl” with much excitement.  And that is why my Howard House baseball cap has Harley stitched on it; and I will never throw it away.

Double Trouble

While fishing for my id and my identification at the NYU library recently, I saw the real-life doppelgånger of my Big.  To remind you, in my quest to be the lesbian Carrie Bradshaw, a Big (as in Big, yet elusive love) is prerequisite.  I had just seen my actual Big for the first time in over a year the day before, so perhaps she was on my mind.  The meeting was a small triumph for me.  As I put it to a friend, “I was reminded that she is, in fact, of this earth.”  My tendency to romanticize was not entirely absent however, as I struggled to refrain from affectionately putting my thumb squarely in her chin dimple.

So when her double walked through the revolving door, I almost said her name out loud, but then caught myself, reasoning that it couldn’t be her.  Upon closer examination her hair did not have the current streaks, although it did resemble a previous Big look.  This follicle detail and a certain youthful quality were the only noticeable differences. The effect this woman had on me was even more astonishing.  I went from fairly low-hey I should get a Coke-blood pressure to the kind of heart pounding associated with 500-yard dashes.  My throat seized, the knees locked.  For a moment, I thought about following this poser into the library and getting her number.  Fortunately, my identity was still lost in my bag.

There’s an App For That

I’ve been dating a lot lately—people named McLuhan, Heidegger, Plato—your standard theorist babes.  This is not to say these past five months have been all books and Neo-Marxist poses.  I’ve managed to have some hilarious luck with the ladies.

Let’s start with Scarlet, as I’ve been keeping you in suspense.  I needed some distance from this one before I could find the funny in it, although I’m sure you’ll enjoy it right away.  She invited me to a wine and cheese party at a friend’s house on the Upper East Side.  Clad in her usual hoodie and jeans, she still looked every bit the movie star, sans make up, sans stupidity and full of the best smile I’ve seen in NYC.

We chatted; we mingled; we ate a lot of brie.  Then, she suggested, quite randomly, that we both text our mutual friend back West at the same time (on our respective phones).  It was silly fun at first.  Our friend’s witty banter encouraged flirtatious glances.  Nevermind the fact Scarlet had also shown me a pic of the gal she liked on Match.com at the start of the party (hint, hint).  Surely by now, over the glow of her damn iPhone, she knew the wonder of the petite Camembert standing before her.

Emboldened, I texted my friend: (blah, blah blah…etc.) “I’m thinking about kissing Scarlet tonight.  Thoughts?”  Seconds later Scarlet looks up from that wretched mobile device and says, wait for it… I think you meant to send this to Jeanette?  Cue slow motion movie frame as I lunged across the room, snatching her phone from her hands.  “Nooooooooooo.”

Scarlet swore she had only read the blah, blah blah, part and looked sincerely puzzled as I frantically repeated, “How do you delete on this damn iPhone?”  She texted Jeanette, prying for information.  J. texted me in disbelief: “Smooth move” was my reward—sparing me roughly 150 characters of further mockery.

Now in Hollywood, this would be the story we’d tell people at our New York State condoned wedding.  Brooklyn is less kind.  She’s still dating that Match.com girl.  The kicker? (Wait, how could this possibly get worse?) That girl knows someone who knows someone who knows me–and now we get to talk about the connection.  I thought New York would be a bigger pond.  Turns out, it is the same pond and I’m the same idiot running on ice.

You’re grasping for a bright side, right?  Well, I can tell you that Scarlet has become a good friend to me (and not on Facebook or places where she might find this, but see pond—it will happen).  I’m okay with that.  And I can tell you my next tale of dating woe is almost as funny.

Cool On Your Island

So I went on my first date in New York City.  Or was it a date?  Time-out called on the playing field: when did “hanging out” replace good old-fashioned dating?  I’ve learned the hard way though that in the aughts, one ought to maintain a sense of mystery at first.  Consequently, I’ve “hung out” with a lot of women.

We met at the Cubby Hole, a familiar bar in Greenwich Village.  She’s a friend of a friend, and also happens to be gay and single in Manhattan.  As I approached the location, I sent her a text: “this is the part where I realize I don’t know what you look like.”  As I sent up my flare on Verizon wings, I spotted a tall, slender blonde leaning up against the outdoor patio railing.  She was toting an iPhone, but I decided not to hold this against her, since she looked like Scarlet Johansen.  “Please let it be Scarlet, please let it be Scarlet,” I thought to myself.  My cosmic Magic 8 Ball read: Outlook Good.

Scarlet and I bar hopped, fitting in a trip to the famous Stonewall Inn, considered the birthplace of the gay rights movement.  We walked a lot–that damn iPhone GPS really showed us a good time. I explained I used to work on behalf of that other computer company.  Scarlet didn’t seem to mind.  She even let me talk her into a cupcake at Magnolia Bakery when we just happened to walk by it (without Steve Jobs telling us where it was.)

I made pathetic attempts at flirting throughout the evening.  During the late night stroll to the subway stops, I convinced myself she wasn’t interested.  Then, in the glow of the Metro light, she said she had a really fun time and suggested we see each other again this coming Saturday night.  I smiled and descended down the stairs, Brooklyn bound.  Now that sounds like a date.

Shalom, baby.

“Papa can you hear me?”  (Sing along now, kids.)  Oh, Babs, I hear you all too well.

Perhaps my time as a tot learning the Hebrew alphabet while my mother converted (briefly) to Judaism begins to explain my fondness for Jewish girls.  Maybe I saw Fiddler too many times.  Perhaps I ate one too many bagels.  Regardless, I say, “L’chei-im!” for giving me the joy of dating not one, but two Jewish girls, both coincidentally Stanford doctoral students.  My type, it turns out, is ridiculously specific.

Stanford intellectuals aside, my unrealized crushes on Jewish lesbians are many and memorable.  Years ago, I went to a gay potluck in Portland with one of my best friends, a definite Miranda.  We walk in and I’m immediately caught in some sort of Yiddish tractor beam when I spy this beautiful woman with long curly dark hair.  We end up going on one date.  Turns out, she did not have a thing for moderate, capitalist, meat eating Irish Cubans.  My friend Miranda though, I even met her through J Date—an online dating service for Jews.

Yes, I checked the Gentile box.  I was completely transparent, much like my skin.  Miranda is the best $60. I ever spent online, and she says I’m her best $30 because she was smart enough to end the subscription on time.  We decided from the start we’d be better off as friends, yet she was very kind to meet with me in the first place.  Yenta probably would not approve of a Shiksa like me trolling the online synagogue.  Then again, Portland is not known for diversity of any kind (not counting tree huggers).

This leads me to my current euphoric state.  I have found the mother ship in a place they call “Dyke Slope,” Brooklyn.  I was almost run over by a Mitzvah Tank near my neighborhood.  I haven’t been this excited since Miranda and I stumbled into the middle of a lesbian rugby league pub-crawl in San Francisco.  For example, this week while perusing the grad week welcome activities at NYU, I saw a Jewish GBLT Walking Tour listed.  I squealed and spun around in my Ikea chair, but then remembered…I’m not Jewish. Unlike Portland groups, this branch of the tribe might not let the pasty freckled kid join in their wanton games of spin the dreidel.  Perhaps I should stick to the “opt in” activities, so as not to offend anyone.  Better yet, maybe I could find a blog called Chasing Caitlin Ramirez, date the author (I’m her fantasy!), and drink Manischewitz on occasion.

No Men or Manolos

I aspire to become the lesbian Carrie Bradshaw.  In fact, the “Which Sex in the City Character Are You?” quiz put me squarely in Carrie’s court, despite my conviction that I was a total Miranda.  We all know those online quizzes are deadly accurate.  Since I just moved to New York two weeks ago, my goal should be more easily attainable, since the city of giant fruit lore also doubles as a character in the show.

I commute into the city from Brooklyn for grad school.  My continuing education was inevitable.  NYC, however, was far from where I pictured myself.  Let’s just say I didn’t have the guts, until I met a small town girl who also went to school here.  She survived; I figured I could do it, too.  Okay, okay, I essentially moved here because of a girl, but not for a girl, which is an important distinction for a 35 year-old late dyke bloomer who is perpetually besotted.  I had to look up besotted in the dictionary when my friend Bob (short for Roberta) first described me this way.  Basically, I’m in love with being in love.  Trust me, it fits.

This is not to say I fall in love frequently, or that my affections are vague.  Since I came out at age 28, I’ve had two long-term relationships with Gwen and Sylvia.  I certainly loved them, but when Bob says besotted, she’s talking about the gut wrenching stuff of unrequited love, or love that was once returned, but was quickly removed.  I’ve had a heaping helping of that over the past three years.  I am seldom the remover.  In fact, I tend to sink my teeth in like Tyson.  This brand of love is much more interesting due to the high, almost comical, pain content.  People enjoy pain and sex (insert link for the Hills), sometimes together, although if you’re looking for that kind of blog, please find a Samantha.

Yes, love’s had me on the ropes, gasping from the blows of too many questions.  Is it really you and not me?  Will a fresh start restore Cupid’s uppercut? Will I find my Jessica Stein?  Will you follow all my random references?  For the uninitiated, Kissing Jessica Stein is a movie about the journey of a straight woman in NY who unexpectedly falls in love with another woman.  I hated it at first because-!spoiler alert!- she goes back to men.  My baby dyke, second-wave feminist ethos did not jive with the bland Hollywood plot twist.

Ironically, something about five years in Portland, Oregon has mellowed me out though.  Upon second viewing this year, I actually enjoyed the film. I decided to make it the titular reference to my blog (look at me and my titular references, next thing you know I’ll bust out with something eponymous and then I’ll really be a grad student) because I’m a pop culture fan, and let’s just say I have a type.  Ping-in next time for more on that.