Tonight will more than likely be spent in the library. At least until it closes at 8pm. That would be an embarrassing admission, if I weren't looking forward to it. Class was canceled again on Tuesday thanks to the snow, but Dr. Foster still sent out an assignment (I may have e-mailed him asking what work could be done to stay on track for next week but I could not have been the only person and he'd probably would have assigned something regardless...don't start with me.)
I'm not entirely sure I like "The Secret Sharer". Either it's exceedingly obvious so we can use it to dip our toes into lit crit, or I missed something. My fear is the latter. Throughout the short story, the unnamed narrator refers to the man who climbs aboard his ship in the middle of the night as his double. His secret self. Occasionally, his other. Never once uses the man's name and despite knowing nothing about him apart from his amphibious aptitude and the reason he left his own ship (he killed a man) he takes him in, hides him away from the rest of the crew and risks their lives and the ship to insure that Leggatt can make an anonymous get away from the ship. There has to be something more to it than the obvious (literal, really) twinning Conrad's doing. There just has to be. It's short, I'll read it again.
First assignments, while I always look forward to them, are unnerving when prepared for someone I've never met. I always wonder if this is the time they'll finally figure out I have no earthly idea what I'm talking about. It's times like this that I really worry that Radford was too easy and has not prepared me at all for the work I'm about to encounter.
I really want to be good at this school thing. I really like it. I'm just a little afraid I've been operating under a false impression of myself. I don't like short stories whose apparent obvious makes me second-guess my ability. I don't like them at all.
At least I recognize the names of the critics in this edition, that has to count for something.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
January Evaluation: 4.5 out of 13
Instead of waiting until the end of the year to look over my failings and because I am nothing but a perpetual list-maker, I've decided to reexamine my goals for the year on a month-to-month basis and modify them as needed:
1. Institute actual workout regime.
I have a pattern and I tend to work from the top of my head down, does this count?
2. Write more.
This morning on the metro, I wrote a poem about scraping ice off the car. Let's see now much I can kill it between the mokeskine and the computer. In an effort to have something to read for Dave's open mic (at which I ultimately failed) I undid a few poems left from Lou's classes. I've been trying to de-Lou my work now that I have seen a disturbing pattern emerge in the stuff I did as an undergrad. More on that later.
3. Become the kind of woman who can pull off red lipstick and Chanel No.5 without seeming like a possibly trashy septuagenarian.
Sephora was out of Chanel No. 5. I bought Chance instead. Still Chanel, still classy. Scrapped the red lipstick thing. My eyes are more interesting than my mouth. I'll focus on them.
4. Be irrepressibly scholarly.
My Friday night plans this week involve the MLA Literary Research Guide and a stint in Fenwick Library. Despite Mason closing on account of snow and canceling my second class in a row (we still have not actually met yet), the professor did send out our first problem set and ask that we read "The Secret Sharer" and Death and the King's Horseman (which I can't manage to finish and highly recommend, respectively). I think I'm going to spend a good deal of time this semester talking about the Other. I guess it's good I paid attention that day in Lit Crit...now let's just hope the prof. doesn't bring up Bakhtin.
5. Only buy clothing that makes me want to dance. So far, so good. Clearing out my closet also helps. Although, I have noticed that I'm pretty much left with shades of green, purple, and black. I'm going to call this a style, not a rut.
6. Travel abroad at least once. This, I think, will be the thing that doesn't get done.
7. Do well at Mason.
I'll let you know if we ever have class.
8. Save money for a spiffy new computer.
Must fill out FAFSA.
9. Develop charming idiosyncrasies that amuse people at parties.
As this requires going to parties, I have no idea if and when I will accomplish it.
10. Generally carry myself like a brave, little toaster.
I will also let you know if this ever happens.
11. Find the perfect little black dress. I do not own a little (or big for that matter) black dress. This is a travesty and must be remedied.
I have not actively looked.
12. Get organized. My bookshelf is in disarray and my closet is full of clothing that goes unworn. It's giving me hives.
Bookshelf is still a wreak (and I am pretty sure it ate my C.K. Williams and Andrew Hudgins.) But as noted above, the closet is in working order for the moment. Now if only I could find a place for all my shoes.
13. Be admired from afar .
I'm giving up on this. There is really no way to know if you're being admired from afar unless you receive repeated Missed Connections on Craigslist that you can verify are you and not just another nondescript brown-haired girl on the Metro in a black coat (it's a town full of black coats). Really, what I meant to say is that I'd like to avoid an actual relationship for the time being as they only end in disappointment. However, I could easily be convinced to make out with thoroughly inappropriate, albeit irrepressibly handsome, men if given the option. This will be the first Valentine's Day since I was 16 that I will not have a built-in date. And while the prospect of spending it alone in my room with my Netflix queue is not especially comforting, I've decided it's better than being in a relationship. Also, I don't think I want to go to Kim and Vince's party. I like them, but that place is loaded with bad vibes now. I'll go back later. After I have accomplished my new goal.
1. Institute actual workout regime.
I have a pattern and I tend to work from the top of my head down, does this count?
2. Write more.
This morning on the metro, I wrote a poem about scraping ice off the car. Let's see now much I can kill it between the mokeskine and the computer. In an effort to have something to read for Dave's open mic (at which I ultimately failed) I undid a few poems left from Lou's classes. I've been trying to de-Lou my work now that I have seen a disturbing pattern emerge in the stuff I did as an undergrad. More on that later.
3. Become the kind of woman who can pull off red lipstick and Chanel No.5 without seeming like a possibly trashy septuagenarian.
Sephora was out of Chanel No. 5. I bought Chance instead. Still Chanel, still classy. Scrapped the red lipstick thing. My eyes are more interesting than my mouth. I'll focus on them.
4. Be irrepressibly scholarly.
My Friday night plans this week involve the MLA Literary Research Guide and a stint in Fenwick Library. Despite Mason closing on account of snow and canceling my second class in a row (we still have not actually met yet), the professor did send out our first problem set and ask that we read "The Secret Sharer" and Death and the King's Horseman (which I can't manage to finish and highly recommend, respectively). I think I'm going to spend a good deal of time this semester talking about the Other. I guess it's good I paid attention that day in Lit Crit...now let's just hope the prof. doesn't bring up Bakhtin.
5. Only buy clothing that makes me want to dance. So far, so good. Clearing out my closet also helps. Although, I have noticed that I'm pretty much left with shades of green, purple, and black. I'm going to call this a style, not a rut.
6. Travel abroad at least once. This, I think, will be the thing that doesn't get done.
7. Do well at Mason.
I'll let you know if we ever have class.
8. Save money for a spiffy new computer.
Must fill out FAFSA.
9. Develop charming idiosyncrasies that amuse people at parties.
As this requires going to parties, I have no idea if and when I will accomplish it.
10. Generally carry myself like a brave, little toaster.
I will also let you know if this ever happens.
11. Find the perfect little black dress. I do not own a little (or big for that matter) black dress. This is a travesty and must be remedied.
I have not actively looked.
12. Get organized. My bookshelf is in disarray and my closet is full of clothing that goes unworn. It's giving me hives.
Bookshelf is still a wreak (and I am pretty sure it ate my C.K. Williams and Andrew Hudgins.) But as noted above, the closet is in working order for the moment. Now if only I could find a place for all my shoes.
13. Be admired from afar .
I'm giving up on this. There is really no way to know if you're being admired from afar unless you receive repeated Missed Connections on Craigslist that you can verify are you and not just another nondescript brown-haired girl on the Metro in a black coat (it's a town full of black coats). Really, what I meant to say is that I'd like to avoid an actual relationship for the time being as they only end in disappointment. However, I could easily be convinced to make out with thoroughly inappropriate, albeit irrepressibly handsome, men if given the option. This will be the first Valentine's Day since I was 16 that I will not have a built-in date. And while the prospect of spending it alone in my room with my Netflix queue is not especially comforting, I've decided it's better than being in a relationship. Also, I don't think I want to go to Kim and Vince's party. I like them, but that place is loaded with bad vibes now. I'll go back later. After I have accomplished my new goal.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Meredith models her life after Amy Vanderbilt's New Complete Book of Etiquette
While in Radford this weekend, I found possibly the single greatest thing ever lying on a table in Dave's apartment and have decided that '09 will be the year I finally learn how to behave like a lady.
1. Never assume that an awkward child just lacks social graces acquired by their peers. It is entirely possible that he or she is suffering from some disease that makes them knock over dinner glasses. Always check for the measles.
2. From now on, I will never frequent the local bars and nightclubs (or those in other locales, if I am traveling) unescorted. If I absolutely must go out without a fellow, I will inform the staff in advance to see if arrangements can be made so that I may take in a show without causing undue embarrassment to myself or the nightclub. I can always join a touring group of other ladies if so accommodations can be made.
3. in an effort to avoid any undue stress, I will not invite ladies to parties unless I can be assured they can secure men for the evening. "Sad, indeed, is the lone woman who stays at a cocktail party to the bitter end, hoping some interesting man will turn up, only to depart well past the dinner hour obviously dateless." From now on, like dip, I will make sure there is an ample supply of men at any function I host. In the interest of full disclosure, I no longer expect to be invited to parties, cocktail or otherwise.
4. I will not steal the hats of sailors unless I expect to land squarely on first base after having paid for dinner and some extra buttons.
5. If a neighborhood dog snaps at my child (if I am ever to have one, see number 3), the onus is on the child.
6. I must immediately secure a social secretary and at least one servant.
7. Learn how to make Squab Chicken Alexandra and Schecken.
8. Learn how to make an expert martini as "nothing is so horrid as a martini with too much vermouth."
9. During a menstrual cycle I should clean (but not in such a way that irritates my eventual husband...best not to be seen) or retire to my personal chambers until "the weeps" have passed and I am once again human.
10. I should make myself an attractive roommate to men, not a banshee. That means dainty, feminine nightgowns. No lipstick to bed though, think of the sheets.
1. Never assume that an awkward child just lacks social graces acquired by their peers. It is entirely possible that he or she is suffering from some disease that makes them knock over dinner glasses. Always check for the measles.
2. From now on, I will never frequent the local bars and nightclubs (or those in other locales, if I am traveling) unescorted. If I absolutely must go out without a fellow, I will inform the staff in advance to see if arrangements can be made so that I may take in a show without causing undue embarrassment to myself or the nightclub. I can always join a touring group of other ladies if so accommodations can be made.
3. in an effort to avoid any undue stress, I will not invite ladies to parties unless I can be assured they can secure men for the evening. "Sad, indeed, is the lone woman who stays at a cocktail party to the bitter end, hoping some interesting man will turn up, only to depart well past the dinner hour obviously dateless." From now on, like dip, I will make sure there is an ample supply of men at any function I host. In the interest of full disclosure, I no longer expect to be invited to parties, cocktail or otherwise.
4. I will not steal the hats of sailors unless I expect to land squarely on first base after having paid for dinner and some extra buttons.
5. If a neighborhood dog snaps at my child (if I am ever to have one, see number 3), the onus is on the child.
6. I must immediately secure a social secretary and at least one servant.
7. Learn how to make Squab Chicken Alexandra and Schecken.
8. Learn how to make an expert martini as "nothing is so horrid as a martini with too much vermouth."
9. During a menstrual cycle I should clean (but not in such a way that irritates my eventual husband...best not to be seen) or retire to my personal chambers until "the weeps" have passed and I am once again human.
10. I should make myself an attractive roommate to men, not a banshee. That means dainty, feminine nightgowns. No lipstick to bed though, think of the sheets.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Meredith encounters her worst nightmare outside the State Department...
Just before getting into work this morning, I saw two tourists (still? Show's over, please go home. You frustrate my morning travel routine and Springsteen is probably already back in Jersey), a man and a woman, wearing matching taupe puffer jackets. Last Friday, when my friend asked me why I didn't want to get married, I gave him vague answers about wanting to retain my identity. I had no concrete reasoning. Now I do.
When Zach and I were infants and mom decided it would be a great idea to dress us in matching sailor suits for a portrait at Olan Mills, we had no choice. Although, I think my permanently stuck out tongue and his actively rolling off the platform and requiring head stitches were forms of formal protest. We, despite sharing nine months in the same womb and having similar tendencies and tastes, have not had matching outfits since we could speak.
"Individual identity? I don't need that, I have this thoroughly unflattering coat that is far too masculine for me and verging on effeminate for my husband. Our Name is Stevinda."
This is why I have a dog, 54 pairs of shoes, and no boyfriend.
When Zach and I were infants and mom decided it would be a great idea to dress us in matching sailor suits for a portrait at Olan Mills, we had no choice. Although, I think my permanently stuck out tongue and his actively rolling off the platform and requiring head stitches were forms of formal protest. We, despite sharing nine months in the same womb and having similar tendencies and tastes, have not had matching outfits since we could speak.
"Individual identity? I don't need that, I have this thoroughly unflattering coat that is far too masculine for me and verging on effeminate for my husband. Our Name is Stevinda."
This is why I have a dog, 54 pairs of shoes, and no boyfriend.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Which Dashboard Confessional lyric best encapsulates my mood...
This weekend, in between contemplating the Inauguration, cleaning out my closet (seriously, 13 pairs of jeans? How did I find space for all of them?), staring blankly at Microsoft Word, making mix cds, buying textbooks (I'm talking 'bout you, Wole Solyinka), tallying up my shoes (54 pairs) and watching old episodes of the West Wing, I flipped through my high school diary. Most of it is crap but this was vaguely amusing:
I started to play a game at lunch with Eric today, we tried to figure out how famous writers would have sex based on their writing styles...
*Hemingway's done before you get started. [I suppose this was based on his terse sentence structure. I don't recall]
*Dostoyevsky would give you VD. [I also don't recall how we determined this, but I suppose it's all that time in the Underground?]
*Tolkien would want to role play.
*Poe would want to tie you up.
*Shakespeare would be the most romantic lover ever...until you realize he was just lying to get you into bed, but boy does he have rhythm.
*Salinger would accuse you of faking.
*Plath would want to call you Daddy.
*Dickens would repeat the same move so many times you'd start to fall asleep.
*Camus would only get it up when the mood strikes him and if he does there's no guarantee he'll finish.
*Kafka doesn't know what he's doing, no one's told him.
This is apparently what I did with my time (you know, for all this reading, I sure as fuck didn't study.) On Friday, I met up with a friend from high school for a few drinks. It was a thoroughly enjoyably trek down memory lane (apart from recalling all of the horrible things I did to him when we briefly dated.) The thing about old friends is how they, without effort, throw your life into stark contrast. Granted, looking over this diary, I was kind of a miserable shit. Petulant, self-absorbed, self-righteous. I was also in high school and I suppose we're all infallible in high school. I guess I had convictions, though somewhat misguided. Communism doesn't especially work in a free-market society... Unless you choose to live on a commune. I've never really been good with yard work. I have turned off somewhat when it comes to political awareness. I've stopped telling people how they shoes are made by tiny Chinese children. Some of my favorite shoes are made by tiny Chinese children. I don't spend much time quote Chomsky and Zapata anymore and I threw out my Che Guevera shirts. But seriously, we made a cultural hero of Proletariat revolution into a commodity. Not exactly in keeping with the tenets of Communism, is it?
I think I've improved it a lot of ways. I didn't try in high school. At all. Once I got to Radford, I made a concerted effort to give a damn and found it relatively effortless. Not that school wasn't a challenge, but it wasn't difficult to want to keep going, even if the going was occasionally difficult. I liked Journalism because I thought it was important to disseminate information. But I didn't necessarily enjoy it. I enjoy literature. I like the look on someone's face when they read Prufrock out loud for the first time. I love the ah ha! moment when meaning in a novel, intended or otherwise, hits the reader. I sit at my computer starting a screen for hours waiting for the moment when I can't stop writing...even if it's shit.
I suppose I have changed. I've become someone I can stand to be around. It's just an added bonus that that person gets to wear cute shoes.
I started to play a game at lunch with Eric today, we tried to figure out how famous writers would have sex based on their writing styles...
*Hemingway's done before you get started. [I suppose this was based on his terse sentence structure. I don't recall]
*Dostoyevsky would give you VD. [I also don't recall how we determined this, but I suppose it's all that time in the Underground?]
*Tolkien would want to role play.
*Poe would want to tie you up.
*Shakespeare would be the most romantic lover ever...until you realize he was just lying to get you into bed, but boy does he have rhythm.
*Salinger would accuse you of faking.
*Plath would want to call you Daddy.
*Dickens would repeat the same move so many times you'd start to fall asleep.
*Camus would only get it up when the mood strikes him and if he does there's no guarantee he'll finish.
*Kafka doesn't know what he's doing, no one's told him.
This is apparently what I did with my time (you know, for all this reading, I sure as fuck didn't study.) On Friday, I met up with a friend from high school for a few drinks. It was a thoroughly enjoyably trek down memory lane (apart from recalling all of the horrible things I did to him when we briefly dated.) The thing about old friends is how they, without effort, throw your life into stark contrast. Granted, looking over this diary, I was kind of a miserable shit. Petulant, self-absorbed, self-righteous. I was also in high school and I suppose we're all infallible in high school. I guess I had convictions, though somewhat misguided. Communism doesn't especially work in a free-market society... Unless you choose to live on a commune. I've never really been good with yard work. I have turned off somewhat when it comes to political awareness. I've stopped telling people how they shoes are made by tiny Chinese children. Some of my favorite shoes are made by tiny Chinese children. I don't spend much time quote Chomsky and Zapata anymore and I threw out my Che Guevera shirts. But seriously, we made a cultural hero of Proletariat revolution into a commodity. Not exactly in keeping with the tenets of Communism, is it?
I think I've improved it a lot of ways. I didn't try in high school. At all. Once I got to Radford, I made a concerted effort to give a damn and found it relatively effortless. Not that school wasn't a challenge, but it wasn't difficult to want to keep going, even if the going was occasionally difficult. I liked Journalism because I thought it was important to disseminate information. But I didn't necessarily enjoy it. I enjoy literature. I like the look on someone's face when they read Prufrock out loud for the first time. I love the ah ha! moment when meaning in a novel, intended or otherwise, hits the reader. I sit at my computer starting a screen for hours waiting for the moment when I can't stop writing...even if it's shit.
I suppose I have changed. I've become someone I can stand to be around. It's just an added bonus that that person gets to wear cute shoes.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Wherein she realizes she can never go back to that DSW even though it has a clearly superior clearance section...
As of 9th grade, I'd never been kissed. Well, that isn't entirely true. At the 8th grade dance, Patrick Sanders (on whom I had an enormous crush and who, as it turned out, was fantastically gay) kissed me on the cheek at the end of the evening. That was it. I entered 9th grade with absolutely no experience when it came to the fellas. I had a working understanding of the male anatomy because of perfunctory sex-ed classes. Certainly no carnal knowledge.
I kept this a secret. One night, I slept over at a friend's house and in between late-night viewings of Cabaret and Evita (we were in theatre), the two other girls, both be-speckled, removed their glasses and had a contest to see how could fit the side piece furtherest down their throat. Noting that I was participating, they turned to me and asked how far I'd gotten. I was still trying to figure out the purpose of the contest and how it related to guys at all (my mother begrudgingly explained oral sex to me during the Barbara Walters/Monica Lewinsky interview after I asked if President Clinton was in trouble for talking dirty. Talking was the only "oral" with which I was familiar), and was not about to cough up the particulars.
I did get my kiss. Just not in the way I had anticipated. The production that Spring was The Merry Wives of Windsor and I played Rugby, a page to one of the play's various suitors (the details are fuzzy. It's one of Shakespeare's comedies. There's a buffoon, a pretty girl, some mistaken identity, a few jokes about the French and it ends with a wedding or two.) At the close of Friday's show, Jimmy Waters stuck his tongue down my throat after I said I'd go out with him. I had been expecting a longing gaze, Jim just led with his tongue. That isn't to say I didn't enjoy it. I'd just been waiting for a while and wanted to work my way up to choking on someone else's tongue.
Since that first kiss, the longest I have been without a boyfriend is six months. In eight years, I've had a boyfriend (four total, but two of them had made repeat appearances) for about six, give or take a month. I was in a relationship for two and half years, single for four months (wherein I had various dalliances we will not discuss), and then found myself in a relationship for the next three years. I don't even know how it happened. Other people, I am told, date for months. Not years.
It's been two months since Walt and I broke up. I miss the dalliances. It would be easier to say that no one has seemed interested in me. That isn't exactly the case. About three weeks after we broke up, I tagged along to a party with my brother and his friend Mark hit on me. Granted, I did not know that was his intention until after he stated it directly (albeit it sneakingly inserted into the end of an otherwise innocent questions). I thought we were just discussing Derrida and Ulysses. There's nothing wrong with Mark. Were he not two decades older than me and one of my brother's very good friends, I'd probably have gone for it. The newness of my break-up didn't help much either. Neither did the promise I had stupidly made to Walt that I would not start dating again until after he'd met someone new (I know, I know.) At least with Mark, there was hope.
Later, on my last night in San Francisco, a guy named Kenya (no, seriously. His name was Kenya) asked me out while I was waiting for my burger. Again, it started innocently enough. I figured he was just making conversation while we both waited for our food. I lied and told me I was meeting up with my boss for a drink and really couldn't flake on her. Today, while I was trying on shoes (a sacred and personal endeavor, during which one should not be bothered), I was asked out by a shoe salesman. He did not offer me a discount. He asked if I liked movies and if I lived in the area. Then he asked if I minded being friends with men. I told me yes on two counts and only if the men intended on remaining platonic. I have very little room in my life right now for messiness. Al (yes, a shoe salesman named Al) then asked if I had a boyfriend and I said I don't but didn't particularly want one right now as I had just ended a rather long-term relationship. He gave me his card regardless and told me he was very much like Professor Higgins in that he " was serenely independent and content before we met! Surely [he] could always be that way again." Yes, the professor Higgins of Pygmalion and My Fair Lady fame. I decided not to explain to him that I always thought Shaw was didactic without merit and it's a supreme joke that the Nobel committee honored him and not Joyce.
Can you veto someone because of a dead Irish playwright?
Haven't I earned a legitimate rebound? I haven't had one yet. Legitimate or otherwise. Instead, the universe has thrown me dud after dud. Mark probably wasn't a dud but it still didn't feel right. Kenya, was a good foot shorter than me and reminded me very much of Walt's old roommate, Paul. Al has no tangible chin and, in addition to quoting a musical when he asked me out, told me that he hated most people but that I seemed like I might be smart. Seemed, but he was not sold. Man, does he know how to man an offer a girl can easily refuse.
Granted, I suppose I can't actually have a rebound until I start meeting new people. The only two ways I'm about to have of meeting said new people are graduate school and the hip-hop dance class I'm trying out on Wednesday. They'll both probably be chock-ablock of ladies. Joy of joys. This isn't to say I don't like my people. I adore them. I just wish they would invite attractive, tall, eligible bachelors to parties so I can have my legitimate rebound and move on to the business of being alone for a good, long while.
Just a kiss or two from the lips of a determined man. Is that too much to ask?
I kept this a secret. One night, I slept over at a friend's house and in between late-night viewings of Cabaret and Evita (we were in theatre), the two other girls, both be-speckled, removed their glasses and had a contest to see how could fit the side piece furtherest down their throat. Noting that I was participating, they turned to me and asked how far I'd gotten. I was still trying to figure out the purpose of the contest and how it related to guys at all (my mother begrudgingly explained oral sex to me during the Barbara Walters/Monica Lewinsky interview after I asked if President Clinton was in trouble for talking dirty. Talking was the only "oral" with which I was familiar), and was not about to cough up the particulars.
I did get my kiss. Just not in the way I had anticipated. The production that Spring was The Merry Wives of Windsor and I played Rugby, a page to one of the play's various suitors (the details are fuzzy. It's one of Shakespeare's comedies. There's a buffoon, a pretty girl, some mistaken identity, a few jokes about the French and it ends with a wedding or two.) At the close of Friday's show, Jimmy Waters stuck his tongue down my throat after I said I'd go out with him. I had been expecting a longing gaze, Jim just led with his tongue. That isn't to say I didn't enjoy it. I'd just been waiting for a while and wanted to work my way up to choking on someone else's tongue.
Since that first kiss, the longest I have been without a boyfriend is six months. In eight years, I've had a boyfriend (four total, but two of them had made repeat appearances) for about six, give or take a month. I was in a relationship for two and half years, single for four months (wherein I had various dalliances we will not discuss), and then found myself in a relationship for the next three years. I don't even know how it happened. Other people, I am told, date for months. Not years.
It's been two months since Walt and I broke up. I miss the dalliances. It would be easier to say that no one has seemed interested in me. That isn't exactly the case. About three weeks after we broke up, I tagged along to a party with my brother and his friend Mark hit on me. Granted, I did not know that was his intention until after he stated it directly (albeit it sneakingly inserted into the end of an otherwise innocent questions). I thought we were just discussing Derrida and Ulysses. There's nothing wrong with Mark. Were he not two decades older than me and one of my brother's very good friends, I'd probably have gone for it. The newness of my break-up didn't help much either. Neither did the promise I had stupidly made to Walt that I would not start dating again until after he'd met someone new (I know, I know.) At least with Mark, there was hope.
Later, on my last night in San Francisco, a guy named Kenya (no, seriously. His name was Kenya) asked me out while I was waiting for my burger. Again, it started innocently enough. I figured he was just making conversation while we both waited for our food. I lied and told me I was meeting up with my boss for a drink and really couldn't flake on her. Today, while I was trying on shoes (a sacred and personal endeavor, during which one should not be bothered), I was asked out by a shoe salesman. He did not offer me a discount. He asked if I liked movies and if I lived in the area. Then he asked if I minded being friends with men. I told me yes on two counts and only if the men intended on remaining platonic. I have very little room in my life right now for messiness. Al (yes, a shoe salesman named Al) then asked if I had a boyfriend and I said I don't but didn't particularly want one right now as I had just ended a rather long-term relationship. He gave me his card regardless and told me he was very much like Professor Higgins in that he " was serenely independent and content before we met! Surely [he] could always be that way again." Yes, the professor Higgins of Pygmalion and My Fair Lady fame. I decided not to explain to him that I always thought Shaw was didactic without merit and it's a supreme joke that the Nobel committee honored him and not Joyce.
Can you veto someone because of a dead Irish playwright?
Haven't I earned a legitimate rebound? I haven't had one yet. Legitimate or otherwise. Instead, the universe has thrown me dud after dud. Mark probably wasn't a dud but it still didn't feel right. Kenya, was a good foot shorter than me and reminded me very much of Walt's old roommate, Paul. Al has no tangible chin and, in addition to quoting a musical when he asked me out, told me that he hated most people but that I seemed like I might be smart. Seemed, but he was not sold. Man, does he know how to man an offer a girl can easily refuse.
Granted, I suppose I can't actually have a rebound until I start meeting new people. The only two ways I'm about to have of meeting said new people are graduate school and the hip-hop dance class I'm trying out on Wednesday. They'll both probably be chock-ablock of ladies. Joy of joys. This isn't to say I don't like my people. I adore them. I just wish they would invite attractive, tall, eligible bachelors to parties so I can have my legitimate rebound and move on to the business of being alone for a good, long while.
Just a kiss or two from the lips of a determined man. Is that too much to ask?
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Do they call that irony or foreshadowing?
One time Jimmy and I were in the car in Blacksburg waiting for his brother to get off work and we got into a conversation wherein he told me that it was okay to smack a dog. That certain incidents warranted violence. I think that was about when I decided we weren't going to last much longer.
I have no moment like that to look back on now and think, "Ahh, yes. That was a warning I should have taken to heart." He never even hit a wall when we argued. There was never any indication that he'd take it there. Talking to Micah tonight ( I decided that my brothers should know what happened if only because I'd prefer they have no contact with him ever again and they should know why), he asked if there was any indication when we dated that this might happen and there never was. He said that he thinks the people who can hit a wall when they're mad enough, know not to hit people. That may be true. I have no idea, but then again, I only hit walls.
I suppose what bothers me, even more than anything else, is that he did it when my back was turned. He came up behind me, when I didn't even know he was in the room, didn't even know he was still at the party, and he knocked me over. He shoved me to try and get me to fall down. It would have been better if he'd punched me in the eye. At least then I'd have seen it coming. Instead, he was a coward. Apart from not hitting people (it doesn't even matter that I'm a woman and he's a man. At this point, that doesn't even matter.) A man stands up. If he's going to fight, he does so honorably. He doesn't run up behind someone, knock them over, and then run out of the room. I guess what's most upsetting is finding out how alien this person I thought I knew better than anyone in the world really is. I have no idea who he is or ever was (if this is what he was always capable of.)
There was a moment, when we first spoke that night that I thought, "you know, this isn't so awkward and we can just be friends eventually, if not soon." Not now. He wanted us to be friends. He demanded that I talk and let him see Bagel. He wanted my advice and asked if I could look around for girls who might like him. I would've. I mean the talking and the listening and maybe even the girl-finding. I was not, for reasons that (at the time, now so much now) passed understanding, comfortable with him hanging out with Bagel. Do they call that irony or foreshadowing? None of that's going to happen now. So far, I've been pretty clear that the ending was a 50/50 deal. Yes I walked out, but it was because we wanted different things. He was not inherently bad, he was even good. I just knew that I had to get out before we got any closer to permanent changes. He's killed all those warm, even affectionate feelings. He ruined everything in a split-second. Any hope for a new, different relationship. Any possible chance that we could be friends, even good friends. That's all dead and he killed it. Now he's dead too.
I hope, if I ever see him again, he isn't offended if my face loses all color and I run in the other direction. It's just how I assume I'd behave if I ever saw a ghost.
I have no moment like that to look back on now and think, "Ahh, yes. That was a warning I should have taken to heart." He never even hit a wall when we argued. There was never any indication that he'd take it there. Talking to Micah tonight ( I decided that my brothers should know what happened if only because I'd prefer they have no contact with him ever again and they should know why), he asked if there was any indication when we dated that this might happen and there never was. He said that he thinks the people who can hit a wall when they're mad enough, know not to hit people. That may be true. I have no idea, but then again, I only hit walls.
I suppose what bothers me, even more than anything else, is that he did it when my back was turned. He came up behind me, when I didn't even know he was in the room, didn't even know he was still at the party, and he knocked me over. He shoved me to try and get me to fall down. It would have been better if he'd punched me in the eye. At least then I'd have seen it coming. Instead, he was a coward. Apart from not hitting people (it doesn't even matter that I'm a woman and he's a man. At this point, that doesn't even matter.) A man stands up. If he's going to fight, he does so honorably. He doesn't run up behind someone, knock them over, and then run out of the room. I guess what's most upsetting is finding out how alien this person I thought I knew better than anyone in the world really is. I have no idea who he is or ever was (if this is what he was always capable of.)
There was a moment, when we first spoke that night that I thought, "you know, this isn't so awkward and we can just be friends eventually, if not soon." Not now. He wanted us to be friends. He demanded that I talk and let him see Bagel. He wanted my advice and asked if I could look around for girls who might like him. I would've. I mean the talking and the listening and maybe even the girl-finding. I was not, for reasons that (at the time, now so much now) passed understanding, comfortable with him hanging out with Bagel. Do they call that irony or foreshadowing? None of that's going to happen now. So far, I've been pretty clear that the ending was a 50/50 deal. Yes I walked out, but it was because we wanted different things. He was not inherently bad, he was even good. I just knew that I had to get out before we got any closer to permanent changes. He's killed all those warm, even affectionate feelings. He ruined everything in a split-second. Any hope for a new, different relationship. Any possible chance that we could be friends, even good friends. That's all dead and he killed it. Now he's dead too.
I hope, if I ever see him again, he isn't offended if my face loses all color and I run in the other direction. It's just how I assume I'd behave if I ever saw a ghost.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Resolutions, '09 Edition: Things at which I will inevitably fail
I don't recall the last time I had a list of concrete new year's resolutions (that I was not required to create in class. It's been a long, long time.) So in no particular order (and ranging from the practical to the sublime and possibly ridiculous):
THINGS I WILL FORGET TO DO BY MID-FEBRUARY:
1. Institute actual workout regime.
I go to the gym, run a little, stretch, dick around on machines and then leave. Yes I have lost some weight and toned up some but I've no earthly idea what I'm doing. This also may include taking a couple dance classes.
2. Write more. I'm legitimately worried that I've become the woman in Raymond Chandler's "Cathedral" who only sits down to write a poem every two or three years when shit gets inexplicably real. I have both a copy of the 2009 Poet's Market and a Magnetic Poetry calender. Also two Moleskines and a pen at the ready. And shit has recently become increasingly tangible. I have no substantive excuse.
3. Become the kind of woman who can pull off red lipstick and Chanel No.5 without seeming like a possibly trashy septuagenarian.
4. Be irrepressibly scholarly. I'd like to be able to discuss the post-structuralists on a substantive level (not just ending a pithy comments about what deconstruction isn't.)
5. Only buy clothing that makes me want to dance. This applies to gym clothes, fun clothes, going out clothes, ladies nights regalia, work attire, shoes, etc., etc., etc... This will cut down on the money I actually spend on clothing and hopefully also eliminate last minute wardrobe disasters.
6. Travel abroad at least once. I have a passport that is stampless and pathetic. It could do with some sprucing up.
7. Do well at Mason.
8. Save money for a spiffy new computer.
9. Develop charming idiosyncrasies that amuse people at parties.
10. Generally carry myself like a brave, little toaster.
11. Find the perfect little black dress. I do not own a little (or big for that matter) black dress. This is a travesty and must be remedied.
12. Get organized. My bookshelf is in disarray and my closet is full of clothing that goes unworn. It's giving me hives.
13. Be admired from afar (this does not preclude the possibility of affairs with solvent but lonely gentleman who love me for my mind and lavish me with fancy shoes and Amethyst rings). I have too much stuff on this list (and far too much ambition) to worry about menfolk.
THINGS I WILL FORGET TO DO BY MID-FEBRUARY:
1. Institute actual workout regime.
I go to the gym, run a little, stretch, dick around on machines and then leave. Yes I have lost some weight and toned up some but I've no earthly idea what I'm doing. This also may include taking a couple dance classes.
2. Write more. I'm legitimately worried that I've become the woman in Raymond Chandler's "Cathedral" who only sits down to write a poem every two or three years when shit gets inexplicably real. I have both a copy of the 2009 Poet's Market and a Magnetic Poetry calender. Also two Moleskines and a pen at the ready. And shit has recently become increasingly tangible. I have no substantive excuse.
3. Become the kind of woman who can pull off red lipstick and Chanel No.5 without seeming like a possibly trashy septuagenarian.
4. Be irrepressibly scholarly. I'd like to be able to discuss the post-structuralists on a substantive level (not just ending a pithy comments about what deconstruction isn't.)
5. Only buy clothing that makes me want to dance. This applies to gym clothes, fun clothes, going out clothes, ladies nights regalia, work attire, shoes, etc., etc., etc... This will cut down on the money I actually spend on clothing and hopefully also eliminate last minute wardrobe disasters.
6. Travel abroad at least once. I have a passport that is stampless and pathetic. It could do with some sprucing up.
7. Do well at Mason.
8. Save money for a spiffy new computer.
9. Develop charming idiosyncrasies that amuse people at parties.
10. Generally carry myself like a brave, little toaster.
11. Find the perfect little black dress. I do not own a little (or big for that matter) black dress. This is a travesty and must be remedied.
12. Get organized. My bookshelf is in disarray and my closet is full of clothing that goes unworn. It's giving me hives.
13. Be admired from afar (this does not preclude the possibility of affairs with solvent but lonely gentleman who love me for my mind and lavish me with fancy shoes and Amethyst rings). I have too much stuff on this list (and far too much ambition) to worry about menfolk.
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