on the playground

Spending a Sunday night with someone you secretly long for is worse than spending a Sunday night alone. Why? Because there's nothing I can say or do short of removing my sweater and asking him to partake that really seems worth the risk of humiliation. Sigh. Crushes - they're the worst.

The last time I felt this way, I was nine-years-old. Right before the bell for recess would ring, I'd instinctively pull out my strawberry-flavored Lip Smackers and lather up, somehow thinking fruit-scented lips would win him over. This is how I know I have a crush - I'm doing it again. Only now it's high-shine pink Nars lipgloss ironically titled "orgasm."

It's about time. I don't really remember the last time I got nervous around anyone. That's not to say I haven't been interested in the past few men I've dated, only that the way things developed never included me crushing of my own volition. And they certainly never included me giggling at non-jokes or saying things that make no sense because of an inexplicable onset of stuttering. Damn though - I like it.

Anyway, I'm not exactly at my figurative knees, hence the need to call it a crush. I'm not in love with the dude, nor have I developed any sort of adult relationshipy feelings. It's just a warm, silly, I-kinda-wanna-cuddle-with-you-when-I-look-at-your-face sort of feeling that I'm likely going to have to quit in about a week when I realize he's never going to do anything. Until then, I'm okay with the idea of him, randomly making me smile when I'm trying to grant my unfortunate clients asylum.

Omg. I almost touched his arm.

Who am I kidding? I’m kept.

inaction --> reaction

is it just me, or do i provoke the strangest behavior in men?

cobwebs

there is a spider lingering on my ceiling directly above my desk. the men of my house are all asleep or out. at this EXACT and only moment, i wish i had a man: they are so useful...

for getting spiders.

virtual reality

a few days ago, i received the scariest facebook message of my life - it was a marriage proposal. not like marriage totally and completely freaks me out, but it does when the proposal is over 4 pages long, sent from a guy i've never met, and includes a request to fly out to a remote island and get married. the end result, as he suggested, included living with his parents, sex at least 4 times a week, and many many children.

while devoting my life to this obvious winner sounded like a dream come true, i made the ever-so-difficult decision (no, not really) to report him to the facebook police and block him for eternity, which is ironic given that he's apparently some kind of policeman in his respective city. and did i mention he hates gays? yeah, i know - we're totally compatible. and while i half joke about it, the other half of me is honestly freaked out that real-life borat here is already looking for me, google-ing my name away and making love to my facebook picture. thank god he so wisely mentioned that he's got no money - i don't think he'll be showing up at my manhattan office just yet. goddamn gold diggers.

the bigger question here is how much of this shit i'm supposed to put up with. this is not the first and only creepy request i've ever gotten. last week i got a message from some dude who told me i was "blooming like a flower" and "looked real fresh." then he advised me not to lie, to stick with my hobbies, and ended his message by asking me "can i kiss you goodnight?" no fucker. you can't. block block permablock. what the f?! who are you people?!

now i recognize people are lonely - everyone needs friends. and for those people who are new to a city and looking for something to do, i get it. resorting to facebook out of desperation is still something i'm willing to understand. but how out of touch with reality do you have to be to think that i am going to want a scary stalker? it's facebook, not letshavesex.com or a mail-order bride website. WRONG VENUE, crazy.

but let's keep it real - crazy comes in all forms. you don't have to just send creepy messages. no, some guys just add random women as friends. now, correct me if i'm wrong, but when i was growing up, i wasn't friends with someone until i actually had an interaction with them, so when i get an email from mark zuckerberg asking me to confirm that i am, in fact, friends with *insert i-don't-know-who-the-hell-you-are*, don't be surprised when i deny you, loser. and for every long-lost chum who reaches out to me on facebook (hi. hello. in all seriousness, it's nice to hear from you!), there's a guy who made fun of me on a weekly basis through the whole of sixth grade but now wants to be my friend; or the crazy person who was fun in college but is now kind of sad; or the nagging unfortunate acquaintance who i'd cross the street to avoid but who now wants to know, "am i your friend?" yes or no, this instant, please.

all-in-all, i love facebook. i'm a lawyer - i have to. i spend hours in front of the 'puter writing briefs and memos and shit that only judges and academics read. as a remedy, facebook provides hours of entertainment, and quite frankly, does a damn good job of keeping me connected to and updated on my friends and yes, even acquaintances. but that's it. in this respect, i remain a conventionalist.

sorry, weirdos. but if i want a kiss goodnight, it ain't that hard to find one in real life.

check, please.

a PSA

Dear dudes,

Hi! I realize that it can be difficult to maneuver through this world with those things dangling between your legs. I can only imagine the pain & agony that they cause you. I definitely wouldn't want to be in your shoes, but may I make a small, teeny tiny suggestion? When you're in public, please refrain from touching yourself every 30 seconds. I know I know! You've got adjustments to make & whatnot but come on. Must you do it continuously? If you've got the itchies down there then I suggest a nice powder of some sort, or check with your doctor to see if you've got the latest creepy crawly going around and see if it's crawling around on your balls. Just do us all a favor and stop grabbing yourself. It's in poor taste and to be honest it creeps me the fuck out.

Now I know that some people just have a tick of some sorts. Some people blink a lot while others might bark at total strangers. Hey - whatever floats your boat, man! But it may be considered "bad taste" to sit in an office and grab at your genitals every 45 seconds or so and then try to shake my hand afterwards. Not cool, dude. Because after I sat there and watched you touch yourself numerous times, the last thing I really feel like doing is shaking your hand. You can just keep that hand to yourself as well as whatever the hell it is that is crawling around your nuts.

Thanks so much.

Love always,

Av

hey baby

so i've been sporadically talking to the guy that asked me out last week. today, he left me the greatest pick-up line message i have ever heard in the history-of-the-world-since-time-began-ever. he said:

excuse me, but are you the square root of 2, because i feel irrational when i'm around you. call me, baby.

then i heard his roommate laugh in the background before he hung up. i nearly fell off the couch right before i saved the message. gosh i love a silly man.

nope. still not dating.

off the meat market

last night i got a call from a guy i met when i was out this weekend - a nice, good-looking, smart, seemingly normal male. after about 10 minutes of conversation he asked if i wanted to get dinner, followed by a "and yeah. i'm asking you on a date." i laughed. apparently, he's funny too.

believe me, even i was suprised at my own response when i turned him down. "really?" he said. "shit. i thought i was doing ok." the thing is, he was. when he asked me why i wasn't interested, i didn't want to answer, so i diverted to my usual tactic of saying something funny: tigers game - men in tight pants throwing balls - can't miss it. apparently, he liked this and thought i was funny too. "crap," i thought. i turned him on.

in the end, we spent another 5 minutes on the phone with him telling me we should still hang out and me thinking "that's what you're saying now." still, i could understand his frustration with meeting women and then getting shot down for no good reason, so i caved & agreed to coffee sometime. but no, there will be no dating.

my formal announcment of my break from dating came yesterday to my roommate right before dinner. she looked at me the way you look at an abused animal: with incredible sadness, tainted with contempt for my abusers. "but i thought you wanted to meet somebody..." well, i do, thought i... somebody normal. but let's face it people - men are crazy, and i'm exhausted. i don't really know how to play the game, and i refuse to play games, so, i told her, i should just get out.

now, i realize i'm a pretty hot little piece of ass, and that just a few months ago i'd decided to accept the dating challenge from those i'd found worthy. and i'm sure to be changing my tune at some point in the future when some guy makes a big gesture (i love big gestures) and i'm falling all over myself. but for now, here's what i've learned: i can't seem to distinguish the normal ones from the screwed up. if i could have it my way, i'd inject 'the potential' with truth serum & ask him a few questions before the first hi hello: are you interested in taking advantage of me? are you emotionally schizophrenic? a momma's boy? do you have any self-destructive tendencies? do you really think you look good in that? you know, just a series of basic questions to know what i'm getting into. but i can't do that, and i'm sort of tired of being strung along only to find out later that the dude's got secret motives and issues.

so for now, i've taken to doing my own thing. not cause i "need time alone" or "to heal" or some bullshit like that. i'm just... tired. i recorded for the first time in a while last week. fun. i'm yoga-ing again. also, fun. i'm cooking for one - more for me. all-in-all, seems like a good deal. maybe it'll help to make my next relationship a "secured transaction."

oh god. lame law school joke.

i'm already starting to disagree with what i just wrote. go figure.

Hey basket, meet all my eggs!

Although I've tried to keep my whining to a minimum here, for the past 2 weeks or so, I have been thinking little else besides where my love life is going. It's sick, really. Unlike my southern female counterparts, I have no desire to get married in the near future. Currently, the thought of children and puppies and suburbs equals intellectual death to me. No - that life, if it chooses to exist, will emerge no earlier than the age of 28. I've got at least half a decade before I spend the rest of my life breadwinning for my stay-at-home husband and breeding baby Avanis. And i've decided, to my parents' dissent, that if I choose to go it alone, I will be inseminating my little eggs, preferably with the sperm of an active, attractive, and intelligent gay male (hi Ryan). I mean, I owe it to our world to reproduce. Look at me. These genetics should not be wasted.

Evidently, I'm both horrified and -- yes, I'm embarrassed to admit -- that I am on a nonquest quest for the perfect man. Over the past week, while talking to friends, it occurred to me that I want to be in love in a forever-love kind of way. No more I'm-in-love-with-you guys but-I-have-the-same-emotional-and-developmental-capacity-as-I-did in-7th-grade. I tire of these boys and their inability to grow. It's silly. And selfish. And sad. And a waste of my time. To these boys, I say go have your silly ventures with women of equal silly calibur. I choose men.

Now, I don't want you to fear for me. I am not and never have been the kind of girl who goes looking for love because she's uncontent - "I want a boyfriend. I'm so empty and sad when I'm alone." Waa waa. Cry me a river. I'm not poking fun at these women, only hoping that they realize their own independent capacity to be happy. Yes, I too have had my heart stepped on - ripped out, stomped on, and put into a juicer is more like it. I've cried for love lost and the resulting agony. I still do. But I hope for a better man in the future. He must be intelligent, hilarious, and unbelievably compassionate. He will wrestle with life; he will defend me; he will disagree with his friends, family, and me. And none of it will come between us. Ah yes, i want somebody to love. (Enter unicorns, rainbows, and ewan mcgregor serenades)

"Ah ha!" you say. But love is not so simple, and it's reciprocal. Don't just go looking for love - get it in return. To this I give you a quote -- it's cheesy, but poignant: "I am someone who is looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can't-live-without-each-other love." I LOVE that. Love isn't always unicorns and rainbows, it's torture. It's Antony and Cleopatra; it's U2's with or without you; it's ram and sita. It's romantic and sometimes painful and compromising.

I want that. And while I fall into slumps sometimes, blaming myself for not having found it, I know there is nothing more I could have done to turn my boyfriends into introspective, intelligent, confident men. There is only so much handholding a woman can do, and i mean that both literally and figuratively.

So I'm putting all my eggs in the dating basket - destiny needs a little push sometimes. I'm eliminating no one at round one, giving him every opportunity to show me a good time. My current/last boyfriend, whatever he is, had the indecency to just stop calling me so I responded with the same courtesy: I went on a date. Not to find love, but to remind myself that I am capable of it again. And he was smart, charming, inquisitive. Nothing romantic will come of it, but much else did - including a personal feeling of satisfaction in myself, what I have to offer, and how another may be drawn to appreciate it. And that is something I both want and need.

the act of seeing

is discontinuous. we see only things we are interested in seeing, although we may suddenly develop an interest that makes us discover something we have been familiar with for years.