The Tao of Slut

I had my first official NYC date on Friday night. My first, because I've decided not to count the actual first one, which some might recall from Blood Alohol Levels, since it really turned out rather uneventful (to strongly euphemise).

Then again, this one wasn't cataclysmic either. Standard, couple beers at a couple East Village bars; location of a couch in a dark corner of the second one; extensive discussion of 1980s obscure song classics; leaning in to laugh; leaning a little too far in , and subtly brushing my nose tenderly across his cheek; pulling away slowly and smiling mischeviously; a kiss; a wandering hand; four wandering hands; a quick walk back to his apartment; a chocolate croissant on Avenue A for breakfast with an iced latte.

It was a pleasant night, undeniably, but one worth repeating?

Perhaps its the primacy of everything in NYC. Perhaps its the proliferation of options among men. Perhaps its the endless possibilities of things to do. Somehow though, I've found myself, for once in a long time, not wanting anything from anyone - well, except for, well you know: money (or good seats to Wicked).

In SF I spent so long bordering along ennui, trying to play off discontent, looking for something to replace, trying hard to date; and for the first time in a long time, probably since Europe or lasting through the one month after I returned, do I again feel happier without anyone.

I love the chase again, the look across a sweating room or a crowded subway car, a nervous approach and flirtation, the capture and kill. When it comes to dating, however, when I find the possibility of staying in, cooking food or laying on a couch and watching any movie starring a woman over 50 or men who don't take their shirts off, I'm over it.

Maybe I'm just waiting my moment of lust to love, as those 80s deities, the Go-Gos would say. Maybe I'm in that other place and time, where I'll do it all for thrills.

Love me and I'll leave you...I told you at the start...

In fact, the Go-Gos are what currently keeps me at least somewhat interested in Fire Island Man. In an evening otherwise ephemeral and insignificant there was a moment, I just remembered tonight, as we spoke of 80s songs, and I mentioned a favorite: Beneath the Blue Sky, an obscure track buried on the Talk Show album, a classic.

He concurred, I recalled, my heart fluttering for a moment (but maybe that was my libido stretching). I was aroused again, and thought I must call him (at least to use his TV to watch the Lost premiere tonight).

Maybe I don't give men a chance. Is it a fear of being hurt? Am I really this unattached or is it much easier for me not to care because I don't know very many people here yet?

Another date wouldn't hurt - actually, from experience, it most certainly could.

Like the time I went on a date with the guy that lived at sex club (yes lived, he was in charge of mopping - no joke).

And as always, I can simply say I cut my foot earlier and my shoe was filling with blood.

It's determined. I'll call him.

Tomorrow though. I'm tired right now. I'd be boring on the phone if I called him now.

Tomorrow though. Maybe.

Slumbering With the Enemy

My roommate asked me about my blog yesterday morning.

He wouldn't have known anything about it had someone, whom I'll secretly name Jasper, not been drinking so much. One would think with his big lips he'd be able to keep his mouth shut a little better...

I can't place all the blame on Jasper though. My roommate did begin yesterday by asking me why I had saved so many images of sprinkle donuts (see Carboxyhemoglobin) and the Golden Girls (see My Own Private Golden Girl) on his computer desktop.

I suppose I should have covered my tracks a little better.

I explained, probably not very convincingly, that I was simply a fan of sprinkle donuts and the Golden Girls and felt the need to download photos of them. Logical, right?

By using his computer I'm also leaving a small digital history that I'm sure he'll probably find at some point. So what do I do? In fact, what do I even think?

I honestly never should have told anyone in NYC about this blog, considering they're the ones I write about. Then I could proceed with any random acts of debauchery I see fit and no one would be the wiser or the harmed by it.

I will say though that I am attracted to him. That I can't deny. Perhaps it's the mere fact that we barely know each other and we just signed a one-year lease together in a tiny apartment that is holding me back. Yeah, that could make for some tricky situations.

Then there was this morning.

I had to be up at 6am for this early morning Soros gig. He had to work late last night so I assumed he wouldn't be up for a while and therefore I freely wandered the apartment sometimes in towel, sometimes not. It's hot here, you know.

As I was heading to my room to actually clothe myself, only half-toweled at the time, I caught his head peeking out from his slightly ajar door.

It was too quick to tell if he was just beginning to open his door or if perhaps he had been staring out the crack of his door at the crack in my ass for some time.

It was a slightly awkward moment that I laughed off knowing I could freely write about it now.

In addition, if I let him in on the blog then I would have to stop writing about him and that would take away the single element of drama I have going for me right now. So it ain't happening.

Let's just pray I can hold him off for a while; and that if anything does happen between us, it doesn't get complicated.

Two gay men together in a small apartment in NYC - how could that ever get complicated?

(And I wouldn't really considered him the 'enemy' - he's barely that retentive with his towels and soup cans. If anything he's the Julie Roberts character, especially considering his insistence on flossing with the bathroom door closed...)

Down to Zero

I woke yesterday expecting some kind of politically nauseating shroud for the day, bringing stillness and fear to the city.

The city, however, had other plans.

The sky still held a summer blue with playful clouds and a warm encouraging sun.

Streets were blocked off for neighborhood festivals and the general bitchiness of NYC, so curt and abrasive it's almost endearing, was in full embracable force.

There was little indication, even in the city's newspapers, even from most politicians, of the somber anniversary.

As night came on the day became more clear and the signature blue lights erected in memorium at ground zero shone again into the NYC sky.

I was drawn to the lights, apparitions of the fallen towers and the people who were killed, and had to make my way to them.

I don't want to minimize the suffering many I'm sure still deal with, but I question the sincerity of some of those people dramatically poised by the fenced barrier separating here and then.

Some in particular held large placards declaring a need for salvation through Jesus. Proselytizing in general is disgusting, but at the site of such a catastrophe? Remarkably ignorant.
















I'm running into more and more proselytizing people here. On the street, on the subway, at the WTC, and a majority of them, especially those of rabid conviction, are minorities.

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu had a memorable quote that makes me question the mental aptitude of these people.

He said: "When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.

Most of the people there were foreigners with large cameras and a large portion of people there in general sat at an adjacent Burger King or stood in line for the Mister Frosty truck.

Although not thoroughly apparent last night, there obviously had been such a problem with people trying to sell goods at the WTC site that professional signs were constructed and placed along the fence discouraging people from purchasing things from these salesmen.

A third disheartening image was the enormity of the American flags. There were two perhaps three small posters listing the names of the fallen victims along with several informational placards about the site.

In contrast there were at least three enormous American flags ranging in size up to one pasted to a bordering building that must have been no less than ten-stories tall.
I went to ground zero expecting to be overwhelmed with emotion, but when I arrived I felt more disgust for the hollow-core of most America.

When the subway attacks ocurred in Spain two years ago, less than 300 people died. While a tragedy nonetheless, the atacks there were much less significant than the inconceivable site of people holding hands as they jumped from the falling towers and the last words many must have spoken to each other as they knew their last moments were coming.















Yet, the immediate response in both situations was significantly different.

In America, we hid, and declared war.

In Spain, one million people took to the streets to signify their soldairty as a people to overcome. One million people marched through the streets of Madrid.

I was always attracted to the blue lights as a similar unifying symbol. I could see them stretching vastly into the sky even from Brooklyn and wanted to get as close as possible, as if their source might offer some return.

When I arrived though, I discovered that these two beams punctuating the sky were just smaller lights placed in a large circle.

I questioned the metaphor.

Was it the energy of smaller forces working together to create a larger projection; or was it the cracks being shown, the gaps in the unity that seemed so uniform from a distance?

I think I know.

Carboxyhemoglobin

Carboxyhemoglobin. This is my new pet ailment. But before I delve into the richness and depths of my Hypochondriatic nature (capitalized because while I'm pretty sure it's not a word, I think it may be the proper name of a small Sea located somewhere in the Balkans), I'll begin with rainbow sprinkles.

An additional glory of temp work is that most companies in NYC that can afford to hire temps tend to be the most wealthy and successful ones, and therefore tend to offer many perks to their employees. Case in point for my current position: breakfast and lunch.

And I'm not talking about some crappy continental breakfast from the Comfort Inn. This morning's breakfast-horn-of-plenty consisted of bagels, fruit, toast, cereals, danishes, additional assorted pastries, and of course, donuts.

This normally would not have to been to large a problem, except I haven't been feeling so hot lately, which I've assertively attributed to my current residence in proximity to an expansive freeway overpass, resulting in carbon monoxide poisoning and Carboxyhemoglobin. ("ooh, I thought that cleared up...")

So to fight this invasive and pernicious beast from my life I've been trying to eat well and exercise right, which also has to do with the fact that I've been so busy I've become terribly lazy and my belly has begun protruding. But wouldn't you know it. After a great workout last night and an even greater healthy dinner, I begin my morning with rainbow sprinkles.

They're just so damn good.

The white coated icing makes me think of my face pressed smearingly across the glass at a Krispy Kreme, and I can imagine the process of slowly releasing the rainbow sprinkles onto the still moist icing. I imagine doing it myself actually, in a fit of pure glee, like floating through clouds in a dream, and after coating each donut I toss a handful of sprinkles into the air and wonder which I enjoy more, the ones that successfully reach my opened mouth or the ones that playfully fall against my smiling tilted face...

Sorry, had a moment there...

Returning to my condition. After stuffing my face with donuts I retreated behind my desk and mistakenly began researching air purifiers, which collectively have been sentenced online as largely non-effective; smoke-detectors; carbon-monoxide detectors; and radon test kits.

I even called my mother who was a nurse for a short time years ago, and explained my condition of carbon-monoxide poisoning resulting in my exhaustion and shortness of breath. (It had to either be that or West-Nile virus from a recent mosquito bite I received on Fire Island.)

She responded that the culprit was more likely the fact that I didn't sleep Sunday night and instead spent it drinking out of doors along a beach, and have proceeded to yet really make up for that lack of sleep.

A likely story, I'm heading to Home Depot in exactly 90 minutes for my carbon-monoxide detector, and I've decided to spend the extra $30 for a digital display that will tell me at will the precise level of CO in our home ranging from 30-999 parts-per-million (PPM). I have a feeling our home is closer to the 999 range. I feel faint.

I can already tell with both excitement and anxiety, which should help define my psychosis, that for the next several weeks I'll most likely wake three times a night in a sweated panic and rush to the detector. In fact, I imagine myself after a mere several days ripping the device from the wall so that I can test all four rooms in the apartment then input the readings into an ongoing Excel chart and spreadsheet before being able to sleep properly.

I'll attach the results here later. In the meantime I better go, I haven't checked the UV levels for today yet and I'll be outside in under 85 minutes.

My Own Private Golden Girl

It's been a while since I've written, particularly considering at one not-so-distant point I was whipping out three of these a day.

Probably much to your relief the inundation has subsided for a while and will probably continue: my new temp position, in finance with Soros' Hedge Fund Management actually, has rather strict firewalls that won't allow me access to much...sigh; in addition to this fact the only other opportunity I have to post is on my roommate's computer - my roommate whom I've spoken quite openly about on this blog and therefore don't want to know about it, much less the web address to reach it without me knowing.

In a nut shell, however, my last week in big ol' NYC:

• Sadly finished one temp position with OMD, who loved me dearly but had no work I took an interest in.
• Started my new temp position at Soros' - pray this somehow leads to OSI.
• Moved in to my new apartment Sep. 1, with my Israeli roommate, who together make a total of two suitcases and a computer that initially furnished our home.
• Shopping. Lots of shopping. Heartbreaking moments of beautiful yet unaffordable items, as well as delirious moments of outrageous sales, illustrated by my recent visit to West Elm where the sales associates had to assist me to the curb with my excessive purchases and help me into a taxi home - not an easy task getting a cab driver to go to Brooklyn.
• Three glorious and pocket-emptying days at the US Open.
• One last weekend on Fire Island before the season somewhat-officially ended, which included, but not necessarily in this order: teaches of peaches and sex on the beaches.

Now in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Golden Girls and an ailing Estelle Getty, my own personal Golden Girl, Grandma Florie in Florida told me the recent funny occurrences in her life on the phone tonight.

Perhaps this won't be funny without the heavy Jersey Jew accent, but she explained how she, all 85 years of her, was at the gas station with her boyfriend Rod - yes her boyfriend Rod, who is also close to 85 and you should see the ring he bought for her and hear the shit-talking they do about the others in their retirement community...

Rod insisted on paying for the gas with his credit card, but had no idea what his zip code was, for security clearance. The man has lived in the same place for years, but I guess at his age it's feasible.

Grandma paid and transitioned the story to a friend who forgot her phone number - at this point I figured the woman had simply not wanted to give out her phone number to my often abrasive grandmother - as much as I love her, she, quite hysterically, can be a pain in the ass and this is obvious in the reactions of others.

When I visited her in Florida some years ago we went to the local retirement community theatre where we ran into one of her neighbors whom she quickly and excitedly pointed out had won the "Best Brisket" award in the latest edition of the Jewish Journal.

Once the performance of Al Matos and his traveling orchestra (I should point out that the traveling orchestra part was merely a cheap gag, because sad Mr. Matos was one of those sad little characters that more as a joke than as a talent play ten instruments strapped to different parts of his body at once. Anyway once Matos was done Grandma lingered lenghtily in the lobby to speak loudly with her also dearly deaf friends.

As the lobby cleared I heard a shrill embittered woman, younger than the others, but not by much, who had chosen a profession in dealing with all of them most likely out of masochism, yelling at Grandma to leave.

She didn't simply state Ms. Alexander, you should go now, or even endearingly call her Florence and ask her leave, instead she quite admonishingly and loudly yelled "Alexander! time to go Alexander!" like she had been forced to do this many many times before... "Not again Alexander! Out with you!"

God, so many tangents - but returning, Grandma told another woman about how her friend forgot her phone number and the woman replied, punchline here: Well I don't know my phone number, why should I, I never call myself...

I know. Not funny. But coming from an 85-year-old Jersey Jew now living in Ft. Lauderdale who spends many a night drinking cheap wine and playing canasta until midnight, just the fact the she's making an effort on a delivery and a punchline is hysterical...