A practical debate
18 February 2009
Filed under Uncategorized
Tags: boundaries, home, love, marriage, realistic, trust
Now that you are privy to my inner-most feelings for Jon, I have to admit that the practical side of me is just itching to cause some kind of conflict.
It began to gather troops when he said, “When we live in the same city, would we be living together or separately?”
My immediate answer was separately. His was the opposite.
My live-in rule is simple: I’d like to live by myself at some point, and I will only live with a man I’m dating if we both intend to marry each other.
Of course it would be great to see him every day, snuggle up next to him as I fall asleep, go grocery shopping and pet hunting together.
But it’s a bit of a drastic step to go from seeing each other on weekends to living with each other. And all those statistics about how most people who live together don’t end up marrying…well that’s a downer.
Then again, how many people who date in general end up marrying each other? How many people last through a long-distance relationship? The rent would be cheaper, especially in either of our high cost-of-living cities. And it would be nice to come home to someone I cared about, as opposed to two strangers I happen to live with.
So you can see how my practicalities are arguing with my sensibilities (in the olde sense of the word). In the end, I think it all comes down to one question.
If we were to live together, do I lose my bargaining tool for marriage?
A fair, practical question. But then again, do I need a bargaining tool? I’m 100 percent sure he wants to marry me and intends to propose at some point down the line. And I’m 100 percent sure that I intend to say yes when he does.
I think I just agreed with idea of living together. Please tell me I’m not crazy.
Punctuation is a key to success
6 November 2008 
Dating moves, as we are told by some unknown Buddha of social interactions, should be subtle. But it is often the loud and the forward dating attempts that are most entertaining (even though not the most effective).
A couple friends and I were at a bar last weekend when we met one of these boundary-pushing daters who wore his intention for everyone to see. In Sharpie on his t-shirt was scrawled, “WANNA FUCK!” (Note the exclamation point)
Being the writing, editing, journalism nerds we are, my friends and I began commenting to each other about the mispunctuation on his chest. Clearly, that phrase needs a question mark. We practiced exclaiming it and fell into fits of laughter at how absurd it sounded. (This is something that you can, and should, try at home with your friends.)
A* suddenly remembered that there was a Sharpie in the women’s bathroom. Mr. Wannafuck was in need of some serious direction, and we had the means to help. But we were about as successful as Jehovah Witnesses at the door of an evangelical Protestant preacher. Wielding the sharpie, we approached our target, but Mr. Wannafuck seemed to like his punctuation just fine.
“NO! It’s an exclamation point!” And he threw the marker on the ground. He claimed, quite drunkenly, that the second-person pronoun was implied and thus his phrase was a statement of the obvious and inevitable.
So I asked him to please say it for me, assuming that he would sound as ridiculous as we did. In hindsight, probably not my best idea. He turned, pointed at me and accusingly screamed, “WANNA FUCK!” and turned back around.
The truth is, not one of us ever considered wanting to fuck if it had anything to do with the guy wearing the shirt. Most of these extremists don’t get very far with their intentions, but they’re usually hilarious. And I must say, Mr. Wannafuck is the least of our laughs. The women from Philly that blogger Jdate has encountered go far beyond mispunctuation (http://phillyjdate.blogspot.com/). It’s easily the funniest thing I’ve read since the first time I picked up Bridget Jones.
Letting my senses fall
15 October 2008 
I lay slowly inhaling his breath, dense with smoke, as it enveloped me. I couldn’t sleep. The curve of his body next to me, the sound of his relaxed breathing, with the occasional soft snore, his cigarette and bourbon taste lingering in my mouth…my eyes were closed, but my senses couldn’t relax.
My senses live for this kind of man. The kind who resides in a pleasantly musty apartment building, with creaking spiral stairs and dust-covered banisters, which culminates in the smell of books that line his apartment walls when I open the door. Covers and pages that are meant to be opened, that are opened. And then my nose turns over to my ears as he begins to read. He reads with purpose, a slow and intentional, deep and curious voice. As I sit on the couch listening to his monologue, my eyes, perhaps feeling left out, glance up and are almost knocked back down by the glittering force of his eyes.
“My mother has crazy eyes,” he said, showing me photo of her when she was 9, and another from her wedding day. He was right, her eyes were captivating, glowing deep with intelligence and mischief even in black-and-white. His eyes are a different color, a different shape, but they feel exactly the same.
My senses have fallen in love with the Poet. I lay there and wondered if he were also awake, thinking of me. He had no reason to be, I decided. He tells me so much about himself, and my senses keep falling, and the faster they fall, the more I pull back. I tell him nothing. I smile and laugh, comment on his books, compliment his taste in music, respond to his stories, but I give him nothing that is my own.
My senses have fallen, but my head is holding onto my heart with a string of logic and a board of my own mystery.
Parisian romance
17 February 2008
Filed under Uncategorized
Tags: boundaries, damien rice, fling, France, music, Paris, raspberry beer, romance
Because of him, I listen to Damien Rice.
We were drunk off of raspberry-flavored beer, and sneaking glances at each other on the lawn in front of an ancient cathedral. The lyrics of “Blower’s Daughter” ran through our heads and despite our love of tradition and history, neither of us wanted to step out of the breeze and glaring sun to enter the static and musty church.
“Volcano” vibrated through the sunrays that followed us down the cobblestone streets of Brussels, and we chomped down on chicken from the local market. Later that night, we caught the last train back to Paris, and “Delicate” played into my ear, which was lying on his shoulder as I drifted to sleep.
Some people belong in our lives, even if they only step in for a while, because they make us grow, and they help us see things that only they could see. He taught me that I could be bewitching. He taught me to loosen up, to pee in the bushes of a French park at midnight, to romp around topless in the Mediterranean Sea at 2 in the morning, to run with him through the Parisian streets in pouring rain, laughing and singing, and stomping through puddles in flip-flops on a hot July evening.
Our relationship was a delicate one, one that could only exist as it did in Paris. We left others behind that summer, and when we returned we realized that we had gotten ahead of ourselves.
I still listen to Damien Rice. Remembering our dinners together in Europe, I cut my pizza with a knife and fork when I’m at a restaurant. And I think of him every time see Chimay in the liquor store. But he remains a musical memory.
He pops up every once and a while among our mutual friends — we smile at each other in acknowledgment of the role we each played in shaping each other’s lives and in agreement that we did well to move on while we were ahead.
“And so it is
Just like you said it should be
We’ll both forget the breeze
Most of the time“
