Confessions.of.a.NYC.Lezie

I picture us all, putting our left hands in to the center, a photo being taken of all of us with diamonds on our ring fingers. Soon, I think, we'll be old married folks. And after that, well, we're all following that age old path. Marriage, babies, homes and more. I know some people see it as this avoided path. They don't need a [wo]man to define them, they don't want to have children until they are done getting all the selfishness out of their systems, they don't want to have to spend their money on college savings and home ownership.

That's not me. I don't even think of it in those terms. Sure, I know it takes a lot of things, time, money, commitment, budgets, community, self sacrifice. I'm ready for all of that... and I am so excited to do it in tandem with such dear friends.

I still feel young, and ready for the next step, and yet sometimes I feel like we're all growing up so fast and the next phase of life is coming really quickly on the heals of engagements, marriages and homes bought.

I've always been one to follow the typical path, and I'm still solidly on that winding road, ready for the ups and downs (Because we all know there are more downs in the journey).

There is a pretty young lady who caught my eye about a few months ago. Things are progressively going slower than I thought. I always thought I could “get” anyone I wanted but alas, clearly I am not able to this time - or ever.

I always write about the people I have crushes on and to some extent, it keeps my blog alive. This time though, I don’t think I can possibly speak about the women in my life. For the first time, I am concentrated on one person…nothing seem to be alive around me, the clocks stop ticking, the seasons remain the same, life itself blossoms as my heartbeat remains at its slowest pace. I have been on this ride for quite a while now and I just can’t push to the stop button just yet, even when I know it can’t possibly go anywhere. I have this one desire and it is to stay on that rollercoaster in the loops, feeling that warm breeze as I am frozen with fear because I will never be able to continue the ride. And so, I stay glued to my seat awaiting a moment that will bring constant warmth to my heart.

I am not someone who pressures and pushes people into making a life altering decision. I don’t bother asking to bask in their world. She, like every girl I grow fond of happen to admire the opposite sex which leaves me with a big “no-no, she is straight” thought. I keep telling myself that there will never be anything good coming out of it. One of us will have a blistering heart. I know it. Its all been said once before. I don’t want to repeat history - especially when it involves me scrapping off my broken heart from the cold concrete of reality. I can’t seem to learn. Repetition is my forte. I keep putting myself in these uncertain situations and I can’t escape them.

There, you have it….lost and delirious.

It was a Saturday. I ran some errands in the morning, which lasted up until late afternoon. A bit of rain showers that evening was enough to send me under my warm Egyptian cotton comforter with the company of crappy reality TV. For the first time in a very long time, I did not want to be at a bar chatting with strangers and drinking 8 dollar city beers.

Late in the evening, I received a text from an ex. She was out drinking and wanted to come over to misbehave. I decided some company would suit me just fine. An hour passed and my doorbell rang. I answered in my usual shorts and tank combo with a beer in each hand – one for her and I. She wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me in for a typical hello kiss.

We curled up on the couch, and she started talking about the young lass she was recently dating and presently in the midst of a wicked break up. I looked at her baffled and said it was inappropriate to talk about a soon to be ex, while she was cuddled under a blanket with me. I began to question her coming here and as the questions seemed to emerge like 50 cents toy candy dispensers, I moved my body away from her, until I was tucked in right next to the arm of the couch, as far from her as I could be on this piece of furniture.

Then it went on about why we broke up in the first place and questioning what we were doing and why we were so obsessed with one another, which seem to always lead to awkward, and yet incredible lust. But we broke up a long time ago however we still had an eccentric and intimate connection.

She leaned toward me and pulled me out of a tight ball of legs and couch pillows.

“I should despise you.” I objected, as my body unfolded under hers.

“I know you should”, she said, pressing her chest on top of mine and burying her soft lips on my neck. My mind was racing, debating if I should push her off and scream and keep going with the fight we had or just relax, stop harboring feelings from years ago and go along with the physical relationship we’d started anew. She knew I was cranky and bringing up the woman she dumped me for wasn’t the best move. I was now literally putty in her hands, short of breath and soothed.


And then it happened.

We were in bed and I was underneath her. Asking for her to hold me. She slid her hands underneath my back and cupped her hands around my shoulders. I could feel my face flush in the beginnings of tears fill my eyes, which I tried really hard to keep them in. But as the tears piled up and I could no longer keep them in, I reached up with my hands to wipe my face and shield my eyes from her.

She paused. “Are you crying?” she asked.

That was all it took and my tears broke through the invisible barrier and ran down my cheeks.

“I’m fine.” I said.

“Why are you crying?” she asked, calmly. “Am I doing something wrong?”

I continued to repeat over and over that I was fine and that I didn’t know why I was crying. She said that I obviously wasn’t. I begged her to just ignore it, to keep going, to be with me. She listened at first, But when I didn’t she protested that she was hurting me and she just couldn’t hurt me anymore.

“I am not crying because I don’t want to be with you.” I said.

“You are crying because you do.” She said, her voice soft and fading. Almost seemed like an echo in the room – a constant reminder of the truth.

She whispered softly, “I am sorry I can’t give you what you want.”

I have never felt so raw and weak and useless and desperate and alone. I wasn’t just crying for her. I was crying for every woman who ever left, who ever lied, who ever didn’t want me, who passed the time with me even though she didn’t care about me. I cried for that college girl who drank and kissed too much to cover the pain. I cried for the adult woman who couldn’t love.
We talked as she held me in her arms, rocking me and gently rubbing her fingertips around my back.

“Look, you are intelligent and funny and I love your company and talking to you,” she said. “But, you just weren’t it and I knew that all along.”

She stumbled over the last part. And as much as it hurt to hear and as embarrassed as I was, I finally got the break up speech she never bothered to deliver years ago. And for better or for worst, I finally knew.

She got up and dressed herself. She was gone in less than 5 minutes. Without any words, we exchanged our goodbyes with a simple eye contact and a nod.

I felt alone and unloved. So I did what people who feel alone and unloved do: I cried some more. Until I was shocking on my sobs.

Until I couldn’t produce any tears.

Until I passed out from the exhaustion of being so vulnerable, so melodramatic, so emotional.

I felt alone.

There is this longing in my personal life for something more than single serve takeout dinners and bad reality television. And it has been evident, painfully so, for quite some time. But by never doing anything about it, by never fully dragging myself out there, by nesting in my comfy cocoon, I can save myself a modicum of rejection. I suppose.

But the one-note, work-all-of-the-time lifestyle isn’t saving me heartbreak anymore. If being rejected and feeling unloved by one particular woman stings, I’ve realized lately that setting myself up to feel completely rejected by the world might hurt even more. I should giggle and enjoy a silly movie about love or hearing about an acquaintance’s engagement or a college friend’s new baby. Instead I’m angry and bitter and twisted and moved only to the point where I’m asking, “What about me?”

I do want to be the Woman in the Song – the one who makes her crazy, keeps her up at night, without whom her days would all be nights. And even as I think that, I immediately reject the notion of such as pure fantasy. We don’t all get to be the heroine. We aren’t all the Woman in the Song.

Not that I would ever give myself the chance to be Her. I’m too wrapped up in other things to truly put myself in much of a position to be loved. It’s much easier to stay stuck and blame my lack of love on anything and everything else.

I’ve become whiny. My true personality is almost unrecognizable at times. I look in the mirror and I see drive and dedication to something external. And when I do turn that focus on myself, it is only superficial – a haircut or a shopping trip or a new handbag. For someone who can be so self-centered sometimes, I sure haven’t figured out how to focus any self absorption on soothing my own soul, quieting my own fears and making myself any less alone (or lonely).

Anytime I do manage to project an air of aloof calmness, my I don’t care attitude is purely a front. As it was the other night when, after asking for my card three weeks ago, saying she would call (she didn’t) and alluding in e-mail to the fact that we would be seeing each other before last Thursday’s group outing to a concert (we didn’t), a certain L. ignored me during said group outing. (And I’m not writing about her right now, but if I were I’d mention how unacceptable and rude that behavior was.) To my girlfriends, I rolled my eyes, bought my own beers and announced that I was over the snub because clearly she wasn’t worth it. To myself, I wondered if he’d notice my relaxed attitude and how much fun I could have on my own and grimaced when couples danced to one of my favorite songs.

Lame.

An Ex accused me of using her the other night, when I rebuffed her late-night advances but had earlier accepted a glass of wine from her at a bar. (And yes, she was in the wrong – I had my card out to pay for my glass of wine and she made a show of telling the bartender to put it on her tab. And even if I had demanded a free drink, I don’t subscribe to the notion that I owe any woman anything in that or most any situation.) What struck me was that she might actually be right. I am letting her stroke my ego every few weeks. And I shouldn’t need attention from someone I don’t care about.

My point, which I seem to have lost, is that I am wholly unfocused toward any personal life goal right now. I shudder at the thought that I will wake up ten years from now, all by myself in this same two-person bed of my own making.

And, if only for right now and if only as a start, I’m not going to hide my fear of being alone because I want to seem strong or independent or evolved or modern.

There is one place in the world that I can go when I feel overwhelmed, confused, nearing the apex of my anxieties and doubts of myself. It is in the dark warm corner of my Grandmother's living room, seated at the old white Grand piano, my fingers resting gently on the cool familiar keys, whose pression responds to my fingertips with delicious recognition.

When I'm there, the whole world melts away. I can play a few songs for memory, songs I taught myself as a girl and others I have learned along the course of my music schooling, sometimes the passages come and go, but when my heart and my body meld, they just pour out of my fingertips and for once in my life, serenity is simple and effortless.

Thoughtless muscle memory unlocks something miles deep inside of me, to the place that no one has ever touched, and when that music comes breathlessly I feel like it's my heart singing.

I love that piano. It's old and probably out of tune and sometimes the keys stick a little. Its full of dust and it's wise.

Last night, in a terrible fit of paralyzing stormy thoughts, I sat down to play and I kept hitting traps. Passages I couldn't remember. My fingers felt frantic, amnesiac, like strangers, as if all the energy and weight inside them had flown out. Nothing felt right. I touched key after key, searching for the right note, determined to find it, determined to get through that song. But I couldn't. I sat with my eyes closed and my hands resting on the keys and I felt completely lost.I abandoned the song that would not come, and I played some low and mismatched chords I made up as I went along.

I went to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night with the sheets twisted in knots close around my body. I'd thrown the comforter completely off. I was shivering.

When I woke up this morning, I silently made myself breakfast. I read the paper. I glanced at the work I'd done the night before, still sprawled out on the dining room table. I pulled a blanket around me and I walked into the living room and sat down at the piano.

I put my hands out to play a different song, afraid to tackle the same as the night before in case the loss of memory was permanent. That's what kept me tossing and turning all night. I can't bear to lose that song, that song in particular.

It was the first love song, and the only one. But anyway, my hands took over and I played it. With a few mistakes but I played it through and by the end I felt the door unlock. I knew I couldn't lose that song forever. Its too much a part of me.

There are some things that get inside of your bones. And they'll never leave you.

I’m an open book. I really don’t hide much, and there isn’t TMI when it comes to what I’ll share, and what others can share with me. I balance this with being acutely aware of when people just aren’t interested. If I don’t think the person really wants to know a story, or hear about something in my life, I don’t tell it. My last friend once told me that I was an enigma to her; she declared that she couldn’t figure me out. I was at a loss for an explanation, simply telling her that I’m pretty much an open book and questioning what it was she couldn’t figure out. She of course didn’t have an answer. I suspect it was because I didn’t really think she cared, and maybe a bit of intimidation. I didn’t want to open myself up to her, because I know it was a surface need of hers to have people be completely open, she craved knowing everything and having that control over people.

That’s not who I share with.

Sometimes, I think I take for granted my openness and desire to share what I feel and who I am, sometimes I forget that although I work in casual environments, I shouldn’t always say what I feel. But then, as I think about it and wonder if I don’t have a filter, I’ll flash to a picture of myself in social situation where I don’t really talk about myself for hours. Where is the middle ground?

This week at work I complained about something I was asked to do, and wasn’t shy about saying I didn’t want to do it, to my co-workers. When I thought about it that night as I shampooed, I worried, did I just take for granted how open I can be at work as a result of the casual “come as you are and say how you feel” environment? Maybe it is a sense of entitlement I have for being told, and feeling, that I’m a smart and very capable employee and I think the task is something I shouldn’t have to do anymore, instead of considering that part of the reason I’m being asked to do it is to expose me to something new, including new people. I know I can complain to these people about everything, but I do have to draw the line. As I thought about it more, I flashed to sometimes feeling like I haven’t said a word after hours with my friends. What’s the difference? Where’s the middle ground?

Talking to someone this summer after an emotional breakthrough (in which my Mom told me that she had been trying for months to get me to just talk about myself. She would ask how I was as we began conversations, but it proved fruitless, as I’d just shrug it off. She said my pattern would be to let her go first and only after she was done would I open up) she confided that she felt that often too, like she would dominate conversations and worry that I didn’t talk about myself, worry that she wasn’t being a good friend. Why do I do that? And how do I still be an open person while doing that?

I let it out when I need to, I’ve dominated many a conversation. When it feels right, and I’m comfortable and I know the person really wants to hear it, that’s when I open up. With my friends, I want to make sure they are getting everything they need from me before I lay my stuff on them, I want to take care of the people I love. At work, I have a different relationship with close co-workers. We take care of each other, and that means complaining and venting and knowing it’s safe. These people haven’t yet become someone who I let go first.

For me, I’m most open when I’m letting others be truly vulnerable, because they get to see who I really am in those moments, and I know when I need the roles reversed they will be.

….I do apologize for not writing in nearly a month. I don’t really have a really good reason or a valid reason rather. I just didn’t write.

Lies.

My life has been on slow motion. Things have gone pretty dry and boring. So no juice could be spilled here.

Sorry.

It took a really rough night last week with a lot of bad decisions involved (the first of many being drinking on antibiotics) to make me stop for a second and think about the amount of alcohol I consume on a weekly basis.I soon realized I’d never thought about this before because it’s too terrifying to contemplate. It’s one of my mind’s “don’t go there topics” along with my parents weird love affair, Requiem for a Dream’s ending, and visuals of live snakes crawling up my leg.

The culprit in this drinking frenzy?
The bottle service system.
More specifically, the free, promotional bottle system.

We’ve been preprogrammed not to be wasteful. Wasting is bad. It contributes to the polar ice cap melt and makes Al Gore lose precious hours of sleep. This mentality has somehow crossed over to unfinished Ciroc vodka and half empty bottles of bubbly. If it’s there, you drink it. Hell, we’ve all seen the 4 A.M. classic ‘waste-not’ move of men passing around liquor bottles and depositing the contents directly down their throat. Belvedere? A baby bottle? They’re essentially the same thing. Watch ‘em slurp it down.

I’ll be the first to admit I’m a champagne-whore. And if people are mixing vodka drinks, I’ll inhale whatever is handed to me through six of those little straws. I think the last time someone asked me my mixer preference, “orange or cranberry?” I shrugged with a sad smile and responded, “like it matters.” After four plus years of passively accepting and consuming drinks, I’m beginning to realize that there might be a mini problem here.I haven’t fully formulated my exact thoughts on the topic yet. As an experiment however, when I went out yesterday, I didn’t drink.

OK, lies.

I had two beers. But we all know that beer’s like alcoholic water, and only two from 11:30 P.M. to 2:30 A.M.? I was a sober chick. And you know what? I still had fun. Perhaps I didn’t feel like as much of a superstar as I do after seven champagnes, and perhaps Bob Sinclair didn’t make me as outrageously happy as he does when vodka’s swirling around in my brain, but I had some good, old-fashion fun. I danced. I talked. I knew what people looked like. I even felt like I was part of some conspiratory secret club: ‘the sober ones.’ Watching the retards jumping around like orangutans off-beat to Timbaland was both amusing and humiliating. Amusing because they looked like they needed leashes, and humiliating because I’m sure I’m usually one of them.


And my sobriety didn’t go unnoticed.“Why aren’t you drinking?” I got asked repeatedly from table managers.It wasn’t until then that I realized when I’m out, I ALWAYS have a drink in my hand. There’s photo proof of this. I almost had to re-teach myself how to dance not having a drink in my hand. It was that big a shock. My body balance was off. So much so that after I was tired of getting harassed, I poured myself a cup of cranberry just to fit in. And as I swooped down to get my juice I caught site of our three-quarters full Grey Goose bottle and the ‘waste not’ mentality started to creep over me.I fought off the temptation, kept my resolve, and it was an interesting experiment.

Best perk: the next morning I felt fabulous instead of an extra from the Planet of the Apes movie.

Sometimes, sobriety can pay off.

To those of you in happy relationships or excited about your third or fourth date with somebody special who makes your eyes light up and time stand still… I hope you get gonorrhea tonight. Seriously. I know, I know, I sound bitter but I just really hate Valentine’s Day. I either manage to completely fuck it up or else I’m stone cold single.

Weird, right? It’s like, you know the old cliché that states that everybody wants to find a love interest during the summer and is looking to pair up? But for whatever reason, summer is usually a pretty barren season for me. Love-wise. On the flip side, the arrival of darkness at 3:00pm, winter jackets, chapped hands and frozen faces seems to signal that I’ll be getting some. Soon.

That’s right. For whatever reason, I always seem to do better with women during the colder months. Except, you know, during Valentine’s Day. Why this is, I don’t know. But it appears to be so.

Case in point: as I posted previously, the woman that I’ve been out on two dates with told me she had plans when I asked her out for Valentine’s Day. And she still hasn’t responded to the email I sent to her on Sunday, thanking her for dinner. She did, however, include me on a mass email that she sent to about 10 friends. And which was really pretty unfunny. It had pictures of grotesquely ugly women on it and was entitled Why Some Women Stay Single. And I called her on Tuesday night, but got her voicemail. The kind where it goes straight to voicemail as though a person's phone is turned off, and not where somebody looks down at their Caller ID, sees your number and gets a feeling somewhere between disappointment, dread and guilt in their stomach before sending you to leave a message. I think perhaps she might have stumbled upon this site and read our date reviews. Yikes!

Anyway, maybe she isn’t ditching me. But I have to ask a little bit… what the fuck?And I had a weird dream about Hope the other night. I was at her house, which she shared with some roommate who doesn’t exist in real life. I felt awkward, and she obviously felt strange having me there. I was staying the night, not with Hope but as a kind of houseguest. Why, I have no idea. The thing was that she was already married. But she didn’t like her (yes it is in fact the girl she is madly in love at the moment) because she was a little overbearing and pushing things on her plate – like buying a house, getting married. Like everything was set in some alternate universe where 2008 had the social conventions of an Edith Warton novel.

Anyway, Hope’s wife came home. In the dream. I don’t think I ever described what her partner (in real life) looks like…but anyway, she looks like Shakira but not really…there is something definitely off about this girl, but overall she isn’t ugly. And Hope and her were obviously in love. And there I stood, watching like an idiot, as they kissed hello in the dream. I was the dumbass sleeping in the guest bedroom.And then I woke up. I had to lie in bed for a minute as I pondered the dream. I mean, I also didn’t get up because it was freezing and I didn’t feel like getting out from under the covers. But I suddenly remembered that wonderful, unique way that Hope’s hair smelled in real life. And I felt sad for a second. Which is weird. I don't want to get back together with her or anything. I guess it was just some sort of vague longing for something from the past. Kind of a pathetic version of a Proustian moment.And then I told myself to stop being such a goddamned wussy.

I turned over and went back to bed.


Happy Valentine’s Day everyone.

Believe it or not, I actually had two dates this past weekend. I’m not going to write anything about the first, which took place on Saturday night, since it went really well and I’m hoping to see the woman in question again this coming weekend.

But I'll happily tell you about the second one, which took place on Sunday night, while most of the rest of the country was being suckered by a huge corporation into believing that overweight men with IQs of 20 running around with a Humvee’s worth of protective gear on is entertainning.

For the past few weeks, my friend Jew had been suggesting that I call up her friend Jenna to take her out. I wasn’t crazy about this idea for two reasons: 1) Jew and I are just friends, although we did sleep together once a long time ago and so it seemed a bit strange to go out with one of her friends. 2) Blind dates just suck.

Whatever. I had Jenna’s phone number and so, while being bored at work last week, I gave her a call. We never spoke, but on Monday and Tuesday of last week we played phone tag and exchanged emails enough to make a date to meet at Taralucci e Vino near Union Square at 7:30pm on Sunday.

But when Sunday rolled around, I was still basking in the fun from my Saturday night outing and really wasn’t in the mood to go out with somebody else. But Jew had mentioned to me a few days earlier than Jenna was really looking forward to meeting me on Sunday night. And so I didn’t want to be a jerk and cancel at the last minute.

Jenna was a tall/slim brunette with long dark hair. Very stylishly dressed. She looked great. Except that she was wearing fur. With a matching fur pocketbook. It all looked fashionable and expensive, but I’m totally turned off by fur. I mean, I have a cat. And I love animals. So right now, she was batting about even: a plus for being gorgeous, and a minus for wearing a fur coat.

And then she made the bartender let her try three different wines, taking almost ten minutes before settling on one. She was polite about it and the bartender didn’t mind, but the high maintenance sign in my head was going off. This was reminding me of my old friend Rachel. In fact, I almost texted Rachel to tell her that might’ve met somebody more high maintenance that she is.

Anyway, Jenna and I settled in to chat over our wine. She had an interesting life story. Her family had moved from St. Petersburg when she was in high school, and they’d moved to Indiana. Then she’d gone to Stanford. Now she made a ton of money at a super huge investment bank. I was intrigued.And then she told me about a movie she’d seen last week. In excruciating detail. The whole plot. My mind began to wander. I told myself to pay attention. She might ask me a question, and I'd be thinking about Rachel in her lingerie. Or something Bill Maher said on his show this week.

But the story of the plot of this movie went on for a super long time.But after two glasses of wine, I started to have fun. And we decamped to a restaurant and had a really engaging, engrossing conversation.

I don’t feel like going into much details but Jenna is extremely beautiful and sexy, and really very interesting and smart. I would certainly see her again, but I think that she might be a little bit "high maintenance" for me. We were out for about 4 or 5 hours. So... I'd like to go out with her again, but in the end I'm not sure if it's a good match. Although, to be completely honest, I'm quite attracted to her. Even in just a physical sense.

Interestingly, I had a date on Saturday night that also went well. I'm supposed to see that girl this coming Saturday, and very much looking forward to it.

I call her phone when I get to her Murray Hill Apt doorstep.

She answers quietly, but I hear footsteps on the stairs inside and the door opens to me.

She lets me in, and I kick off my stilletos.

I grab her shirt in my fist, and pull her behind me up the stairs to her room. I have yet to say a word.

We close the door behind us, and she swoops in for a kiss. Her lips hit mine, then part and let her tongue flick into my mouth.

I pull myself against her; urging her to open her mouth wider, force her to kiss me harder, deeper. We’re groping at each other, but I step back, breaking the kiss.

I walk backwards a few feet, and start pulling off my work clothes. first, I unbutton my shirt and yank it off. Next I pull my tank top over my head, followed quickly by my bra.

I hear her sharp intake of breath... she wants to touch but I’m not done.

I unbutton my pants, let them fall to the ground and then kick them away. My thong is the last thing to come off... I peel them down, away from my hot body.

She closes the distance between us quickly, and i'm caught up in her embrace... her hands run over my bare skin, yearning to touch everything at once and frustrated that she hasn't the patience to take her time.

In a blink, she's down to her bra. I push her lips from mine and push her backwards onto her bed. As she sits on the edge, I sink between her legs and pull off the last of her clothing; the only thing between the meeting of naked flesh.

I stare up into her eyes right before I start a luscious rhythm I play out with my mouth. She moans

I feel her tensing up, and she tells me she is close. I speed up my movements.

I could feel the movement of her climax before it comes, and then I feel her release with a groan.

I got up, kissed her gently and said that I had to go back to work.

"I need to iron my shirt. I have a meeting in 1/2 hr" I said.

She stayed there motionless with a smile of satisfaction.

I often write about friends because sometimes I believe that’s all I need in life…

I’ve been drifting from my college friends. I don’t really know why. It just happened over the course of two years. Two whole years, I’ve wanted to be a better friend, a better companion, a better person to my friends. And every time I tell myself that I should call, I never do. Partly because I don’t have anything to talk to them about. Because during those two years, I’ve grown into a different person. I am not the same person I was. I’ve changed. I think they have changed as well. They will never see it.

I think I am concentrating too much on finding my old childhood friends. Thanks to face book, I found almost all my friends from boarding school. Every time I talk to them, I get happy and cheery. We share the same thing. We all the same childhood. I can also relate to them, we grew up around the same people. The things that I went through growing up, they have also experienced - having to deal with being perfect in society’s eyes. I am the granddaughter of someone well known and so my childhood friends are also part of that “crowd”. It’s easy to relate.

When I try to explain to my college buddies about my childhood, they don’t have a clue. They simply don’t understand. Instead of enriching what I was, I had to adjust to their ways to be more like them, I had to mold to their beliefs. I felt it was the only way.

Just today, I looked at one of my class pictures (circa 91) and all of my classmates were just like me - part of an elite class. that’s all I knew at one point in my life. a lifestyle that my parents still want me to part of. I have renounced it so many times because my own personal beliefs and only now, I came to understand what my parents were telling me. It is only for the best that I remain with my roots.

I only wish my college buds understood it. They wont.

This is why I hardly tell people about my past. I am afraid that I will be judge.
I don’t know everyone who reads this and vice versa. You can’t judge me. If you did, I wouldn’t be able to see it. The power of my keyboard and the power of your thoughts.

It might also be why it is so hard for me to be friends with some people. There isn’t so much of a class system in America. Although I believe that there is, no one I’ve encountered have agreed to it and so they see me as a snob little girl. I am not a snob that’s for sure. Some of my thinking might come off as being a little snobbish. But if only you knew where I was coming from you would understand.

I don’t want to be misunderstood. I don’t want to be categorized. I don’t want to be labeled and put on a shelf because of who I am, because of who my parents are…

Living in America has opened up my eyes just a bit. I saw another world. A world that I wasn’t fortunate enough to have noticed when I was young. The people I’ve met here are certainly not children of former Presidents, Ambassadors, Intellectuals and Writers.

At one point they were the ones whom I surrounded myself with. I regarded everyone as simply unfortunate souls. Oh boy was I wrong.

Everyday I meet regular people. People I would never speak to if was still in my parents’ world. I am fortunate enough to have experienced it.

Although I take with great pride my new life I can never forget who I am.

Friends come and go, but what you are born with remains in your blood forever.

“Now, the thing that is bothering me is the lost; which makes me think of her even more than before. In fact I yearn to talk to her, see her, and be lost in her arms, and forget all the past like a horrible dream. I want to start over…one more time.

Now, I hold dearly all the memories like old painting living on a wall but with unfortunate regrets they are stating to lose their colors behind my eyelids.

Even the sound of the letters that forms her name is becoming ethereal. And when the sun sleeps across the horizon, I go home to find her scent lingering on my bed.. She waits until I gently lay my head on the pillow. She takes me by the waist; her cold hands on my stomach, her cold breathe on my neck up until the sun awakes in the morning.

All night, I don’t fight. I don’t know why.

I like the cold. I froze like a river with no currents.”

Sometimes, It is a burden to find topics to write about: Topics that will please a lot of people. And so I look around and ask my friends what they would like me to write about. Some are clearly flabbergasted by the idea and the pressure of finding a subject and others are please to help.

I have gotten an array of titles: love, sex, baby drama (although, I’ve never given birth) gender definition, homosexuals, relationships and such. As the topics are given to me, I try to incorporate it into my own experiences and view it as something that has (yet) happened to me. In many cases, I have been involved in a lot of the topics some choose for me. For instance, the universal feeling: love. Some criticize about my writing. Not the style in which I write, but the content of the blog. Some think that I need to ease on the pessimistic views. Others feel what I have felt and continue to praise my art.

Just the other day, I asked my friend Jen to think of something that she would like to see on my blog. It seemed as though, I had given her a textbook of math equations to complete in very little time. I’m sure it was a challenge for her as she isn’t much involved in that sort of blogging world.

How hard is it to come up with a title? Truthfully, the majority of my topics come up as I am riding the train back home, during random times I think about what I should write or even sometimes as things happen.

Sometimes I don’t want to write about the same thing over and over again. What I do find amusing is when my readers ask me to write more about certain ladies in my life. They are intrigued by the relationships I had encountered over the years. It is sad to say that I don’t always like to write about my past (some would say that it can be turned into a movie) especially Hope and The Pearl. These are two ladies that will hold a special space in my heart. I’ve read some comments regarding my feelings towards the two lovely ladies and quite frankly, when I do write about them it isn’t because I still love them. It is because they have constructed a foundation of who I am now – a single lesbian in New York City. No I am only kidding.

So topics aren’t easy to come up with especially when my life these past two weeks isn’t as exciting as it was a month ago.

There. You got it Jen.

Everyone is aware (from what I've written) of how I feel about love. But lately, I’ve wanted to write a piece on it but unfortunately have not had the opportunity to sit down and revise what I had previously written. And so now, my fingers are thirsty for the keyboard and perfectly glued to each key as I stroke them to form the perfect sentences. Or perhaps not.

I think I may have taken a slap or two by love. I think I’ve turn around and accepted it as if it was the best thing to do – right now. It is almost something that I need to reinvent in my life. Somehow I have lost, along the course of my life, the true meaning of being in love.

There once was a time when I knew what love meant. Loving the person at the time came naturally like a common summer breeze gently caressing the top of my skin. Nonetheless, love was something I began to experience and believe in. Not that I didn’t believe in love before, but knowing and experiencing love was a complete and utterly new form of life – a new beginning as some may say.

Before, love meant that I would care deeply for someone else and whatever I felt was surreal and magical and I would care about that person more than I cared about myself. True happiness began, love took its seat and lounged in my heart and I began to feel its power.

I knew that love meant that I would spend the rest of your life with the same person, share each other in ways that I have never done before, wake up next to one another and finding everything beautiful about the person, accepting flaws with good intentions, laying in bed for hours after making love and keeping each other safe in our arms – talking for hours and giggling like little children.

Love is that. But love is also a lot of things which I cannot explain and will not so until I have come across them (again) in my lifetime.

Everyone I suppose has their own definition of what love is all about. Mine may be different from my neighbor or as close and exact as my friends. Whatever I have experienced in my past I will take with me to my next chapter. You learn as you go, you love as you learn.

At 25, I wonder about the choices I’ve made in my life regarding love. There are no regrets of course. Though sometimes, I believe regrets are necessary because they help you understand what you have done. And so regrets, like love are more unalterable then you think.

I am no expert at love, I am not a love connoisseur and I truly believe that it is all in the heart and allowing to open up and accept the love potion. Though I’d love to believe that my heart is open but I know deep inside that it isn’t completely.

I am not cold hearted. Like the majority of you I am afraid. I am so afraid to fall so deeply for someone and so afraid to get hurt. Nevertheless, only two people have hurt me in my life, I just wouldn’t want a repetition of the aftermath. It was something so dark and cold and wish to never step foot in that world again.

So what does it mean to truly love another?

Is it total happiness? Fairy tale like world, where birds chirp their lovely tunes, the sun in shining and glowing, the trees are a magnificent shade of green and the sky is as blue as the Caribbean sea? And waking up next to the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, finding something beautiful everyday about that person?

Accepting flaws?

Making love until the sunrise/sunset?

I’d like to think love equals happiness. But really, what’s love gotta do with it?

As I am sitting at my desk, I thought, hmm….I need to confess to something. Before I say it, it is something absolutely secretive. Not a single soul knows this except for its creator – me.

Moving on, I have a guilty pleasure. No, it isn’t the silver bullet. Get your mind out of there. Ok ok, come back….go south and never look up. Good. Circles. Nice circles.

Got it?

Never mind


You know, my guilty pleasure has gotten me in a lot of trouble in the past with my non-fanatical-non-addicted soul to its competitors.

It gets harder and harder to restrain my hand from reaching, deep…. deep in the black cave…

…to find my wallet and pull out three shiny quarters and hand them over to my Greek gentleman.

There. It takes quarters – three to be exact to satisfy my lust for that delicious wet essence.

It satisfies me like no other. It runs through my veins, pumping energy and leaving me breathless, wanting more…craving even more.

I am addicted to coffee.

Not just any coffee. The one on 57th and 8th. The one my Greek Gentleman serves me.

For only three shiny quarters.

I’ve been a victim for years now. The big corporation called Starbucks will never have my soul.

Never.

Lately, I have nothing to write about…really, how often do you have to read about my drinking problems, my insane dating scene, love affairs and such…

Maybe, the reason I've had nothing to write is because it is the end of this story. The character has become developed, I’ve found my purpose, gave up my drinking and self-exploitative ways, and has settled down.

We had the climax of the story at the height of my depression/hating my job/being a homo, and now we have resolution. I got in the fab world, am in the midst of preparing for my journey. My life reflects this contentment now. My indulgence at the moment is cheap wine (bottles under $15), BYOB restaurants, and my $3,000 apt in Murray Hill that I hate.

so what’s next?

Random guy smoking outside my favorite bar: Ooh exotic young ladies, my favorite.

Me: [overhearing, looks over shoulder and smiles - he was under 30 and cute, you've got to give them some encouragement.]

Him: Tell me you're a half-breed.

Me: [over shoulder, still walking] I am.

Him: Take me home.

It's amazing how such a small thing can give you such a massive ego boost. I'm going to bed with a smile on my face.

Honestly, if I were into schlongs, I would so do him.

But really, who says half-breeds?