I found a poem to sum it up...

Delphiniums in a Window Box

Every sunrise, even strangers’ eyes.

Not necessarily swans, even crows,

even the evening fusillade of bats.

That place where the creek goes underground,

how many weeks before I see you again?

Stacks of books, every page, characters’

rages and poets’ strange contraptions

of syntax and song, every song

even when there isn’t one.

Every thistle, splinter, butterfly

over the drainage ditches. Every stray.

Did you see the meteor shower?

Did it feel like something swallowed?

Every question, conversation

even with almost nothing, cricket, cloud,

because of you I’m talking to crickets, clouds,

confiding in a cat. Everyone says,

Come to your senses, and I do, of you.

Every touch electric, every taste you,

every smell, even burning sugar, every

cry and laugh. Toothpicked samples

at the farmers’ market, every melon,

plum, I come undone, undone.

~Dean Young

So...

Things have once again taken another turn...  The guy, the internet guy, the sweet, funny, good in bed guy... is probably not coming back.  We talk from time to time.  We send emails back and forth.  It was his birthday, and my birthday and we sent poetry to each other, and music.  I found this poem by Dean Young last weekend.  I had gone to New York City for the weekend to see my friend sing at the Folk Art Museum, and my other friend had written a play that had been produced and I bought the New Yorker for the train ride home.  I always read the poetry first and this was in there.  And it reminded me so much of what was going on with me.  That like, 'I can't breathe, everything reminds me of him' feeling.  He makes me shake, when I am around him, or when I was waiting for him to arrive somewhere, I would shake.  And yet we are apart.  I sent him an email around my birthday that said "I feel far away from you, I guess that I should..." This is the second time in my life that I have felt like I didn't understand how I could have a connection like this with someone and yet we aren't together.  How does that happen?  What is that all about?  Is it me?  I am not blaming myself... I just wonder how it ends up like this?

   Oh but wait... there is so much more!  So slightly heart-broken I trudge on!  I work as a librarian and on Monday nights there is always this guy mid-thirties, tall, dark hair, kind of shy, always checks out really great stuff.  He and I would always chat it up about whatever book or movie he was taking out.  So I go to a Decemberists show and who is there?  But cute, sweet library guy, all by himself.  I ask him to come hang out with me and my friends, and we chat it up while very cooly head-bobbing along to Colin Maloy.  The next Monday after the concert he asks me out at work.  Asks me if I want to go see Camera Obscura in June with him (Yeah I do!) and then asks me if I want to go out for drinks sooner than that.  (Yeah I do!) Two dates in one shot?  Yeah! 

  So remember the original (totally wrong for me) ex-boyfriend?  The one who up and left for Indiana?  Well his life has decended into a drama cyclone of epic proportions.  I still tutor his younger brother, and his Dad and step-Mom and I are still close.  Library guy and I go on our first date.  We have dinner, chat about the state of Afghanistan and Pakistan (I study Central Asian History in college) books, music, laugh about the terrible waiter, wrack up a few inside jokes, go get some drinks (that inexplicably taste vanilla-y even though they most definitely shouldn't) and have a pretty great date.  At the exact moment that I am swearing off men who are wrong for me and cultivating a relationship with a slightly older guy who is smart, funny, employed, doesn't live with his parents, plays guitar, spent the weekend before having a picnic by himself by a pond while reading Faulkner (take me now!)  Ex-boyfriend's parents get a call from him... he's got some big news (no he hasn't found a better job, he's still working at Wendy's, no he hasn't decided to move back, no he hasn't come to his senses and realized that dating a 18 yr. old when you are 33 is gross...) His very very very young girlfriend is pregnant.

  Yeah, the world might as well have exploded.  This girl just had a baby (18 months ago) they have been living in her car... Ex-boyfriend brings home 200$ a week.  He has two kids (with his ex-wife) he helps support.  He nose-dived so quickly in such a short amount of time that when they called me the next day to tell me I literally had to sit down.  I don't want anything to do with dating him.  But I care about him and this is probably the worst thing that could happen.  That baby barely has a chance of growing up in a stable way.  The mother smokes, drinks, hasn't finished high-school and doesn't have a job.  There is of course no health insurance, and one car between the both of them.  The straights are dire.

  So of course today, I get an email from internet-guy.  Of course!  He writes to say "Hey! My ex-girlfriend is coming back to town... didn't get into the PhD program I applied for..." BLECH.  I am parring it down.  It was actually much more over-wrought and kind of silly.  "The envelope was thin" was how he let me know he didn't get into the grad program.

Library guy sent me a super sweet email after our date, asking if I wanted to go out again before the concert.  I am excited about him.  We got dates lined up for months, he seems totally into me.  I feel like I am ready.  I am ready to leave ex-boyfriend in Disasterville, and wishy-washy internet guy with his ex-girlfriend and his cats.  Library guy likes me, and he doesn't seem like he is going to play games, or needs something from me.  How utterly refreshing!

  I don't think I want that poem to be for internet guy anymore... I think I am ready to actually come undone.

I just got dumped- Part 2

(For the whole scoop, check below for the first half!) 

So I go to meet this guy and we are supposed to meet at a coffee shop, but it turns out the coffee shop is closed for the night.  So I am standing out front talking to my best friend on the phone waiting for this guy to show up and it's been the most beautiful, springy day of the year and I am wearing my favorite outfit and I am smiling and just waiting...

And he finally shows up, and he shakes my hand and we laugh about how the coffee shop is closed and maybe we should try another one. And he is adorable... Dark hair, cool glasses, not tall which is fine because I am even less tall, with a sweet, deep, soft voice. We walk to every coffee shop within walking distance and they are all closed, so we give up and sit on the steps of the court house and talk for hours.  Hours!  We talk about everything, his cats, my job, how we went to the same University at the same time, his mom, my mom, we talk about past relationships about how I just got finished with this guy who I shouldn't have been with, and he reveals that he had been in a relationship for six years and they split up in the fall.   We laugh, really loudly, and we make each other nervous in the best way.  It gets cold and finally we walk into a bar because it's the only place open this time of night on a Sunday.  He doesn't drink, and he tells me it's because a few months back he was diagnosed with Lyme's disease.  And he tells me the story of being so sick he couldn't lift his head and  then he says "So, am I what you expected?" with this cute smirk on his face, and I say "Yeah, yeah, definitely..." and he says "Well, you look different from your pictures..." and I get nervous and say "how?" 

And he gets all shy and awkward and looks down and says "Well, you know, you're just a lot prettier in real life.."

And the next thing I know I am holding his hand and I feel like I am vibrating on a completely new frequency. 

  We close the bar down, I give him a ride home, we make plans to go have dinner and see a movie later in the week.  He holds my hand and gives it a squeeze and gets out of the car.  Internet dating seems like the best idea I have ever had...

We talk on the computer the next couple of days, and he calls me two days before our planned date and he asks me if I want to meet for coffee, and we spend the night walking around the quiet town and college campus near by until I can't take it anymore and I stop him in front of a furniture store and grab him and kiss him.  I don't usually do that.  I just felt like I was going to explode if I didn't.  We end up making out in the park and then my car like teenagers.  "This is crazy!" we say.

The night of our date rolls around and I am excited and feel this pull, this exquisite pull to be near him.  We meet in a cafe before getting dinner and I geek out in front of him about Central Asian history and he tells me that he's seeing stars, he's so smitten with me at that moment... we go to dinner, and then go to the movie and get excited about how much we both love popcorn, and sit down, but before he sits down he tells me he has to go to the bathroom and so I he brushes past me, stops, puts his hands on my hips and kisses me in a way that sends lightning through me.  I can tell you, it will go down as one of the sweetest/hottest moments of my life. It was simple and short but it was a perfect thing, and those things happen so rarely...

We see each other two more times that week, it's crazy and intense and disorientating.  It is hot and overwhelming and perfect and too much.  By week two we are both starting to panic.  This is not how either of operate, but it's too much fun to have this person who wants to rip your clothes off all the time, who thinks your funny, who likes the same music, poetry, movies nearby.  It starts to get less fun, I start to worry about what is going on, and if it is going to continue.  It's taking its toll on him too.  We are both honest, lets just put it out there kind of people and we have long talks about how he's sick, and not sure he's over his ex-girlfriend and how blind-sided we both feel about this whole thing.  Online dating was an experiment for both of us, we are intense, emotional people, and this seemed like a casual thing that wouldn't require a lot of thought.  But instead we found each other, people who have all of the qualities we were looking for and neither of us felt quite ready for that yet.  But... we couldn't keep our hands off each other, adn when the conversations got too heavy or doomsdayish we just started kissing and all those worries and fears suddenly disappeared.

But last night we could outrun them no more.  I could feel it coming and it was making me crazy.  I feel like I am never shocked by people, that I can feel it coming way before it gets there, so I am just stuck waiting for it to happen.  All of my friends assured me that he totally liked me and my panic about him not responding to my email was an over-reaction, but I could feel it deep down, we were running out of time.  So I invited him to dinner and he met me at my apartment.  We walked to get pizza and then walked for hours around town.  The first two hours were spent pretending nothing was wrong.  But I couldn't take it anymore and pushed him to start the conversation.  He explained that he wasn't ready for this, that it was all too much, and that he isn't sure he's over his ex-girlfriend, and he nervously stood there with this sad, sorry, look on his face, waiting for me to cry or get angry or run away, and instead I took a deep breath, looked him square in the eyes and said "It's ok" and smiled.  And I meant it, it was ok.

And the minute he realized I meant it, this weight lifted off of us and we had this amazing, hysterical, heart-breaking conversation.  We told each other everything, I told him about how I knew he wasn't over her and I felt like I had been holding my breath for a month waiting for the other shoe to drop, and how I kept inviting him over and out to dinner to keep up the breakneck pace to distract him from this fact.  I told him that I feel like he is the first guy who's ever actually 'seen' me.  I didn't feel like I had to sell myself, or be embarrassed by anything, that he can see what kind of person I am and could immediately and how amazing that felt for me.  He told me that I was everything he was looking for, that he had spent nights awake, pacing with me stuck in his head.  We decided that we should take a break, get some space between us to see what it all means.  We had to keep physical distance between us because we knew that if we didn't we would end up in my bed and that was hard, but we eventually made our way back to my driveway and after nervously laughing about all sorts of things, he crossed the space between us and we hugged for a long time...

"I... really like you" he said.  I pressed my mouth to that spot where your shoulder meets your neck and said "I really like you too..."  And we held on for dear life before he finally kissed me and then practically ran back to his car.  I stood there for a long time, just standing there and thinking about how I wasn't crying, or scared.  I was calm and smiling and the moon was full.

I think I got dumped last night and it was awesome

The past month has been really crazy.  So many things happened to me, that it feels like more than a month has gone by, it feels like I crammed six months of emotion and excitement into 3 weeks and 5 days.  It's why I haven't put a post up in so long...

  Ah, the beginning.  I had been dating this guy for over a year, who I should have dumped week two.  He wasn't right for me at all, we had nothing in common, we had very little chemistry, but he adored me and was sweet.  My friends recogonized immediately that this was a bad idea, but I kept giving him a chance because the guys I always went for (you know the shy, funny, smart, introspective musician/writer/painter/academics) always ended up being complete self-centered jerks.  This guy was a chef, had tattoos, chain-smoked, like cars and video games and movies starring Chris Farley or Vin Diesel.  But he appealed to me because I overthink everything, I analyze and write long journal entries about the smallest details.  This guy just wanted to date me, hold my hand when we walked down the street, go to the movies, eat dinner, come home, have sex and go to sleep.  The simplicity of it all comforted me to no end.  There was no question of how he felt about me, he liked me and then about four months later he was in love with me.  We didn't talk about it, it just was.

  It was so safe for me, I didn't have to put myself out there at all.  I was not vulnerable, and it was awesome! KINDA.   If it failed it was ok, I could totally handle it, and if it didn't, well, I wasn't madly in love, but I wasn't unhappy either.  This is how people get stuck...

Flash forward a year and a half....

Boyfriend who has friends and family living in Indiana up and decides he is going to move there for an opportunity to open a restaurant of his own.  Wants me to come with him... I am quite happy working as a librarian on the East Coast and have no desire what-so-ever to move to the middle of the country for a guy I am not madly in love with.  We have a crazy month before he leaves, where he sort of opens up and gets vulnerable with me which makes me develop actual feelings for him, and I realize I will miss this companion of mine and I start to get panicky that my good deal is about to drive 800 miles to the left.  He goes, I have a hard time, we talk on the phone everyday, the restaurant falls through, his family out there is CRAZY TOWN, he gets antsy, goes from being the head chef in a very nice restaurant in a very nice town in Massachusetts to working at Wendy's in the middle of depressed/sad Indiana. 

  I am well known for my anxiousness and my ability to worry like it's my job, so when boyfriend says he's going to call me the next day around 10, and he doesn't call, and his phone is shut off and I stay up all night because I think he has died in a ditch or through some shady dealings with his older drug-dealing brother who lives out there, I am a crazy person when I finally get a hold of him the next morning after calling his step-father and begging him to help me.  Turns out he was with his brother, and he has decided after he told me last week that he couldn't live with out me and asked me to move out there and I said "no" that he didn't love me anymore, wanted to do some chick he met at his brother's trailer, and didn't think we should talk anymore.  I got exactly what I deserved.  I was sad for one day, due mostly to the fact that I was over-tired and not quite over being scared to death.  I woke up the next morning feeling good, and free.

  My friends had suggested I try internet dating.  I have always sort of balked at the idea.  It seems so awkward, and kind of scary... but I needed a change so I put a profile up and I got an email right away, from a very sweet, funny, smart guy and later on that night we chatted and it was great.  He and I hit if off, as much as two people can while chatting via the computer and the next day he sent me a message asking if I wanted to meet up and have coffee.  My friends and I agreed that you should meet right away, part of what makes internet dating awkward is the fact that you develop this raport with people online and then you meet and what if they actually look like a troll?  Or they have serious hygeine problems?  Or they thought you were going to prettier in real life?  Ugh, gross, it's so complicated.  I agreed to meet him, and that's when everything changed and spun out into millions of brightly colored lights, that were blinding and overwhelming and amazing...

  I'll be back to tell you the rest I promise...

Jezebel Article

Here is a link to a Jezebel article referencing the Rhianna situation.  I read a blog on pnn last week that really upset me, the author of the blog argued if Rhianna is stupid enough to stay with Chris Brown then she deserves what she gets...  Here is a Jezebel Article (that references other articles in Daily Beast and Newsweek) that explains how I feel more accurately about the whole situation.  The statistics are terrifying.  I refuse to believe that millions of women get what they deserve every year...

http://jezebel.com/5166724/how-to-talk-about-domestic-violence

We Have to Stop Meeting This Way

We Have To Stop Meeting This Way And Other Lies You Tell Your Old College Boyfriend

The night is lifting.

The pink dawn pulling up behind the apartments across the street.

Brooklyn doesn’t change in the face of a new day,

but that consistency doesn’t mean

I know how to get home from here.

I want to go with you.  Step back into

a place filled heavy with hope and exquisite wanting.

I am longing for a way that would feel less empty.

But the party hasn’t ended,

I’ve come with someone else,

he is chatting by the fireplace, uncomfortable,

and she has called you three times

and we have stolen from her.

Poetry

Songbird You Should Come Down From There
 
The city, with it's honesty about what it's hiding,
Is filled with boys who drink too much and then step up on stage
Like it's the only thing left to do.
 
They are wearing vests,
They play guitar
or drums
or bass, or...

 
And they love you in a heart-breaking,
call you at dawn,
meet me at this bar,
someone smashed the car window,
kind of way.
 
It's a wounded, bird-losing-feathers,
give me another vodka-love they want to give,
but are terrified, worried you are made of gold.
you look and smell and taste like you are.