Empire State of Mind

I didn't think I would write again until 2010 and here I am. This is why I don't like to make long term plans: you can plan whatever you want; but ultimately, the universe can have other plans and that's the end of that.

I expected to end the decade with a bang. As I write this, I should be getting ready to join my friends for the last happy hour of the year. Instead, I am in bed recovering from what has been the most nightmarish flu I've ever had. Quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if I had the swine flu. Today I left home for the first time in 3 days only to have to return 10 minutes later. Terrible story...but at least during those 10 minutes I got a chance to step into Starbucks, buy a tea and one of their compilation CDs. Some of them are so amazing!

This time I bought One For My Baby and am listening to it now. Wow!

For most of my life (or at least since I've been able to speak) I've wished I could break into song when the mood strikes. My memory works by associating moments with songs so my life has a soundtrack. An unlikely soundtrack at that.

As I listen to this CD, I'm reminded of one of the best first dates I've ever had...

Years ago, when I lived in NYC, Dan and I went to the 10 year anniversary party of the release of Weezer's blue album. There we met a guy. He was beautiful and just my type: a nomadic writer with the bluest eyes I had ever seen (this was before I found redheads). At that point my gaydar was still off and my self-esteem not where it should have been so naurally I thought he wanted to hook up with Dan. I was wrong.

While we talked, I mentioned that my favorite spot in the city was the median on Broadway and 81st. He asked for my email address. I gave it to him but I didn't think he'd write...

He did the next day and asked me out. "A nighttime picnic", he said.

He picked me up and together we took the crosstown bus to the Upper West Side. He had a paper bag full of stuff he claimed was dinner and he took me to my median.

It was dark out but we were illuminated by the lights of traffic. When we sat on the bench, he fed me a turkey sandwich and hot chocolate. We ate, talked and laughed. He asked me to dance. I reminded him that there was no music. And so he pulled me up and started singing in my ear one of those old classic songs that require a red dress and a suit... and we danced and laughed in the median of Broadway and 81st...

Starbucks just brought me back there.

One of my favorite memories of the decade that ends tomorrow.

Lead me not into temptation...

" I want to kiss you...but if do then I might miss you babe..."

-"Love Game" by Lady Gaga

It's been months since I've been enthusiastically enthusiastic about somebody. I like people sure, but A is A and B is B and after a while you are like whatever. But there is someone in my life now. He is smart, and succesful and so incredibly hot that every once in a while, I look in his general direction and have a mini-nervous breakdown.

Self-control has never been my strong suit.

In this specific case, this is my problem.

I have managed to find myself EXTREMELY involved with a man who has found God. God. God? I mean really...God? Apparently he couldn't wait until after he met me, and he has recently found God and leads a life of celibacy.

On our first date he asked me to church.

And normally I'd be like "whatever". I'll be the first to admit that I like physicality on my terms. It makes me feel like I'm in control. The problem is that this guy is too hot for words. This past weekend I saw him swimming and I was lustful like a guy! Maybe worse! Each angle and curve of his body was like an invitation. I saw him and I counted his freckles and I couldn't even bring myself to touch him out of fear that I might spontaneously combust.

Hell, out of fear that I may drop dead if he touched me, I didn't put on sunblock and am now lobster red to say the least!

So I got cranky. And I bitched at him for getting me wet even though I was already in the pool and I ran out of the pool and lit a cigarrette and he came after me and said "how can I make it up to you?"

In my mind: "Bathroom. now."
What I really said: "Margarita. Then something fried and breaded"

(he is a fitness freak. I had to mess him up a little)

And I saw him pick up each calamari and I had to go smoke. and drink some more. and then smoke again.

(he got physically sick because I asked him to... and I liked it)

He found God and yet he is making me feel the kind of lust that will drive you straight to hell. And he tells me that I'm funner than fun and cooler than cool and so pretty and I don't know how long I'll be able to continue this nonsense because I know that I would never marry him but when he is in front of me I can't help myself but wish I was the broccoli he brings so enthusiastically into his mouth and that cross that rests so so comfortably on his chest.

God help me.

i don't wanna' know.

I don't like getting my important news from Facebook; but lately, it seems like Facebook is the place to go for news. I like Facebook. I really do. I like it so much that I deleted my Hi5, MySpace and Friendster profiles for it. I don't like that everything is so out there for you and the world to see. It's like Facebook knows EVERYTHING about EVERYBODY and is there making sure that your friends know and show excitement so that then EVERYONE knows what you did or what someone did that affects you.

Some months back, I saw the "looking for" field in the profile of the guy I was dating go from "Friendship" to "Dating/ Relationship". A couple of months ago, I was at friend's place and he was logged on to Facebook and that's how I found out that HWMNBN and that girl were in a relationsip. When Cesar and Joy died I found out through Facebook. When Flo was in town but HWMNBN would not let him call me, that's how I found out. Today I found out that my Frenchy's "complication" is now his "relationship".

Some say knowledge is power. I say, ignorance is bliss.

In <3 with Home Depot.

I love Home Depot. It is my firm belief that within that store, a person can find character. Over the years, I have gone to a number of their Do-it-Yourself seminars and have learned tons from their knowledgeable sales people. I think that it takes a certain kind of person to like Home Depot.

This morning I went to the nursery there. Among other things, I grow my own herbs and salad in one of the balconies of my apartment and I was in need of some bigger pots and some potting soil. While I was there waiting in line, there was a couple in front of me. I don't know why it was that they reminded me of a picture I saw once of Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey at a Home Depot.

Anyway, I started thinking about the picture and I thought that the next man I go out with has to be someone who embraces the "you can do it, we can help" mentality. A well-rounded man who can help take care of his home.

Practical skills are really underrated...

The freaking "clavo"

Recently the expression “un clavo saca otro clavo” has become extremely popular. Apparently everyone around me with even mediocre mastery of the Spanish language has felt the need to say that to me these past weeks and lately I’ve started to listen…

This past month I’ve cried a lot. I’ve lost weight. I’ve left my home looking like death warmed over. Needless to say, the demise of my “relationship” with HWMNBN is something that I’ve grieved in ways I never thought possible…I guess that I really did (do) love him…

But life goes on. And I’ve come to realize that I have to recover from this so when the “clavo” showed up the other day in the form of an IT developer who shares a moniker with a famous athlete and my love for books and interesting conversation, I said “YES YES YES!”

So we went out and shared some laughs over beers and bar food.

For the first time in a month, I found myself enjoying male company. I examined the curves of his face. He said he felt my heartbeat when holding my hands and I blushed. He flirted, I flirted back and at the end of the date I agreed to see him again.

Of course, I didn’t think that “again” would be at 10:00am the next day…but it was…shortly after I arrived at work I got an invitation for a mid morning coffee and again I was like “YES YES YES!” and it was then, during this coffee break that he blushed, and talked and talked and talked and started by saying that he was seeing some girl and concluded by saying that he was living with the aforementioned girl.

But he is in an “unhappy relationship” and he “really does like me” and he hopes we can “work around this” so we should “go out this weekend”.

NO NO NO!

There went my faith in the male species…again…

I should have known he was full of shit when he said he could feel my heartbeat when he held my hand…I’ve been told things such as that before and there was a time when my heart beat so intensely you could feel it in my hair but I don’t want my heart to beat like that…not for anybody else anyway.

red hair.

Gustav Klimt was an Austrian painter who lived at the end of the 19th century. His works are all imprinted with a certain eroticism and his particular perception of the female form. A good number of his works also portray his love of the redhead. As a matter of fact, some of his most famous works include "the redhead", which in my study of Klimt I have grown to see as "the one who got away".

For the obvious reasons, I have always liked Klimt. I like the colors he uses, the expressions on the faces of his subjects, and also the emotion he evokes. "Der Kuss" has always been one of my favorite paintings because of this expression of emotion.

I have also liked Klimt because I am a redhead lover myself. In a world where redheads are so rare and most people manage to go through life without ever encountering one, I have lived surrounded by them. Even when I don't look for them, they come and find me. The men I have loved the most, redheads. HWMNBN, redhead. The guys who are the main characters of the stories I will never tell my grandchildren, redheads.

Yesterday I received an email from a friend telling me that she found someone she feels would make an ideal companion for me. Her description of Prince Charming read like this: "...is a 32 year old single white male who has red hair. He is about 5'8 and is not only real sweet but also real..."

Every time my friends find someone who would be perfect for me, more often than not they are redheads. And I wonder why. Frankly, red hair is not a physical feature that I find particularly attractive and neither are the freckles that come with it. Perhaps I become attracted to the personality traits attached to someone with unusual physical characteristics (kinda like that guy I dated who had a brown eye and a blue eye). Hard to say. In any case it's kind of cool I think...

Even if this great person and his lovely red hair would probably just remind me...