What the Hell is This?

Finally recovered from almost three phlegmy weeks of the obligatory annual cold-flu virus…you’d think I would have been that much more prolific in all the time spent at home, but instead I frittered away untold hours online clicking on links posted by friends and watching videos. Only some of which were even remotely educational. I wrote very little, job-hunted very little. I did have one interview, and a test for a job with the state — to which I dragged myself, still hoarse and sneezing — but sent out only one resume and filled out only one application.

At least I had some interesting company on my comment thread. I must say, I very much appreciate you readers who come and sit in my virtual living room, kick off your shoes, and visit awhile. We’ve certainly had some lively exchanges around here.

It bears mentioning that by its two-year anniversary on March 24, this blog will have gotten nearly 10,000 hits. Not bad for an obscure shadow blog, eh? It never ceases to amuse me how many people click onto this site having searched for things like “what to put up your ass” or “you’re ugly and your mom dresses you funny,” thanks to a few post titles.

**

I hadn’t planned on being house-bound and isolated for so long. This illness put a substantial dent in what I intended to be my social life. I had been all fired up and ready to “get out there and start making connections,” as Lisa Brown put it, with various events and people in mind. Instead I found myself confined to the apartment, stymied, stuffy-headed, sleepy, and bored. I watched some Netflix movies, including “Moon” with Sam Rockwell — possibly the best thing I’d seen all year — and fell madly in love with the offbeat, versatile, wildly underappreciated actor. At moments, he reminded me of another Sam.

**

Over the weekend, a friend posted her Facebook status as “One step forward, two steps back,” and I wound up searching for the video of a Bruce Springsteen song reflecting that same sentiment so I could provide her with the link. As I watched (for the first time) the visual accompaniment to Springsteen’s melancholy and yearning song about love gone wrong, with its interpretive black-and-white footage of bare-skinned caresses in a spray of water, I flushed, feeling a stab of loss, and started to cry a little. The images brought up vivid memories of showering with Sam. (I had never felt comfortable bathing with anyone else before — I was too self-conscious about my body — but I could be so naked with Sam.)

Suddenly I was fiercely missing him, not just his welcoming body but his ineffable sweetness. That was one quality I had heard mentioned over and over again by other women, women from twenty-five to fifty-five, women he had supervised. They adored Sam, and not for any superficial reason like charm but for a certain inherent quality of character. So many lamented to me (knowing or not knowing about us) that he had been their favorite. Women my age and older whom I did enlighten about our relationship didn’t roll their eyes at my cradle-robbing, but nodded approvingly at my good taste. Sam had a way about him, a way of being, that I still find difficult to encapsulate. Attentive, serious, considerate, responsive…and sweet. On the calling floor, or on the bedroom floor, one felt important. One felt visible.

I let the old grief and longing consume me, inhabit me for the rest of the day, without resistance. Walking to dinner at a good friend’s house later, in springlike weather, I passed the corner where Sam and I had said goodbye. And then I realized what I had entirely forgotten: today was Sam’s twenty-second birthday. I wondered if he had been thinking about me too.

**

These past weeks have seemed much like last March, full of impatience with myself — how long am I going to keep putting off my life’s adventures? — until I remember that love is an adventure all its own, and that last spring I had had no inkling that taking a desperation job at the call center would lead to a life-altering love affair with a man almost half my age.

In all honesty, I’ve already met several of the life goals I once scribbled in a notebook, prompted by a book I was reading at the time. I’ve been to Italy. I’ve taught yoga. I’ve had a passionate, sexually satisfying love affair with a man I couldn’t get enough of. It just took me thirty-eight years to get started.

Sometimes it does seem that these things have a timing all their own, and that some inexplicable intelligence (the Universe? My own subconscious?) knows what needs to happen and when. The yoga studio and community intercepted me like a net as I let go of the “safe” job I’d held for fourteen years. Those early days at the studio were happy ones: I met my “ideal” man there, and while he turned out to be less than ideal, he taught me something I needed to learn. And if I had made it to Ireland last spring, as I had so fervently wished, I would never have met the young man who blasted to smithereens my mountainous obstacles to relationship.

**

So perhaps being thwarted in my efforts is to some greater end.

I had intended to do my damndest — before the worst of the cold set in — to get down to a film screening sponsored by a nonprofit owned by one of the activist community’s most eligible bachelors. I’ll call him Jonah, since he spent his early years in the belly of a corporation before becoming the “messenger” he is today. Jonah had clearly noticed me when we first met, but I, feeling intimidated by his abundant competence and virtue (not to mention handsomeness), eventually faded into the wallpaper.

I had been wondering how I might relate to him now — now that comely activists are approaching me unbidden at rallies, now that I can take them or leave them. Would it be easy? Would I be able to talk to him like a regular human being? Could I take him or leave him, too?

The story: Jonah is the founder and head of our local independent media production company. Committed, politically savvy, and unapologetically liberal, this still fairly young man is responsible for many of the grassroots media and educational programs in the city. But before I knew anything about his noble aspirations to serve the common good, I was knocked out of my socks and off my game at first sight.

Not that I had any game to begin with. At a meet-and-greet for the expanding community radio station, I had approached the station’s program director to ask a question. She was chatting with two very attractive men. I introduced myself. The first gentleman was mildly aloof, but Jonah gazed at me steadily with what felt like more than passing interest, and smiled a warm, dazzling smile. I got hot all over. I didn’t know what to do, or how to talk to him. After speaking with the program director for a few minutes, I excused myself.

Maybe Jonah was just as clueless. During later encounters I would wonder whether, for some unknown reason, he had developed an aversion to me, or whether he actually felt some kind of attraction but was less socially astute than his appearance would lead one to expect. Whatever the case, the more I wanted to be noticed by him, the more he seemed to steer clear of me. Yet I never saw him show up anywhere with a companion of either sex. That was a head-scratcher. Maybe he was a perennial loner like me. I’m sure I haven’t made much sense to people either. Hell, I’m only beginning to make sense to myself. At any rate, after a silent-auction fundraiser more than four years ago where I barely managed to speak four words to him all night, I gave up. (I’ll let you in on a little secret, though: when I custom-ordered Sonny from the cosmic catalogue, I used Jonah as my model. Messy hipster hair and all.)

Being too sick to go to the premiere, I sent Jonah an online friend request with a flirty if noncommittal message. (Per his page, he likes women, and he’s looking.) He hasn’t responded, but he hasn’t rejected my request either.

I’m not holding my breath; I know he’s not the only fish in the pond. I’m just casting out lines.

**

I was equally thwarted in my efforts to reconnect with a gentleman I met through my neighborhood political organizing group; I was too runny-nosed and contagious to attend our meeting. I don’t know much about Ben yet, other than that he’s progressive in his politics and went on a meditation retreat in February, but both of these things dispose me favorably toward him. He was very friendly and warm at the party — we shared a joke about Republicans and healthcare reform — I just couldn’t determine his orientation. (He’s skinny and somehow neat in appearance, the way some of my gay boyfriends are skinny and somehow neat in appearance. But that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.) I like Ben. Ben seemed to like me. His eyes crinkle appealingly when he smiles. Another fish, possibly.

**

Then there’s Padraic Edelman…the Irish Jew. His parents just liked the name Padraic, actually. He’s a co-worker at the call center who has flirted with me sporadically, and gave me his card as an apparent invitation. I wouldn’t mind hanging out with Padraic…he’s a good guy (even if his sense of humor is groan-worthy), and he’s nice-looking in his goateed, bespectacled way…but I wasn’t interested enough (in more-than-friendship) to pursue him by making the first call. I wound up giving him my number instead, saying “My friends can tell you how bad I am about calling them” — which is true. Padraic is roughly my age and moonlights as an “intuitive counselor.” He reads the kind of books we used to shelve in the Metaphysics section at the bookstore, meaning that he’s way more New-Agey than I am, but that’s not necessarily a dealbreaker. I think I prefer the so-called “moonbats” to the Richard-Dawkinsian atheists these days. I’d rather be the dubious and skeptical one around an impassioned (non-evangelical, mind you) believer than be forced to defend my sense of the numinous and mysterious to a strict materialist who wants to convert me. (So my imaginary affair with the YouTube guy would probably never have worked out anyhow.)

At the same time, I’m on the alert for what John Welwood called “spiritual bypass” — the practice of using meditation, mantras, or other religious/spiritual beliefs and methods to gloss over glaring personal and psychological problems. I’ve seen too many people proclaim Love and Light or Victory in Jesus without really dealing with their shit. The pain and conflict goes underground, and all the badness gets projected elsewhere. You wind up with phenomena like those accusations of “negativity” from my old boss at the studio, or supposedly “happy” Christian families with kids who never want to come home, or charismatic yogis who quote Gandhi while wreaking devastation in others’ emotional lives.

**

Also at my job is Ted, a good-natured pharmacist who moved here from Austin, Texas, and whom I favor at least partly because he looks like a fortysomething version of Sam. He’s intelligent, well-informed, and undoubtedly fond of me, even if only as a friend. We often sit together and chat between calls (inspiring the sneers of that emotionally volatile fifyish guy who either dotes excessively upon me or gives me the cold shoulder). Ted intends to move back into his preferred field soon, and I hope we stay in touch. If he asked me out, I’d go in a heartbeat. Maybe it has a lot to do with the resemblance, but I find him easier to think about like that than most of the others (even if Jonah is the obvious rock star). He’s comfortable, in a sexy sort of way, and not overly impressed with his own opinions — which is more appealing than you would imagine.

We’ve had a few near misses (Have you been to this restaurant? Have you seen this movie?) that never led to us making a date. If it happens again, I may say: Hey, Ted, why don’t we…

**

Lastly, I’ve lately reconnected — through my social network — with a guy on whom I’d had a slight crush when we worked together at the bookstore. He’s several years younger than I am and in a band, so our lifestyles may be too different, but you never know. Back in the day he had a live-in girlfriend, so there was no opening for me even if the interest had been there. Recently, however, David has been rather publicly bemoaning his abysmal luck in the dating department.

By way of encouragement — but also to test the waters — I sent him a teasing private message referring to him as “geekalicious.” He responded by virtually <blushing> and asking me if I was busy this weekend, inviting me to a club event featuring several DJs. I told him I’d rather not have to shout at him over loud music, but that I’d love to see him again. Coffee, a drink, a game of pool…“Make me an offer,” I said. (He wound up suggesting brunch. I gave him my number.)

Where did this glib confidence come from? Well, I know where…and I must say I like it. Hot damn. It’s so much easier to talk to men when you can take them or leave them.

**

Obviously there are several persons of interest floating around in my peripheral vision at the moment, I just haven’t had a chance to be around them much lately. Maybe that’s for the best, who knows? Maybe I’m about to meet someone entirely new, the likes of whom I haven’t yet imagined.

Whatever the case, I’m definitely more ready and willing to welcome whomever than I have ever been before. As I said in my previous, personal groundbreaker of a post, I want to love and be loved. And for once, the Beloved doesn’t have a name tag attached. For once, I don’t have some nitpicky and impossible shopping list. For once, I’m not coming from a place of pain, trying to ignore that vortex of unworthiness that used to live in my chest protected by fear and a desperate kind of pride.

I keep stopping and listening, closing my eyes, searching inside to feel that raw, yawning, perennial wound that was so easily inflamed by the mere intimation of rejection in the past, and it just isn’t there. It’s still hard for me to believe that all these years I’ve been protecting an early inner image of my mother. In other words, my extremely painful (and stubborn) refusal to accept the fact that gentleman X (the only man who would do) was not going to love me, kept me from confronting the fact that the very first person I needed to love me (whom I truly could not replace) rejected me in a fundamental way. For decades, I’ve been as unwilling to look at this as I was unwilling to look at my rigid inner hierarchy, that constipated commitment to mostly conditioned ideas about How a Man (or Woman, me) Should Appear, Act, and Be.

But now the monster’s out of the closet…and it looks so small. Not to mention unoriginal, to an almost embarrassing degree. The nice thing about having these all too common dysfunctions was that the particular creative way I coped with and rationalized them made me unique. (I’m sure Chris the coach is somewhere nodding in agreement.) And doesn’t everybody want to be unique? (Ha ha.)

Nevertheless, these days I’d rather be open to receive love, in all its prosaic egalitarianism, like “ordinary” people (those selfish, indiscriminate fools, with their “needs” and their pasty partners!). A taste of the actual brew changed my mind. That homey nectar is far better than the finest wine made from the most cultivated sour grapes.

**

One thing I did do to try to move things forward during my illness was to order a used copy of Calling in ‘the One:’ 7 Weeks to Attract the Love of Your Life — a book I never thought I’d read, much less buy, when I first saw it at the bookstore.

Admitting this to you, dear readers, is like admitting that this classics grad reads bodice-rippers or Nicholas Sparks novels. (Which I don’t, but…well, okay, I have been known to flip to the good parts in the bodice-rippers.) The author has appeared on talk shows with women she agreed to help, and then returned with them in a matter of weeks, new partner in tow. Staged? Possibly. Gimmick? Can’t say. Fake? We’ll see.

I’m ready to be her next guinea pig. The book hasn’t arrived yet, but I’ll let you know how it is.

Won’t this be fun?