Rain Comes

I love how rain is sometimes used as a metaphor, or euphamism for female wetness.  I love it.  Often times it does get my skin prickly in that good, seductive way--especially the summer rain.  I mind the rain that feels like God is pissing on us, but love the storm tonight--hard, forceful rain with thunder.  It used to scare me, until I was like 30, because I had a marred childhood when it came to storms, and now I like it.  I like most things that are forceful.  It's who I am.  See my dog and you'll understand.

Oh dear readers, I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to update.  Imagine me dramatically and sympathetically flopping myself on a bed.  I don't know where June has gone, but I'm glad it's over.  It was filled with romantic disappointments and work has quieted down to the point where I actually have to readdress my 2008 taxes and have the time to do it, now that the audit is over.  July has the potential to be so much more.  Perhaps it was that pathetic sex party that brought me down and tainted the whole month. 

L'amour...it's quite pathetic.  It seems that I'm largely unwanted--sexually and romantically--on the island of Manhattan, though I haven't tested my luck in the other 4 boroughs of New York City so men could be coming out of the woodwork in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island for all I know.  Doubtful, but, like July..possibly full of potential.  Of the 5 men who have turned me down lately, one is a former lover who is now suddenly pretending that he is morally above the cheating politicans and likes to pretend that he couldn't lower himself and have sex with me, being a married father of 6!  This didn't stop him from 2007-2008 when we had plenty of sex at the Gansevoort and the London Hotels.  He seems to forget that I know just how much he likes getting head--and not just because 99% of people love it.  I *know* because I was the one giving it to him and I got more back than Monica Lewinsky.  I heard him moan, I felt his hand gently pushing my head farther down on his cock.  Now that he can't really make a living and is looking for new employment, trying to be the good breadwinner, he conveniently forgets the past infidelity. Alas, like a prisoner on death row, he somehow found morality and turned me down.  

Among the remaining 4, I had one guy from Jdate who, in the end, declined to meet me because he "just met someone" and told me that it's all about timing.  My boy coupon expired and I have to move on.  Fritz, who is currently out of the dating loop, which is silently breaking my heart and the other 2 are men that came on to me, got me all worked up, and just as they were about to pull the trigger, confessed that women that they had causally mentioned were actually serious girlfriends.  If they could have worked out their fidelity issues without engaging my libido, it would have been greatly appreciated.

I complain about these men--these namby-pamby sorts who can't or won't do exactly what I want them to do. But, I don't really want any of them anymore; in the last few weeks, I've honed a different crush. The sexual movie that replays in my head is starring the manager of my gym, which is the lovely Equinox on the Upper West Side where I've had cause to deal with him lately.  But before you assume that I'm just complaining to him just to get face time, I'm actually not--I'm trying to change my karma there, as I snuck in for the first 5 months of 2009 and now am offering my marketing skills and trying to help them increase membership and keep current members happy.  I'm still not sure how I stepped into this role, but it started with me asking for a refund on a monthly fee (that I was not really entitled to) and ended with me offering to sit down and brainstorm with the manager and use pieces of my MBA. I tried to overlook his boyish good looks and his flirty customer service persona.  I tried to remember that he was there to serve me ONLY in a appropriate capacity--making sure that I get my yearly assessment and my free personal training session--and remember that the flirting was just marketing to keep me feeling special and liked.  I kept our conversation focused and cast the thoughts of sex with Equinox employees far from my mind.  But, as we all know, when you are determined to NOT think about something, it's all you can think about. 

We had a moment once--this manager and I.  He was schmoozing with me, just trying to make polite conversation in an effort to enhance Equinox PR and I looked him in the eye and, were I a man, I'd have had a huge hard-on, which I assume would be awkward to run on the treadmill with.  I was slow to look away but at that moment I knew I wanted him badly.  So, my usual mode is to show my intellectual side, doing the dance of my brain and showing that I have no interest.  That I am a dork and that only dorky things impress me--give me excel spreadsheets, talk about marketing and management concepts--only business theory into practice impresses me.  This also tends to give them impression that I am straight missionary position girl, with little or no wild side; that sex is an after thought in my life, or something that I'm mildly interested if it's the appropriate setting.  When they learn about my past jobs of phone sex and writing porn, of my liberal sexual ethics and my preference for light s&m and anal sex, it usually comes as some sort of surprise.  Some, as we've seen in the last 2 weeks, are very excited about this and file me under the category of 'women to fuck' not 'women to date' and others, well, it may prove to be a little much--that taboo might be pushed too far. But, it's never what they assume.

I'm still in the intellectual portion with this manager and I'm tending to think that I am distinctly not his type. He has no idea the sort of effort I put into a comprehensive email full of marketing ideas to him, or that I casually look through the glass walls of his office every time I enter and exit the gym to see if he's there.  I'm sure he doesn't realize that I'm harnessing my inner-8 year old and desperately try to ignore him when he passes the bike/elliptical machine or treadmill that I'm sweating profusely on when he passes by to make sure that maintenance is working or that things are processing smoothly. Or, that because I'm looking a little better and wearing more fitted clothes I'm trying to go to the gym for some reason when my hair and make up are done--did I need the New York Times digest that Equinox gives out for free? Not today.  But, did I go in and claim it?  Sure and did he even see me?  No.  He was checking his fucking email.  It was mental masturbation.  It's brain candy--no nutritional value but it tastes so good. And I like that this mundane situation makes me so wet.

I've been weighing the options of making some verbal pass at him and I know that when I am turned down, I'll feel a small pinch of embarrassment and get over it quickly--it's not really a gamble but just a odd way to pay a compliment.  Surely we'll have a conversation when he reviews this appropriate business-y email that I sent him last night. And, the whole scene will go something like this....we'll be talking about altering membership to sustain the portion of Equinox members who have recently lost their jobs and are judiciously reviewing their disposable income. Blah blah blah. We'll be in a heated debate how Equinox is to extend their appreciation to such members and keep them as repeat customers and I'll mention, quite matter-of-factly that I really want him to fuck me and in one fluid moment (no pun), I'll be bent over the desk, his button down shirt clad chest leaning heavily onto my back and skirt hiked up, his pants around his ankles, both of us forgetting that the walls of his office are glass and the UPS guy who is delivering reams of paper and other useless office supplies can see exactly what's going on--not to mention the gaggle of ghetto kids who run the front desk and other members rushing to check in and get to their yoga or spin classes--and after we've come, we'll notice that Equinox literature is stuck to our sweaty hands that were pressed against his desk.  Oh, and that will be my workout for the day and we'll be able to assess how many calories we just burned based on how long and hard he fucked me. 

As you can tell, All I want is just a little bit of sex.  Just a little.  No long, romantic night (except if it's Fritz), no promises of grandeur, no commitment of anything--just a little fuck; like a facial after a bad breakout, or a waxing, or anything else that one does for bodily maintenance.  And, much like my fear of cocaine, I'm scared to just pick someone off the internet for fear that they are psychotic and will fuck me, mutilate me and then kill me--or something to that effect. Please don't go thinking that I should just use a vibrator and have some special time with my hand, because it's just not the same.  THAT is like shoveling your own walk.....you should do it.  You own a shovel, you are physically able to do it, but it's much much better when someone ELSE does it and you can watch them, and busy yourself making hot cocoa for them so that when they come in from the cold you can make them comfortable and nice.  Of course the fucking 12-stepper in me thinks that this is probably God's way of keeping me away from bad human fuck toys and focusing on myself and my goals.  I'm hard at work at being a skinnier me.

If only Equinox could help me get to all my goals.

Now to return home in the rain.

The PS

Sorry to have left you so suddenly...rude, I realize, but the open house was over and I wanted to come home.  I'm so fucking tired lately and dragging my ass around town, propping myself up with carbs which is only doing a favor for the companies that make these carbs...but leaving you hanging mid-sex, or rather, pre-sex, is no nice place to be.

So, when I left you last, I was drinking at a hotel bar with Adam who was less interested in hearing my neurosis and calming me and more interested in telling me how his exercise class is the NUMBER ONE class in Beverly Hills on a Saturday morning.  If I'd let him go on, he'd tell me about all the women he was fucking in the class, but I cut the conversation to his family and his trip back to New York.  I love Adam to death and he was definitely the right choice as a escort to this party, but I really wanted to bathe in my anxiety for just a few minutes and not hear about all the wanton sex goddesses in the gym who were groping him through spandex.  I never got a chance, which was probably just as well,  and before long, we were off.

I'd been to the venue some years before with friends where I would meet someone who I would later date (and have a rather unpretty breakup with just a few short months later).  I liked it--an open area, loungelike and with an open outdoor space that was well utilized for this party.  The soiree was called for 10pm, but the hostess informed me that no one would show up until 11pm, but I was free to get there any time I liked.  Did I mention that she smartly asked me to be the "Guest Erotic Writer"?  She knew about my history with writing porn, but I have no idea what she was expecting.

Anyway, the invitation to the event enclosed a password.  I half-expected to be asked for it and rehearsed it in my head a few times and double checked my blackberry.  I was in.  I was cool. I had the password.  I also had sentences like, "Oh, I was invited by ______.  We had lunch last week and she asked me to come and be the guest writer."  This statement--this pointed name dropping required a hand motion to accompany it, as though to say that hostesses of unusual parties were always lunching with me and giving me important jobs to do at their parties.  This statement, and gesture was also meant to say, that I could talk about sex.  That I had been around, so please keep your little 'trying to impress me' to yourself.  

Being a good 12-stepper, I also opted to use the adage to 'act as if'.  I was going to act as if I was comfortable, confident, willing and open--not that I'm not those things, kinda sort of--but, I needed some extra help.  The room was barren and Adam and I got our drink on, again.  We scanned for attractive people and were unsuccessful.  There was an Asian dancer in a platinum blonde wing, and red bra and matching thong  dancing on a cube by the bar and it was mundane and she looked like she might be having a better time if she were sitting on a couch, plucking out her pubic hairs.  She was followed by a short and thick Colombian man named Francisco who was eyeing the women and later introduced himself to me.  I learned later that Francisco got into this gig when a friend tipped him off to it, and seems to be popular among the women for accepting blow jobs.  I was, er...unimpressed.   I settled into the drinks, and watching Adam make conversation with the couple next to us.  I hadn't given up.

It's hard, at parties, to suggest to a man that you are with that you, 'do a loop.'  If you go to a party with a girlfriend, they will suggest walking around, but Adam seemed to like to stay glued to the bar and since there was no reason to walk around, we stayed.  Uneasy couples were sitting on the couches, watching the bored Asian girl and Francisco dance, and eventually the hostess greeted me, shocked at the good looks of my date and telling me that I didn't seem so shy.  Apparently, she'd bought that Talbots-good girlness of lunch the week before and I guess she didn't think I had it in me.  I told her that I had expectations of women-ness and she corrected me, like a teacher would correct a child.  She directed me to abandon my expectations and let what would be, be.  And, she told me that jeans were unacceptable and that I would know for next time.  We both knew there would be no next time.  She was trying to create a mood that, you know, jeans just undid.  She pursed her lips like she'd tasted a bad lemon.  With that, she flitted away to greet more of her guests.

As the night progressed, it became less sexy and more anthropological as I met two couples, both who were afraid to venture away from their partners but instead enjoyed the 'atmosphere of sexiness'.  One couple was a set of Russian doctors from New Jersey who left their two small children with a sitter and explained to me that the sex parties were really quite vile, people just sort of grabbing onto other bodies with little rhyme or reason, just looking for an orifice to violate.  This couple much preferred, over sex parties, to vacation at "adult resorts" which "spiced things up when they got mundane." I must admit that despite how superior I felt to these people, and as much as I wanted to be daring, the only thing that I could muster to do was play with this woman's necklace and see if she even noticed that I was touching her chest.  In my fantasy, she put her hand on me, so I knew that I could move forward, and slide down one of the spaghetti straps holding up her dress and reveal a breast which would expose a nipple, but she seemed to not really know that I was there, or maybe she saw my interest in her necklace as a compliment on her taste in jewelry and not a subtle sexual gesture.  Her unawareness made the whole party--and this whole subculture--seem less easy to access.  I wanted this party to be hyper-sensitive to small movements like that--assuming that everything was sexual. I wanted every assumption to be about sex, leading to something dirty, some violation that would be socially unacceptable elsewhere. But, it was a party.

A gorgeous black woman to my left accepted a set of pasties given away by the Asian stripper and opened her dress with aplomb to reveal a set of ridiculously beautiful breasts and I swear when I tell you that I got confused at how forward I could be--and how intimidated I was and quickly forgot the Russian woman and wanted to fondle her perfect bosom, to kiss them and hold her nipples between my teeth gently.  I wanted her for a moment--my hands would not know exactly where to reach--up her flouncy dress and between her legs or back to her breasts where I would have wanted to start, but I got confused because of the lines that we live.  In a society such as ours and in a party where were are to respect women, was I, as another woman, allowed to just walk up to another party goer and molest her?  I mean, it was a erotica party after all, but Emily Post never wrote a section on this sort of etiquette.  I tried to stop staring, managed to get my tongue back into my mouth and tried to divert my attention to other party goers. I'll admit, though, I watched her all night and the only way I'll have her now is through a fictional story that I am to create.

I redirected, and grabbed onto a woman who was walking by.  Jessica is from Montana via Utah and at her boyfriend's request, was at this party.  She seemed happy to talk to me but made it clear that they weren't ready to explore with other people.  They were seated in the corner, observing and holding each other's hands, as though to say--safety in numbers.  Adam and I followed them to their couch while the Russian couple when to fondle each other in the corner, and observed.  The boys talked and Jess and I, both being curious, talked about what Francisco tells the folks back in Colombia about what he does in America; does his mother know that the money her son presumably sends is earned by showing his cock to strangers at parties and getting paid to get blow jobs.  Does she know that her son's fingers explore the insides of strange women's cunts and that money earned buys her papaya?  I'm guessing no.

Before the party, I was too nervous to eat, so Jack made his way to my head and the music pulsing, the drums beating, the faux sexiness dancing on blocks quickly got to be too much.  There were couples moving closer, a couple dancing with one of the paid dancers, and an ass in the man's face.  Another Russian couple engaged Francisco's services and the husband directed him to lick his wife/girlfriend's pussy as she leaned back into the leather sofa, her head back enjoying her mouth and her hand cupping her breast.  

And, my dear readers, those two acts--THOSE TWO ACTS ALONE were the only really sexy things that I saw that night.  Nothing more than you'd see in Vegas, nothing so shocking and frankly, watching unattractive people get their rocks off, wasn't enough to get me into the mood--and the fantasies about the brown skinned woman who stood to my left weren't enough to excite me.  They'd excite me later.  The hostess, making her way to check on her guests, asked me how it was going.  She could see that I wasn't talking to many people, that I hadn't touched anyone in "that way" and that I felt the party had fallen short. She urged me to stay until 2am, at least, because that's when things really started going.  She failed to realize that with a shitload of work at home and a dog that needed to be walked again, my staying until 2am was a longshot--and, that her rules strictly prohibit very active "play".  But the question remains....who to play with?  The Russian couple that I was admiring when I arrived had left, presumably to relieve the babysitter and then fuck until they had to see patients in the morning and the other woman with the luscious and lickable breasts was flocked with people.  

As we left, and wearily walked down 17th Street to the subway, Adam took my hand and said, "hype?!"  And I agreed, hoping my buzz would accompany me home.  On the train, with a lack of reading material (who really brings an old New Yorker to a erotica party--my handbag was just too small!!!), I thought about the write up that I'd promised about the evening and the fiction.  I thought of story angles and what excites readers--and what excites me.  The next morning I got a text from the hostess thanking me for my attendance and telling me that just after I left, a "greek orgy" began, as she predicted.  Again, I wondered if I'd stayed, whose fingers would I have allowed in my snatch, which person would have played with my breasts, who would have kissed me.  But  more important, would I have wanted them too--what was more interesting me--the experience or the participants.  

It's one thing to go and get fucked in the middle of an orgy, but another thing entirely to enjoy it.

The Straddle

Well, happy Sunday, readers...I'm straddling my life right now by appearing to be dutiful real estate broker at open house (gobbling down oversized bagel with cream cheese) and writing about my sex life and the pathetic way I spent last Wednesday night, also known as my attendance at my first erotica/sex party.  Of course,  more on that in a bit.

You know, I like to be in tune with what the universe is telling me and I've been horribly remiss with any faux meditation practice that I'd like to pretend I maintain, but I have gotten a few signs in these last few weeks.  While Mercury Retrograde was clogging up technology and communication, a few things reached my antenna. First, things are not what they seem.  I can't elaborate on that, but you know what I mean.  Smells like a duck, walks like a duck, but lately...it's just not a duck.  Don't know why, but it's not.  I've also come to learn that it's often better to not procrastinate, because I've gotten fucked when I've blown things off and now is not the time for me to get lax.  This scary realization could also signal that I may be becoming an adult.  And, I'm getting laid far too infrequently--this is evidenced by the constant desire for me to "act out" and conjuring sexual fantasies about people who are inappropriate (the kid who made my sandwich yesterday at Subway) or just plain nasty (the customer from Florida who has aged VERY badly and has no nice feature except his eyes).   I have that sort of limp (no pun intended), pathetic lost feeling when it comes to waxing now--I want to have to keep it all neat and tidy, but it's like dusting the furniture when there are no guests for the foreseeable future coming over.  Why waste the energy.

If you know me at all, and I mean, actually know me, you know that there is nothing--NOTHING--I love more than the split of my life.  The mix and match of banal life and sexuality that you'd never expect from a Hebrew Academy graduate. You don't really picture me, clad in my Talbots clothes excited to walk to that apartment on Amsterdam Avenue and have rather sporty sex.  Masturbation isn't a word that I should really use, but I actually said it in front of a customer last week who seemed tickled pink (again, no pun) that I could say the word.  The next day he emailed me, and picked it up again--writing, 'When you're done masturbating, could you check these listings for me and tell me when there will be an open house?" I told him that I'd have to wash my hands first or I'd get the keyboard sticky.  He seemed to enjoy this banter and this is the rapport that I'm building with my client--an unprofessional and totally inappropriate line to walk, but good for some laughs.

So, my other 'job' has been in the sex world, which I admit that I miss.  I was good at writing the porn and thanks to our squeezed economy people want their sex free.  I think that generally they want free sex, but now it's not even much on the disposable income list.  Orgasms must be cost-effective which saddens me because I think that's an important economic indicator that NPR never really pays attention to, but I'm sure some economist would have something to say about what that really says about the economy.  It's one thing to take books out of the library, and to buy generic pasta instead of Ronzoni, but when you're skimpy on the porn and being forced to conjure orgasms from a free catalog, well, that's just damn sad.   Happily, I have one new project to complete and while the woman publishing it expected and wanted it to be real, it is 100% fiction.

Through a course of events that I prefer to skip, I was introduced to the world of sex parties.  Not introduced in the way that I was brought to one, but the idea was mentioned in conversation to me about a year ago.  I was disgusted and horrified.  Of course, it was around a year ago, I was disgusted and horrified by rather aggressive sex too, but everything has a season.  With my assorted body issues, I don't know that I could mentally get my head around being in a room and being look at that way, but I do know that 3 seconds into the act, I would be thrilled and excited that there is an audience.  However, it's not happened, so we'll just talk about what DID happen.

I decided, in the same way that I chose to call my IRS auditor, to go to the top on the whole sex party idea, and I was steered to a website that catered to high-class sex parties.  What makes these, "high class", I think, is that they are expensive and beautifully hosted.  And, I organized a lunch with the hen of this roost to find out more about what she does.  It was hard to schedule lunch and in the process we bonded a little over our dogs and other mundane things.  When we finally did meet, she saw that more cautious side of me--the Talbots side who is afraid what people will think, the one who doesn't want to offend and seemed boxed into her boundaries and shy.  Our lunch was short, she was somewhat of a complainer and also confident and completely secure in her skin.  She made a few notable comments and here they are in no particular order.

1) She has never heard anyone communicate any insecurity about their physical appearance or their body or having any inhibitions about exposing their naked self to a group of strangers.

2) In response to my assuring her that I wasn't interested in stealing her business model, she told me that it simply wouldn't be possible to do that--because she has a 'winning team' and it's her family.

And, knowing my excited apprehension about going to her party, she was sensible enough to ask me to do an erotic write up about the party.  I violated her rule by having an expectation, which was to have a night that I could write off--with strangers, with no real consequences and no repercussions.  I was going to the party with my friend, Adam, not a lover at all, and no one to be embarrassed in front of.  With my past of being a freelance porn writer, I constructed a story in my head for days before the party.  I'd never gotten up the gumption to be with a woman, except for a drunken make out with a college friend, only  to cause a stir in a bar, and tonight would be the night.  I wanted groping in a dark corner, fingers, hands exploring with soft curves of woman, tongues in and out of each other's mouth--and I wanted it to be a real story with a woman who I'd never see again and an experience that I could leave behind easily if I chose to do so.  And, I didn't want to be the only one doing such things.  I wanted sexual acts all around me--I wanted to see couples dry humping on couches and strangers squeezing each other's nipples through layers of gauzy blouses.  I wanted the sexual energy to be completely palpable, yet just out of reach until people hastily hail cabs and rush off to fuck like bunnies.

I wanted it to be that. And in fact, the imagination of this scene garnered a physical reaction from me of desire.  My skin even felt prickly and hot, and I wanted to it be something so different that even me, who often feels like she's seen it all, would be aroused and compelled. And, it was the opposite. In fact, when I think back on the whole night there is something about it that makes me laugh.  I laugh partly because I was so nervous, expecting that I would be pushing my personal boundaries beyond my comfort level and partly because it didn't push a fucking feather further.

Adam and I hadn't seen each other in a long time because he defected to LA, breaking my heart since he would no longer be around to work out with me or  teach my exercise classes, so he asked for some time before the party to get a drink.  We didn't know what we were in for, so I wanted to proactively calm myself and invited a bit of Jack Daniels to the party.  At the Maritime Hotel, our pre-game, we both nervously drank our whisky and Adam was fingering the condoms that he'd stuck in his pocket.  He admitted that he had to buy them on the sly when his wife wasn't looking and like a nervous teenager, dispose of the box in a garbage can on the street and stuff the contents in his pocket.  He thought he'd use at least one, and I started looking at women at the bar trying to gauge my idea of "attractive", as if I was sharpening a skill set that I hadn't used in a long time.

to be continued....

The Auditor

Well, it's been quite a week and it's been explained to me that I must curtail my 16-hour sleeping days and actually return to the world of the living. My world, as you well know, had gotten very small and contained only me, my dog, my bed and some ice cream. There was work that would pop in now and then, but mostly, I kept my boundaries. The nonstop rain helped my cause and when I'd get up, with the best of intentions to go out and be in the world, I was redirected to my bed and pillows.

I do want to thank the 'longtime listener and first time caller' for writing in a very sweet email. It was exactly what I needed to hear.

So, the audit was Tuesday. I have to admit the by Monday, I'd sort of let go of the whole thing--like just before a test when you realize that your brain simply will not hold anymore information and there is no point in studying, so you might as well just watch reruns from the 1980s and fuck the rest of studying. You let go; your hand loosening around the tightened coils of the safety bar, and you start thinking about life beyond the test, beyond the semester and beyond school. That's where I was on Monday. My friend Amy classified this as me being 'in acceptance.' And, it felt peaceful.

By Tuesday, I'd slid back from my evolved 12-steppy place and was back in panic mode and fueled by a long list of errands that I had to do, including the very long train ride to Bay Ridge to see bitchy, white-trashy managing agents who would give me some contrived runaround on an apartment that I was trying to rent. And, I got the first call from my accountant.

I'm not sure why I was nudged to take my 2007 taxes with me on errands that had nothing to do with my audit, but I threw the blue folder into my bag which proved to be the smartest thing I did all day. By the time I got to awful managing agent's office, I learned that I needed to fax two of the documents in my bag to the accountant who was mid-audit. The women in the office were kind enough to show me to their fax machine and, using my hand as a rolodex, since the fax numbers were scrawled across my palm, I sent through three documents, thanked them, and walked through the rain--which was more like the heavens pissing on earth--a mile to a train stop and during that walk, contacted an old stock broker who called an old operations manager to get copies of my IRA contributions and then had to call my awful old boss who I loathe more than any other human being I've ever met for a letter from him explaining that they filed the wrong 1099s for me, which is the entire reason that I was audited. Hateful boss, who is a staunch Buddhist practionier, is the most passive aggressive person I've ever met who pays nearly everyone in his life (seriously) and believes that he is a holy relic.

And, I dialed my accountant back to report my progress. The phone rang several times and low and behold, the auditor answered and seemed very excited to introduce herself to me and find how exactly how I was doing. I'm not sure how she expected me to be doing--SHE WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF AUDITING MY TAX RETURNS. She actually seemed surprised when I said that I was stressed and told me not to worry--and I'd learn later that she worked with my accountant to help find deductions that she could count against what I would later owe--the amount, I still have yet to learn.

Despite this wonderful luck, I still returned to my cranky status.

Meanwhile, things in my romance life seems to require some cleaning up and I wrote a letter to an old lover who was not entirely out of my life, and nudged him along on his merry way and signed back up for online dating, which I was quickly reminded is a deep, dark and ugly place. You can't do much but look at other people's profiles, try to understand why they chose the pictures that they chose, or the monikers even (one guy is called, "studboy4"?) and then have sympathy when their essays are pained, and invariably, exactly the same as the random profile before. Everyone is looking for exactly the same thing, and I have a strong feeling that it's not what they describe they are looking for--it's a particular kind of sexiness, a certain flavor of humor and a temperature of wit. And of course, it's all really indescribable.

I was starting from scratch on this profile, so I dumbed down my essay. I realized that my error in my old profile was that I tried to seem too cool, too low-maintenance, too boyish. I talked about my love of gangster films, my long afternoons reading Ayn Rand and mornings (pre-dog walk) listening to NPR. I tried showed that I was varied by talking about business school, culinary school, working in a law firm, at the NYSE and traveling through Asia and the photo that punctuated this profile was a black and white picture that showed dark eyes, unruly hair and my attempt at a dangerous smile. No go.

This profile was simpler; I used basic adjectives and safe identifiers including that I had a dog and am in sales. Nothing that any guy online reading my profile would have to stretch to think if he could deal with. I skipped my appreciation for Woody Allen and snarky senses of humor and also skipped my upcoming lunch with Palagia, of sex party fame. I kept is short and chose a picture where you could see my whole face, still in black and white, but more tame and appropriate. They think that I'm new meat, so I'm getting loads of attention--none of which, I realize, I want. Frankly, my heart still beats too fast when I walk down by the low-80s. I hear the thump, thump and feel my blood pressure rising as I walk past the church where I met Fritz on that cold winter night in December 2007. It's no accident that this is part of my nightly walk with my dog. I'm putting up a show for myself in recreating this profile, because I know that I won't go out with all these people and feel terribly guilty when I sit at my computer, pretending that I am better than these guys who are looking for their princess who "will look cute in a baseball hat with a ponytail sticking out and look sexy in a cocktail dress the night before."
And, as I make fun of them, pity them and cast them aside, I get offended when they do the same and realize that we are all the same.

For now, to my mother's dismay, I stick with the girl I love most....the scariest pit bull in the West.

UN Peacekeeping

I just glanced at my blog and I have to wonder if anyone is out there or if I am truly writing this for myself.  If I am just writing it for myself, well, there are worse things and I am going to force to be glass-half-full about this and just be happy that I'm back writing, which admittedly, feels good.

So, to whoever is out there, and whoever isn't out there, I'm back to that place that I've been many, many times.  The place where I'm staying in bed a lot and my room is starting to smell like person--you know, that kind of human odor that hangs in a room when a sick person has been in there too long.  I propped open my window and put a screen in to air it out, but I should probably change the sheets too.  I'm eating a lot--and I mean--A LOT-- carbohydrates.  I seem to be in the cracker stage.  For a while I was in the cookie/ice cream stage and then I progressed to the portugese white bread dipped in blood orange flavored olive oil.  Yesterday my friend Sarah and I went to Trader Joe's and now I'm in the rice crackers/pita crackers phase.  I made a container of raspberry jello and ate most of that, but that's not really many calories, so not very fun.

In addition to my excessive carb eating, it's important to note that I've given up on wearing matching clothes, and am eating mostly in tupperware which is the culinary equivalent of wearing a tee-shirt that is way too big for you.  I am trying to keep the dishes at a minimum and not adding up the collection in my room.  I do daily trips of dishes back to the sink.  Between of all of this, and trying to stay on my game with my clients, I am sleeping a lot with the puppy who is really rolling with it.  I find that my time with her in the dog park, now that she's adjusted enough for me to zone out there, is really my best time a day.

I admit that for me, being audited by the IRS and having work dry up, or be at a snail's pace, is one of the worst things that could happen to me.  I could deal with physical pain, which I can cope with, and I'm excellent as a broken hearted girl, but money issues cripple me and make me feel like something is sitting on my chest.  In some ways, I can be like a financial anorexic and being audited makes me feel like a weak victim.

The reactions to the audit have been interesting as well, and something that I need to write about.  I think if I'd told people that I had a disease, there would be exclusively sympathy.   I would have done nothing to procure this disease but just been a victim.  But, with the IRS audit, there is some suspicion that I've done something wrong and there is a certain amount of not wanting to get to close to me--depending on the person.  I had to ask a photographer for a invoice for a photo shoot done years ago and she said the following, "Before I put my neck on the chopping block for you, I need to check with my accountant and my lawyer."  The dramatic factor in that sentence was palpable.  This photographer, as I'd learned, was almost afraid that being audited by the IRS was like a disease that she was worried about contracting.  From most other people, there seem to be three sort of reactions: 1) suspicion that I've done something wrong and finally gotten caught. They'll say, "Oh, I never mess with things like that." or, "Well, I keep excellent records, so I've never been audited." 2) No big deal. "Eh, your accountant takes care of it--it's just money." and 3) Indignation, like "Bernie Madoff stole BILLIONS of dollars and they are going after you?"

I've seen articles that the IRS is increasing the number of small businesses they are going after via audit these days and yet decreasing going after bigger companies.  I'm not exactly sure what Joe the Plumber would say about this--or why this is happening.  I don't make much money and anything that the government will get from me will be payed in drips and drabs so I hope that no stimulus package relies on my extra contribution.

While my mother certainly didn't raise a victim, I certainly feel like one--and I'm pissed.  And, the part of me that is a little scared of the KGB reputation of any government is afraid to really speak out about this, but I'm pissed.  I'm pissed because this auditor googled me and needed to know about my life and not just my financial life.  I'm pissed because she'll probably just be a fucking straphanger all morning, with her pre-packed lunch in a reused Victoria Secret bag and is probably one of those people who shakes her hand and is "just doing her job".  I picture her shaking her head--blameless.  What sticks with me is that she googled me--that she's blameless yet interested in peering into my life.  I have my annual GYN appointment in October; perhaps I'll send her an invite for the pap smear portion and she can look into my most personal orifice as well.  

Between the last paragraph and this paragraph, I climbed back into bed.  I ate polenta with tomato sauce and cheese for dinner and chocolate pudding--and now I feel fat and full.  Like a sinking ship and I'm starting to wonder what's going on.  NOW, after a six weeks of this, I'm STARTING to wonder what's going on.  What's wrong with barely doing my work and spending all my time in bed with my dog.  My little puppy reminds me constantly that she is putting her energy on a shelf for me, because the second we get out of bed, she jumps around--happy to be free and running.

There is a scene in the movie, American Beauty, after Kevin Spacey is shot when Annette Benning is on her knees in the closet, holding onto his clothes--pulling at them and screaming.  The weight of her grasp on the sleeves of clothes is holding her up.  Just by looking at her, you can feel the tension in her arms, and the tight grasp of her hands around the arms of his jacket or the thigh of his pants.  The cloth bearing the weight of her horror and she clings to it.  In that moment, it's all she has, and she lets out a scream-an animal sound that I've made before in pain.  And, that scene, frankly, is the best way to describe how I feel now.  That I need material to hold me up and to scream a muffled, animalistic cry into patterned clothes. There is barely any work, there is a lover nine blocks away who might as well be 900 miles away and more debt looming in this awful economy.  There is fat and fullness keeping me stationary and I'm so short-sighted, that I cannot even appreciate my fortune that I am not in another part of the world--that I am with food, with a home that is not being foreclosed and have a job that I love, though its bearing nearly no fruit now. 

Open House Sunday

In this economy, and in this time in the world, I should be really glad that I have a job that I like.  I should be fucking getting on the floor thanking God almighty that not only do I love what I do for a living, but that my boss cornered me in the gym yesterday until I agreed to go to body sculpt class with her next Saturday.  When your boss wants to hang out with you on off time, that's a good thing, right?  But, I'm uncoordinated and I'll have to show that I can keep up and enjoy it.  And, I have to agree that I love the teacher as much as she does.  In exchange for this effort, I will boycott the office for a week and not show my face.  Not a "game move" as they'd say on The Biggest Loser.

I should be glad but I'm scratching and skimping for every penny.  I just want ONE media outlet--a biggie like The New York Times or the Wall Street Journal--to write a story about how we're in the bottom of the real estate market and that I could forward said fantasy article to all my clients and they would jump up with glee and call me to go look at new apartments.  This is not happening.  Instead, I'm busy working on rentals, which might as well be the shit end of the real estate world stick, because renters have nearly no loyalty, are picky and after you've spent days and weeks working with them, they find something offered as 'no fee' from Craigslist and sign on for that one.  My attitude is reprehensible, but the truth is that I curse renters under my breath.

As for my personal life, things are slow there--and sort of sad.  Fritz is very flighty and clearly has no care for my libido which he often leaves running like a car engine when you run inside the house to get whatever item you've forgotten--only, he's lingering in the house and isn't really worried about overheating the engine, ruining the battery, or wasting gas.  He's just lollygagging around, taking his sweet time and figuring that the car will be there when he gets back.  And while it's a slap in the face to my gender to say so, he's right. The libido will stay running until he gets back into the car.

It's gotten to the point where I'm going to have to actually say something to him.  It occurs to me that despite his excellent education at Michigan and Columbia, he might be clueless when it comes to matters of the heart (as, I can be too, though I hate to admit it) and not get that the little things that I do for him are actually romantic gestures.  Of course, the fact that I looked him in the face a few months ago and told him that I was interested in someone else and that I didn't want anything but a sexual relationship with him may have done little to insert clues of my interest in him.  My friend Martin, and most people think that when you are interested in someone, it's apparent, almost intuitive, but I have to admit that even for me, I don't readily get it unless it's painfully obvious.  Another friend said to me last night, "It's obvious that Fritz likes you." Really? Not fucking obvious to me.  So, maybe he and I are a good clueless pair.

Only now, (scary drum roll), do I have to face it--and tell him that I actually do find him interesting, smart, passionate, sexy, appealing.  I texted him this morning and told him that I wanted to talk to him--surely, if history of us proves anything, he'll expect me to be pulling up roots, bidding him Ciao and moving onto my next sexual conquest, but alas, I am doing the opposite, of sorts.  I dreaded this until I called a tele-psychic this morning so she could forecast my future.

Mayaan, a psychic who charges a bargain rate of $1.00 a minute, is originally from New York, so we communicated in short hand--having lived here for 15 years, I totally understood her ghetto-speak and could quickly translate it into more educated English.  For many years, doing exactly this has been a hobby of mine.  Taking a perfectly wretched ghetto sentence and making it into fancier language.   I wish I could think of an example to illustrate this point, but I'm sure you can imagine.  Anyway, she told me much of what I knew--that Fritz is insecure, that the self-confident approach that he takes is largely crap, which I can easily say about myself too.  That he likes me, rather, that he loves me.  I feel sure that he doesn't quite love me, but I'll settle for like at this point.

Anyway, I cross referenced this with another psychic who was more steeply priced, at $3.99 a minute and talked to her for a total of 5 minutes.  I could hear alternating sounds of her birds chirping and her dog barking.  Her name was Evelyn and I immediately pictured her sitting in a small house with a patio, cigarette burning quickly in a dirty ashtray as she was shuffling her worn tarot cards.  She later revealed that she had a pendulum as well and asked if I wanted to double check her answer on the pendulum, assuring me that it was the 'cheapest way' to check her answer.  All three answers--between the 2 psychics and the pendulum all revealed the same answers, but of course, I'm a skeptic about it and can't quite figure out how it works.  

Most people don't give much thought to the psychology behind such things, but having had my own past as a phone sex operator, I do have some curiosity about how to satisfy people's urges on the phone and get them to call back for more.  I guess it must be obvious what sort of answer I'm looking for once they ask what area of my life I want them to look at, but since all those answers were, in fact, exactly what I wanted to hear, I'm prepared to congratulate these people about their magical powers. 

So, I'm at the second open house and ready to shoot myself in the head and cursing myself for even agreeing to do this, when I could be home in the fetal position with my dog, hiding from the world and avoiding working on my tax audit preparation.  But, instead, I'm in a stinky apartment, listening to Fleetwood Mac, fantasizing about what I'm going to eat for a very belated lunch and reading and rereading the email that I just sent to Fritz where I barely, gently, nearly suggest that I could perhaps have feelings for him. Fucking shit.

Yes, it's a beautiful day.  Yes, I have a job that I love.  Yes, I have a great dog and I'm alive and well and having a wonderful hair day.  And yes, I'm cranky and curmudgeonly as usual.  Why? Because I'm me.

Date Night

At 5:22pm tonight, I got into bed and was quite content to stay here all night.  That makes me feel somewhat ashamed of my lack of social life and yet happy to just be here and be lazy.  I'm hiding behind my excuse that I have to be up and at the gym early tomorrow, but the reality is that the people that I want to hang out with--the two couches that I'd like to be on--one is too far and the other is too soon, so I'm here.  In my bed.  With the scary, scary pit bull puppy eating pineapple and pita chips and frustrated that I have to pee every 15 minutes because I'm hydrating too much. 

At 7pm, I got a call from an old lover who is in New York for the night to attend a wedding.  He asked if I needed a roommate for the night and initially I said no, and then reneged and offered him a place.  It goes without saying that he'll be in my bed, but it doesn't go without saying that, gulp, I actually only want to have sex with one person.  The owner of the couch that it is too soon for me to relax on.  

It's been a funky week and I blame it on Jupiter Square Pluto, or Neptune or something.  Anyway, there is an astrological reason that things are shitty.  It makes perfect cosmic sense that the weather has been gray, rainy and cold, and that I found out that I don't actually have a tax credit to balance out what I'm afraid the IRS might disallow on my upcoming audit.  There is some universal sense that I've been moody, cranky and impatient.  Not to mention hard to rear into productive mode from my laying-in-bed mode that I seem to have lived in lately.  I don't understand the squaring and triangularing of planets--have no clue what it means and feel bad when my friend Sarah tries to explain it to me like it's obvious as the nose on my face, "don't you get that 2+2 equals 4?!" and I don't and she gets frustrated...all I know is that I complain to her about something and she said, "that's because blah is moving through your 7th house of blah and squaring blah."  Luckily for me, it's been predicted that April 15th will be a dreadful day, assured to deliver me news that I *don't* want to receive, so you can be sure that I'm longing for that day.

So, this week, I've learned the following: a) it's hard to put fitted gloves on wet hands, b) eating too many Pepperidge Farm cookies, good as they may be, are not really good for your figure, c) my PC is haunted and is now sending messages on its own accord, d) small sandwich bags are too small to pick up my dog's poop, e) if you want to hire someone to beat the shit out of someone else, it only costs $500 and it's important to hire someone who doesn't drink or do drugs so they won't get stoned or drunk and blab about your joint crime, f) I found an excellent new banana muffin recipe, which I'll include for you all (my nod to Nora Ephron) and, g) it only takes 20 minutes to get to New Jersey by car and pretty much everything is cheaper there.

Before I proceed...I baked these muffins for Fritz and left him some, and some biscuits for his doggy.  They were delicious and I know just how tasty they were because I had an emotional binge and consumed several of them while I was agonizing over what to write in the enclosed note and how he would receive the package (it went over fine, thank you very much).

banana muffins/bread:

loose cinnamon and sugar mixture

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

1 large egg

4 teaspoons lemon juice

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 large ripe bananas, mashed

loose brown sugar

Oven to 350. Grease loaf pan and lightly coat with cinnamon and sugar mixture.  Cream butter and sugar, and add egg and lemon juice.  Add flour, soda, salt to the butter mixture and blend well. Stir in bananas.  Put batter in loaf pan (muffin tins), and top with loose brown sugar.  Bake for 1 hour (less if you're making muffins) and EAT.

There you have it.  I enclosed a simple note written on red paper, written in blue crayon and I baked it carefully, with affection.  Please don't throw up reading that.  I'm dismayed and alarmed to think what is happening to me.  I am finally not interested in the one-night stand, not interested in the married, unavailable man.  The zipless fuck that I used to entertain is no longer what I crave--it's just sex, in whatever form it may take with one particular person. 

I shudder to think of what I have become.

So, dear readers, I'm sorry to tell you that I have no fun misadventures to report tonight.  I'm stuck in my bed mixed with emotions.  Partly scared to venture out and afraid what I'll find. Worried about spending money that I'm so carefully trying to hold onto and even more terrified that I'll eat and tomorrow my face will be more round and filled out. I'm staying home tonight and working on excel spreadsheets for my accountant to bring to the IRS and playing with the newly selected ringtones on my blackberry. And between all this worry, concern and neurosis, I'm sort of happy to be here and not forced to be on any sort of behavior.  I'm bathing in my peculiar mood, watching the clock tick on, and being lulled into the night listening to the hum of my computer, the deep sleep breaths of my dog and the promise of Six Feet Under reruns--not to mention the back and forth of emails to plan a rendez-vous tonight that will not materialize.

So, if you take anything away tonight, aside from the promise of a wonderful banana muffin, it's always negotiate with your hired help--you can always do better than $500 in this economy.

xo

Jesus

I was supposed to have knee surgery in February for my very arthritic knee--this coincided with the purchase of a human treadmill for my dog's use (and I would use it periodically, though often got a hairy eye ball from my pit bull when I used "her" treadmill).  While I was sitting in my doctor's office, two things occurred to me:  first, I could probably very sweetly and innocently ask him to write a me prescription for my headache meds and save myself a co-pay and having to beg another doctor and second, could get a note for my gym to freeze my membership, saving me $142 a month.  He obliged on both counts--and to boot, told me that he and his wife were looking to buy a new apartment.  Truly, a great day.  I filled the script and submitted my medical freeze, but I'm still waiting for the apartment thing to pan out....but, I digress.

By mid-February neither the dog nor I used the treadmill anymore--though it was taking up significant space in my living room--and it was heavy as fuck, so moving it slightly was a huge pain in the ass.  And, admittedly, I was getting antsy about getting back to the gym.  My illegal return to the gym began with a guest pass that I had to cajole a membership advisor to get, but that was just a week--miraculously, one of the front desk staff--a minimum wage earner who is happy to see someone get one over on 'the man', offered to let me in whenever she was working and then happily handed me a copy of her work schedule so that I knew when I could work out. Because this worked out so well for the last month, I returned to management and told them that I had to extend my medical freeze and now I'm sneaking into the gym until July 1st.  Though I'm thrilled to save the money, at this point it's just the challenge that I enjoy more.  

While I always enjoy a stupid little personal quest, I admit that this one has a sense of danger attached to it.  I'm not worried about them kicking me out of the gym--it's just the glee of knowing that I got a 'deal'--after all, we're in a recession, I'm in a depression and I'm Jewish?! How could I NOT love a deal?  Anyway, I've come close to getting caught and today, to avoid seeing the one person who knows that I shouldn't be there, I had to go in disguise, like Alec Baldwin (whom I LOVE), and and wear a hat and had to work out in the back on one of the lame elliptical machines where only your feet move.  Of course, I get repeating to myself, "$710", which is the amount of money that I'm saving.

So, as I skulked about in the gym, trying to do cardio discreetly, which isn't easy to do, I hid under my hat and talked to my favorite priest, Jesus who was sweating like a beast on the machine next to me, teasing me for my undercover appearance.  I asked him if he thought I'd go to Hell for lying and, essentially stealing, from the gym and in his Cuban accent, with no real care, he shrugged his shoulders and said, "Probably."  I reminded him that I was Jewish and didn't believe in Hell.  

Jesus and I like each other, but like typical New Yorkers who go to the same gym--or people who weren't raised here but have lived here way too long--we did what we we always do.  We quietly assessed how hard we thought the other person was working and tried to outdo each other.  We made small talk, caught up on gym gossip and compared our carbohydrate intake.  Needless to say, because people need God more than they need real estate now, he's in better shape, job-wise, than I am.  I told him that I didn't think that things could get worse.  He assured me that they could. "I'm just being honest,", he said, as though he just watched someone drop a cake on the floor and couldn't, in good conscious, take any of the blame.  "Things could get a lot worse."  He then asked if I did my income taxes and I told him that I was being audited, "Tsk, tsk," he waved his finger at me..."maybe they couldn't get worse."

I've been following the 'unusual economic indicators' on NPR--they track things details, like, people are taking books out of the library more now, because they don't want to spend the money on them and I couldn't help to ask if he's seen an increase in people coming to church and nodded his head slowly.  With all the praying, you'd think that God would just answer prayers to fix the economy to shut us up, right?

That's it for my productivity today.

Uh...what?

A lot has changed since I started this blog--oh, 4 years ago. I had a whole different way that this entry was going to start, but then I unearthed this account--trying to cyber-recycle instead of start a whole new blog and just be wasteful. Ick!, so I dusted this off.

It was interested to see where I was those years ago--things that I realized:

-people were actually tuning into my blog.
-I claimed I was "trying" to be a writer. I wonder why I was only trying and not actually giving myself credit for being?!
-I hadn't yet fully discovered the beauty and majesty of Thom Yorke, so I was still billing New Order as my favorite band.

I looked at my profile from years ago with the same disgust that I check my 15-year old cousin's Facebook page; with a smug, superior look, as if to say, "You are too big for your britches."

And now, I'm 36, in not a much better cash flow position, since I work on comission and people are taking a very long time to decide whether or not they are buying. Sometimes I think of the impatience and disgust when I can't simply talk people easily into spending $900K-$1 million. As though they're buying just a loaf of bread, or organic milk versus that generic Tuscan brand from a farm where they probably treat cows completely inhumane.

I'm still single. Boy, have I spent a lot of time writing and lamenting over that status. Sometimes I wonder if it's for my parents--so I can truly be the nice Jewish girl who dutifully gets married. When I started this blog, in 2004 or 2005, I probably was still holding onto a shred of hope to have some sort of real wedding and now it's whiddled its way down to just having my family, his family and one friend to be my witness huddled around the chuppa on a Thursday afternoon and a nice dinner afterwards. We'd spend the real money on lovely announcements and do the entire thing for $7,000...hopefully less than the engagement ring. I want no real wedding to speak of, will pass on a bridal shower and shudder at the thought of a bachelorette party, but want a damn fine ring.

I finally have a job that I like. Finally. After years of being a personal assistant--first to the most difficult, nasty white-collar crime lawyer in NYC; I was his bitch, doing everything for him except fucking him and wiping his ass. I went to work as a secretary at a liquor distributor where I would mingle with the terminally low-minded secretaries who has no real ambitions beyond making appointments and kowtowing to senior management. A short, chubby colleague got me fired two years ago, thankfully, and I proceeded to seduce one of their biggest and very married clients, who would leave industry dinners, after having schmoozed with my former bosses--the ones who has no issues with me, yet let me get fired--and release him from his tuxedo, keep him up for the next few hours and then send him back to the liquor mines the next day, all while whispering details and hateful secrets about my former employer--things that were in complete violation of my separation agreement. It delighted me and as long as he got head, which he was obviously lacking from the Missus, I could have probably talked about anything, when my mouth wasn't full.

And I went on to work for a high-minded entrepreneur who was a legend in his own mind. To him, and the group that he surrounded himself with (many of whom he paid, thus they were very loyal), he was a God, a master and a svengali. He told them how to jump, and they did. He told them how to think and they asked him if they were doing it right. They told him that he was special, brilliant, and he pretended to be modest. I never told him those things--and I was frumpy and completely disinterested in fashion, hair care, photography--and I was doomed. I was fractured and broken beyond repair, which he stubtly reminded me of often. He made my life with him hard enough that I wasn't quite sure what was wrong. I spent hundreds on doctors, accupuncture, tinksures of herbs and nothing got rid of the underlying anxiety, until I quit and let him win. Then I reclaimed myself.

I became a real estate agent and then the market fell apart. I try to smile and tell people that I'm not usually an optomistic person, but *this* is going to be ok. We're almost near the end, I said, with a smile on my face and a attitude that sometimes even surprises myself. But I don't know where the fuck we are economically--all I know is that I'm pinching pennies in a way that I've never done and while I'm all for saving and being thrifty, even this is getting to be too much.

So, here is where I am today. And by today, I mean, TODAY...MARCH 25TH.

1) I learned about 2 weeks ago that I am being audited by the IRS for the tax years of 2006 and 2007. Please note that the accountant who did my taxes in 2006 is currently serving time in a prison in the State of New Jersey for soliciting oral sex from what he thought was a 13-year old girl online. It was actually a undercover detective posing as a child. I've learned that prison has become a sort of Biggest Loser ranch for him, in that, he's shed lots of weight and his wife, who was set on divorcing him, now thinks that he's looking pretty hot. That is, when he's not trying to have sex with children.

2) All my clients are moving at a snail's pace and I wake up every day having not much to do. I am one of those people who can do 40 things at one time, but cannot get 2 things that each take 5 minutes done in a whole day; I must be completely overwhelmed to be productive. This quiet work schedule means a lot more time in bed with my dog (NOT like the woman in Connecticut with the ape), catching up on past seasons of the Biggest Loser, refining my high-carb diet and then taking naps in between. When I'm lucky, I do things around the house--like put away laundry, and get to the gym. Once a week, I go into the office so my boss knows that I'm still alive. This is where the blog comes in--so I have something that I enjoy doing, and feel somewhat productive getting back to my writing roots.

3) The man that I am in mad lust for, we'll call Fritz, is MIA. I knew this when I left his house two weeks ago and he said, "I'll see you soon-ish." I knitted my brows and hoped he was lying. He wasn't. I met him 14 months ago and have spent more time than not longing for him. Crazy at it sounds--because we are the blind commitmentphobe leading the blind commitmentphobe--but I'm actually pretty sure about this one. I'm trying to utilize everything that I learned in 12-step programs and be patient, which is exceptionally hard for me, if not impossible. When I told my now-former therapist (see point 4) that I didn't feel like a thunder-bolt or any grand feeling that he was the one for me, she said that comes with just being older and more mature. I just feel like....I don't know the path this is going to take, but this guy is going to be mine. And frankly, everyone thinks I'm insane, but I'm pretty fucking sure.

4) In December, after learning that my then-therapist was going on an extended vacation, I felt like it was a good time to graciously break away from her tutelage. You see, she'd started nodding off during my sessions in late October (yes, she was looking at me face-to-face when she did this). Also, she has this terrible habit of double booking clients, so you'd break your ass to get to her office on time, and you'd be negotiating with another crazy person as to whose session time was it really. Given that I was the one with the flexible schedule, I always felt a little pressured to give it up, but really, it made me furiously pissed and she'd always blame these things on her secretary, who I am convinced, doesn't actually exist.

Anyway, I learned from another patient who had recommended her to me, that sometimes she got 'bored' with your crap and would nod off and upon learning this, I'd been trying to spice up my life for her entertainment--not necessarily because I had particular issues I wanted to discuss. Fritz and I had a terrible break up in August (which was hardly a break up, since we hadn't really been together, but more of him just not wanting to date me) and I was still hanging on. And, Ms. Noddy Shrinker yelled at me to just "leave him alone and stop talking about it!". So, being hard pressed to entertain my audience, I decided to bring in all the goings-on in my life.

It'd just so happen that in November, having not had sex since a mangled, unsatisfying night with Fritz, I was incredibly horny...so, following the advice of my then-friend Joanna, I posted a random NSA ad on Craigslist, which I knew that I would never act on. But, it was like ordering a diet coke with a burger--it made me feel like I was doing something to help my libido, though it was a faux effort at best. So, I finally wade through the hundreds (and I do mean HUNDREDS) of responses offering me the best oral sex I've ever had, or men who promised to make me 'cum' until my body was limp with exhaustion, and the get right to it ad that just asked for my address. Delete. Delete. Delete.

Let's be honest--I value my body, my safety, my sanity, my health. Who was I kidding? There is no way that I could vet a potential NSA sex partner throughly enough to just fuck for one night, which seemed like a lot of work for a little ROI, because it was a crap shoot until you could see what the man could really do. And when I'd given up, I got a response from a very familiar email address.

I have a neighbor who lives on 8, who, over the years I sparred with over things like building rules, answered my ad. He's mostly a bachelor since his wife works and lives in another city. Other than fighting with him, I'd never said a word to him and now in black and white, he was answering my sultry, er, crass, really, ad--that offered sex and nothing more--in fact, highlighting that promptly after the act was over, the man would have to leave. He was game. And, after he figured out who I was, an adventure ensued which ended at 3am, after much wine and beer, and 3 minutes of awkward sex. The most intriguing part of the night was watching him lose his important investment-banker ego and become boyish and sweet in Riverside Park at 1am while we walked my dog. The sex? Could have stayed online. I thought this story would perk up my Shrinky-Dink, but instead she told me it was dangerous and not to do it again. And as I was leaving, she reminded me to stick to my diet and not take my anxiety out on food.

I was running out of things to talk about--the fights with my mother around Thanksgiving had passed, there was no new boy news, I wasn't allowed to mourn over, what would be the temporary loss of Fritz, she wasn't much of a dog person, so I couldn't go on about the fights that I was having at the dog run with other dog owners, ("My dear," she'd say..."why not avoid the dog run, or go to another...they are so filled with germs."). And, with the recession slowly sliding more and more, I saw that this was an expense that I'd have to cut and when I tried to tell her that I had to leave for financial reasons, she brushed me off--telling me that in January she'd be gone for 6 weeks and I'd save money then. But, I knew before the holidays that I'd never be back, so I wrote her a check. A big, fat check that I knew would hurt my bank account when it was cashed, but I'd be disentangled.

And two weeks before she got back from Florida, please with myself that I was doing just fine emotionally and happy to have Fritz back in my life (thus proving her wrong), the hunting dog (as she used to call me), left ther-apy. I left her a polite message on her machine. No muss, no fuss. She asked me to come back in for a closure session, but that seemed little more than just telling her the post-script. I could do that in a fucking letter and I thought about all the things I could do with the $130 I would save from not having "closure" with her. Also, I have to say--and this harkens back to my mother, who, when given the chance to admit it, is completely anti-therapy--'closure' is a way of reeling the fish back in. I didn't want to be reeled in.

Now, to her credit, after I've told you how much she required in terms of being entertained and challenged by her clients, she did have this old-world quality about her that always made me feel like I was in a Woody Allen movie. She was older and originally Russian and retained some accent that didn't sound as much Russian as it sounded continential European, though I had a hell of a time trying to pin point from where. Her office was strewn with New Yorkers and theatre tickets and a word-of-the-day calendar. She has pictures of clients proudly displayed, though this bothered me as it seemed to smack of pissing on confidentiality and she wore these very vibrant prints and chunky beaded jewlery that never seemed to exactly match but made her look like a graying Mother Earth. She gave me hig hugs after sessions and had a way of making me feel safe and secure when she called me, "Sweetie" or "My dear" and then she'd say, "Tell me..." in this way that was intimate and close and made me forget that I was paying her to care.

So, last week I got a bill for $360 which I didn't really understand. Now that I think about it, it wasn't actually a bill even--it was just a sticky note with my name and an amount on it and that was it. I called her--after I calmed down--and told her that not only were my session costs not divisible by $360, but that I was pretty sure I paid her exactly what I owed her when I left her office that last time. She was curt and hung up on me. A few days later, I got a copy of my ledger, which was nearly impossible to follow and found $100 that I owed her for an emergency session (that lasted all of 20 minutes) the day after my cat died. When I called her again to discuss, she was curt and hung up on me.

And that, dear reader, was that.

5) Now, this one is NOT PG-13, or PG, so if you can't bring yourself to reading sexually explicit stuff, log out now--or flip to the next blog. It's fine...I won't really know. The short version is that I think I have some hemerroids or some small anal tear because there was a bit of back-door bleeding this weekend that sent me straight to Duane Reade to buy my first box of suppositories and baby wipes. Now, while they aren't painful or really that bothersome (other than worrying that I'll bleed through my pants, or have to do laundry more frequently), they do get in the way of the anal sex romp, which, I'll admit, I enjoy a bit more than once-in-a-while. Several friends suggested that this little leakage was because of anal sex, but since I hadn't seen Fritz in the 10 days prior to this so it seems unlikely. Instead, it was suggested that I strained a bit too much. (Note to self: eat more fiber.) And now, knowing that my bum requires a bit of TLC, I have to figure out how to juxtapose anal sex with a sensitive ass. Ah, the challenges of life....

6) I'm suing a contractor today, which requires getting familiar with the entire New York City Court System. As you'd expect, walking into a city courthouse makes me want to dip my entire body in a vat of Purell and shake people until everyone learns to speak English and can clarify what they mean when they ask an evasive question.

7) Due to my stress, I ate 44 Weight Watcher points yesterday. My limit should be 27 or 28. COUNT THEM...FOURTY-FOUR.

8) Last night and today I had fights with strangers on the street who gave me nasty looks or acted inappropriately when we were walking our dogs. Last night, a woman let her very small dog wander dangerously close to my large, strong, dog-aggressive pit bull's face. And she got mad at me because I yelled at her for not asking if it was ok. Now, let's rewind--would you let your 4 year old wander onto a rugby field, during a game? No. So, why would you assume that it's ok to let your little dog wander up to a strange pit bull? Then, this morning, another woman gave me a disapproving look when my dog acted out (towards me, because her dogs were in the way). Within seconds, we were on the street screaming, "you fucking bitch!" "No, you're a fucking cunt!" at each other on Riverside and 102nd Street.

Have a nice fucking day.

Now, my psychic, who is snowboarding in Switzerland (hard life, right?) seems to think that I'll walk away from these messes and that I'll be ok, but in the meantime, I have to admit that it sucks, sort of.

It's great to be back!