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.