Chasing God

(I am not Christian, but that is the language I know how to speak)


* * *

Every time I come here:

This is it. This is the time I have gone too far. He will not be here this time.

The cobbled streets are grey with damp and edged with snow that melts at my step. The Minnewater is before me, open boats laden with tourists even today, their umbrellas blooming over the gunwales, bottoms shifting on the hard bench seats as they dutifully point their cameras left and right, five houses in a row with five styles of roofline, history in a digital frame. I cross the bridge, the heavy wooden doors open, the whitewashed buildings of the Beguinage low before me.

There is a carpet of daffodils, where I expect last year’s green commons. They stop me in my tracks and steal my breath. They are a sign to me in all my arrogance, a sign that no matter how shitty a person I am, no matter how much of my holy talents I squander on the maintenance of Big Lies, God still gives with both hands, God still loves endlessly, boundlessly, God forgives the unforgivable and loves me despite my profound absence of loveableness.

Inside, the church is warm – signs entreat donations for “HEATING” in four languages. There is the chanting of vespers, and I know as I enter behind the German girls sharing an ipod that this is not atmospheric recording to aid in the parting of tourists and their money. The chant is slightly flat, in partial tune from daily use and not from anything so useless as practice – how can living this chant be practice? – it is round, perfectly incomplete, the edges soothed by acoustics, the nuns’ honking their noses through each others’ singing (older in full habits, those merely fifty- or sixty-something in fleece pullovers) coughing through the readings, they are not performing, they are not living a Big Lie, they are not lost and afraid all the time, depending on the hands that yank away. They are here. They reach for God as I do, but I am tentative, stepping to the edge of the crosswalk knowing in my head that cars stop here, but still unconfident enough to hover at the pavement, the drivers waving their hands in frustration – are you crossing? Are you stopping? These women, I am sure, stride into the road, the Bruges drivers accelerating to a stop just as they do in London, in Amsterdam, in Paris. These women stand at the edge of the table and fall backward into the arms of God.

I light a candle. I always light a candle. A nun reads in Flemish. The chapel is filled with the warmth of candles and expensive heat and the smell of wax. I do not have the right to pray, but I hope I can be good.

Officially, Intermittent

I did *try* to write every day. And mostly, I did actually write at least something. And then was felled at the knees by lack of internet, lack of privacy, and much mental time occupied by being The Boss.

So yeah. This is now an intermittent blog. I can't keep letting you down, Gentle Readers, by saying I'm going to do something and then not doing it. So when I do, I'll make it as good as I can. And I'll also not kill myself by saying, oh, don't post that until it's perfect, because that way inaction lies.

Where am I now? In a secret location (let's note that it's a major honeymoon destination), shacked up with the Ex. I know. Dumb, dumb Mandy. So far there's only been minor shortness of breath. And really, who knows? The part of me that says, hmmmm, you're* kind of self-involved and a little bit boring and really, the sex had been going downhill, is strongly considering making this a last hurrah. The part of me that thinks, hey, never know when you'll be hit by a bus, would rather not end without closure. I'm working on having Part A strangle Part B but then the thought of choking just turns me on.

Where will I be Thursday? Possibly in a Midwestern City with Big City Lover. We're texting it out.

Where will I be the first weekend in June? With Fucked-Up Guy, plotting and planning to give my team-members and his fiancee the slip so we can shag intensely and silently in shared lodging.

Where will I be all year? Why, on the road, of course. That big beautiful pond full of fish, maybe one of whom will touch the thing in me that needs it beyond my control...

* * *

Quote of the week: "I never learned in health class that wiping front to back thing, and that's why I got a gall bladder infection that almost killed me..."

Words to live by.

* * *

*note intentionally ambiguous pronoun

Day One: Aftercare

There is the blank page.

There is the empty notebook, the block of time constantly rescheduled, filled in, replanned. No time to write, so busy! So busy…

I have been having a writing holiday. Taking four weeks to travel, restore my spirit, see the world with new eyes –

(that’s a lie)

Not much has happened around here, the sex has been marital, the adventures limited –

(liar)

I haven’t written because I have been focusing on my marriage, on my husband, exploring Amsterdam, Paris, my sacred city Bruges, reveling in the Northern European cold, the white and startling snow that followed us from city to city, “I don’t know whether to say Merry Christmas or Happy Easter” from our tiny gay host—

(also a lie. Fact, but a lie.)

I’m debating whether to continue whoring. Continue sleeping around. Continue blogging. Continue writing—

(closer)

I am afraid. For the first time in my life, I am afraid to write, afraid of what will come out – this from someone who used Columbine as material, triumph coming at last from the memories of the days when I would have done the same. I cannot eat, it is dangerous to open my mouth. Telling the first word means telling them all; I don’t know if I can stop. The poison dissolves me from the inside, wracking my guts, destroying my sleep, calling me to the Dread, the lure of the medicine cabinet, the icy road, the rope, the knife, the gun.

There is something in BDSM called aftercare. It’s when the parties involved calm down, come back to “normal”, release each other from their roles. Mostly, it’s the dominant partner bringing the submissive partner back to a place of equality and comfort, soothing their wounds, their ruffled spirit, their mind.

Ex-Lover used to be very good at this. “Good girl,” he’d say, and I felt approved, that my efforts to please him, to scream when he wanted, to fight against screaming when he wanted, were well-received, pleased him as much as they took me down the dark hallway of terror and release. For four years, he cut me open and sewed me up, told me when to do the job myself, put me back together. Not just with my clothes off, but in my head, my daily life, tormentor and refuge, hell and hope. I fucked no one else without stepping outside my body, recording the scene for him. Lately for you, too, Gentle Reader.

I debate for three and a half weeks whether to see him in Europe as we planned. There is the pleasure of making Cute Girl uncomfortable, the worry on what the time together will be like, the sense that this is senseless, there is no friendship to be had, no going back. Finally, I weep with my best friend in her foreign city, I weep with Beautiful Girl via Skype, and I change one plane ticket. I will go only to the city that finishes my trip, wait in the airport, get the next flight home I can. I tell this to Ex-Lover, first via text, then phone to be polite.

He meets me in the city, taking a train some six hours to be there. We share a room, a bed, a walk through a street festival, oranges, chocolate lemon rind, meals he orders in the language I do not speak. We sleep on separate sides, we dress in the bathroom. We see the church. We decide to go to another city, where we meant to spend time. And there we take long walks, hold hands, share candlelit dinners, look at views, have conversations. Everything is as it always was, except we do not fuck. Or kiss. And in the night he says to me, “roll over and I’ll hold you,” like he always did. He wraps his arms around me, so tightly one of us is drowning, one of us cannot breathe. Three nights next to each other, three days side by side.

And still, there is his girlfriend nervously texting, trashing my company (for which she works) on her not-so-private-as-she-thinks blog, snarking at me in email for business decisions I made after weeping and then clear-eyed asking my partner to choose, to be even-handed, to be fair fair fair enough to cut off my own finger lest she think I’m pointing at her.

And still, there is everything there always was. Right down to

I love you.

I love you, too.

And in the night his hand reaches across my body, he mumbles in his sleep,

mine.

His hand on mine, my hand on his cock,

yours.

We ride together on the train, he sees me to the bus. I lose my head, I’m nervous, I say, still yours, just a little bit. Still mine, just a little bit.

He turns three times as he walks away.

I am happy. I think I am happy. And then there is the long ride over the ocean and I pour out into emails what I do not even know is in me, I realize I am shaking in the corner, raw and beaten and the man who is excellent at making the hot girl writhe beneath his hand has no time for the bloody creature at his feet, there are new games to play, a fluffy new puppy to pat and love, and I watch everything that should have been mine (all anger comes from should thoughts), everything I need to come down, unspool, release, be let go, let out, told that was enough, that was good, it’s time to go now, watch it all be given away.

I am waiting to come down. I am waiting to be released. It’s not enough to walk away, to be my friend, to plan things that feel like dates and thread me on. I have spent four years learning to stay wired until he fades the dimmer and it is not enough to simply flip the switch.

He texts:

I feel like once you’re serious about another lover things will be easier with us…I keep hoping for simple solutions to complex problems, and that one would require nothing from my lazy ass

I can’t come without weeping. I can’t touch anyone else without remembering his hand on me, starting the recorder in my head. I don’t see another serious lover in this picture.

He is not worth it, and I know this. Beautiful Girl knows this. My best friend knows this. He knows this. I start a phone call, “Maybe we shouldn’t be friends any more.” The call finishes with plans reaffirmed, plans to talk again soon, a request for my schedule to make that happen.

So I will write. I will hide the limp and swallow back the poison and open up the vein to dip the pen. I will write for you, Gentle Reader, and for me. There are things in the notebook waiting to be shaped, notes from time with Be-My-Real-Friend and Secret Scientist and Folk Rocker and Big City Lover and Zurich. Some of them are lovely, full of drippy porn and happy laughing faces.

Thirty days. Every day. An obligation to you and myself.

And then - ?

Perhaps I will be done with him.

Perhaps I will be done with me.

More Precious Than Flattery

Sometimes I don’t write because I’m busy. Because I’m lazy. Because I have nothing to say. Sometimes I don’t write because I am afraid of what I will say, or what I must say, and what I must think and know and feel to be able to say.

I call ex-Lover. Against all counsel, against my own will, I can’t maintain the wall any longer. I am calling to say we can’t be friends, he has texted me that he blames me for a prank someone pulled on Cute Girl, how can we possibly be friends if it’s me versus her in his head? He says it’s easier to hate me, that believing I did something awful is one way to do it. This takes down a fence rail barring my way out, he’s not my champion any more. I wouldn’t prank her via computer, I don’t know enough to make it clean and cruel and untraceable. A weapon you don’t know how to use belongs to your enemy.

My weapon is words. I can shape the world, history, memory with words.

Ex-Lover says through the phone that our relationship was staggering from disaster to catastrophe. I don’t say what I wanted was you, what I wanted to give you was me, even negative attention is attention.

He says we were already breaking up for more than a year. I don’t say every time I made a scene, every time I hurt you, every time I walked away it was in fear that I would never be able to walk away, too deep, no turning back.

He says, as I head into the produce section to get a smoothie, the only thing I can keep down, “I had hoped this would bring you closer with your husband.”

I say, “It did. It’s not enough. It will never be enough. I knew that when I married him.”

He does not say that he, too, hates not being enough. That when I slept with someone else, it was nails through his palms as well as fodder for his fantasy. He says, he was crushed by what I wrote about Folk Rocker, about wanting, about needing to be wanted.

I say, that feeling? When I wrote you I was with someone else? This is like that, except there is no happy ending where I come home to you and you beat bruises into my ass, my thighs, my pussy, fuck me until you own me again. This is every day a new chapter of pain and there is no end in sight. You have taught me to welcome pain from you, to beg for it, to wish for more, to love your hand, the belt, the chain. Now I have no choice but to seek it out, to wait for more. I do not say, nothing like putting your finger in the ass of a crying woman, remember? And the weeks you kept yourself from fucking me because you had hurt me so badly, instead pulling on the belt around my neck while I came, you coming later in your hand, smearing the semen across my breasts in the strange and creaky-floored hotel? I say, at the very least, you could have waited, you and she could have kept things quiet for a week or two instead of rubbing your new relationship in my face.

When you have been with a lover for some time, the only way to surprise your lover is to hurt them.

He is shocked by my response to the breakup, he doesn’t get why this is so hard for me. I say, “I love(d) you,” with the 'd' so soft neither of us can hear it.

I say, “Remember the staircase at the farmhouse?”

I don’t say the place we played house in the fields for nearly a week, the place you first learned how much you loved to fuck me while I lay still, the place where we cooked together and then I leaned over the top of the stairs, looked down at you looking up, your face against the blond wood everything there was in the world to me and I told you in someone else’s words how much I loved you though we did not (then) allow ourselves to say I love you, told you deny thy father and refuse thy name or if thou wilt not be but sworn to me—

He says yes, he remembers.

I say, “That’s how I felt all the time.”

Sweet. And Uncomplicated. And Pirates.

Sweet and uncomplicated. That’s all I need. No owning, no taking, no teasing, no hurting. Just sweet. And uncomplicated.

I go to a party. Flat-iron my hair, new black top in which my breasts look smashing (thanks again, Be-My-Real-Friend), the one pair of jeans I own ($10, resale store, Yonge Street, 10 years ago), black spike heel boots, pretty bra and panties just in case. Power Girl is my wingman. She will keep me from choices of desperation. I have consulted her, I have consulted Beautiful Girl, what I need is “something sweet and uncomplicated” (and oh god the terror, what I need is a man who will not want to touch me there, so that I do not have to text or worse call Lover and ask, may I? because the answer may be no, or worse, yes, or worst, it’s not my decision to make).

It is a pirate party.

There are skulls and glow necklaces and black flags and hats with plumes and for some reason, plastic Viking hats. There is a pirate trivia contest and games involving whoever has an animal on their drink bottle or is holding a face card or is wearing something red. There is, of course, booty. And an hors d’ouevres table with grown-up pate and salmon mousse and tiny circles of ham with Dijon and my favorite, devilled eggs. It is dork-tastic. Geek-a-licious. Spectacu-nerd. And it is sweet and uncomplicated. The hostess is incredibly nice. The host is an ex-lover (and then I walked away from the club where we all shot pool and you had to walk the other way with your friends who didn’t know and I ended up on my knees for the man now hosting, in the alcove of a public building, within sight of the window where Husband awaited my return and never looked out, and oh how you held my throat with your hands while I told you how I spent that time kneeling). I tell the host that, were it not for his obviously happy relationship, I would be making a play, and he concurs. Sweet and uncomplicated.

I talk to an engineer. I make him tell Power Girl the story of the iron ring that engineers wear, made first from the Twin Rivers Bridge and then from the Mauritania and now from stainless steel, the ring that rubs against the paper on the working hand and reminds them all that human lives depend on doing the job well. The engineer is cute, talkative, nervously dorky, fun. Sweet. Uncomplicated. While he talks I scan the room, Attached, Attached, NotGoingToBeGame, NotMyType, Attached, AlrightGoodEnough is standing in front of me finishing the story of the ring.

I don’t win the trivia contest. But Good Enough and I flirt throughout, sharing answers (I’m still competitive enough to start hiding my paper when the questions get tougher), moving towards and away. I catch him eyeing my cleavage, and I stand too close to write my name on my quiz paper while holding it against his chest. He plops a plastic Viking helmet on my head and I warble a few bars of "spear and magic helmet!". I'm pretty sure that counts as a pass.

At midnight, lasagna comes out, and there is a renewed rush to the buffet. I talk to a girl who lost her beloved pet rat. She has a tattoo of the rat, she was born in the year of the rat, twelve years before me. I don’t have the heart to tell her that as a February baby, she was probably born in the previous (Chinese) year, rather than the one she thinks. Later I’ll look it up for my own curiosity, and in the meantime, she is happy. I drift by Power Girl, who is trapped between two Francophones who haven’t showered. She gives me the eye, I give her the eyebrow, she gives me the shrug, might as well, nothing better and he’s clean and cute and a not-stupid. Good Enough turns into a pumpkin, and when he hugs me goodbye, I whisper in his ear, “any chance of a shag?” He asks me to call him next time I’m in town. I know it’s over, but I give him my card anyway.

When Power Girl and I head downstairs, he is waiting in the lobby. I know he is waiting for me, so we drive him home. Two streetwalkers cross in front of the car, and I observe that this part of town is full-service girls, short skirts and no tights. The ones further down are head and handjobs, and they wear leggings and high boots. Good Enough says he doesn’t connect with it, and I ask, paying or selling? Neither. He has friends who are “polyamorous,” and he doesn’t think he’d ever be able to do that, either. I feel Power Girl’s psychic signals in my head: don’t tell don’t tell and are you really sure you want to do this babe in the woods? She's pled sick, we drop her at the hotel, I already know it’s not going to happen, that the level of honest I have to be I can’t not be will cause him to run screaming, possibly literally, now I’m only deciding whether to bother enlarging his world.

I stop at his corner, he tells me he’d like to get to know me better, he’s ruined two relationships in a row by moving too fast. I think:

I cost $1500 and you could have had me for free.

There are a dozen people at least who’d love to see my face, let alone fuck me.

I can give pleasure like you wouldn’t believe possible, even without the extra whore/porn touches I often throw in.

He says: “Thanks for the ride.”

I say:

“I’m married.

I’m polyamorous, though I hate that word and wouldn’t choose it.

There’s a reason for the “one” in “one-night-stand.”

You’re welcome. Sleep well.”

Art by Jenny Holzer

For four years he has been refuge and that is what I miss. Not the romance, not the two best dates ever (Bouley/Avenue Q was one), not the sex, the thrills, the submission, not the semi-lucid dream state fucking over the hotel bathroom counter in Columbus watching my own face and his over my shoulder in the mirror, kneeling in the doorway in Tampa while he fucks my mouth, curling in a dim dorm room at the scholarly conference with his fingers in my ass, calling him texting him later I’m still bleeding...but refuge.

I am Husband’s refuge, and now my own shelter is filled, rain running down my collar as I’m edged out by someone else cuter, smaller, the new baby the new kitten able by birth or design to be more helpless, more in need, a greater claim. If I turn there now, try to make a place a little further from the fire, it’s whining, crowding, no longer a safe place once they don’t love you any more. I wake in the night, I would call him, I would text him, but that’s her place now, be soothed by his sleepy voice in the dark.

Before dawn, earlier still for him in another time, I text: So difficult to know when to call and when not…you are still partly filed under ‘refuge’.

His reply: Have a safe flight!

By the time Do you need refuge? comes through, I have already observed the fasten seatbelts sign and all electronic devices are turned off and stowed. By the time I read it, I am again sane enough to call, in quick succession, Beautiful Girl, Secret Scientist, Be-My-Real-Friend (try replacing your habit with another, less harmful behavior). I have just enough brain, enough self-respect left to not text back, yes.

Cooking With Mandy: Get Your Ass In the Kitchen Slut and Spend Some Quality Time With Your Husband Pasta with Shrimp

I know, the name is cumbersome but I find it effective.

You need:

The Killers: Sam’s Town
Sweet onion the size of your fist or bigger
Box of baby or cut-up portobello mushrooms
Bag of baby spinach
Box of angel hair pasta (I like Barilla because the box is pretty)
Pint of whipping cream
Olive oil
1 pound of uncooked shrimp
A small block of really good Parmesan cheese, don’t skimp here!
Whatever leftover white wine is lying on the bottom shelf of your fridge since you only know one person who drinks white and they’re out of town and by the time you have another party it will be – does wine get stale?
Large pot
Large sauté pan with lid – not just a frying pan, because the deeper sides of a sauté pan will later be helpful
Sharp knife
Pasta drainer
Cheese grater
Slotted pasta scooping spoon
Sauté-ing implement of choice – I use whatever flattish utensil is in the big jar on the counter

Put on The Killers and wash your hands. I actually plugged my little ipod into the dock of one of those dock-your-ipod boomboxes and hit shuffle, but while I was peeling the shrimp, songs kept playing that reminded me of Lover (Vindicated, Suerte, Scusami, Jesus Christ why did we listen to so much music?) and it was a pain in the ass to keep washing my hands to press skip. So just go with The Killers. It’ll still remind me of Lover but you probably don’t have the same associations.

Fill the pot with water and put it on to boil.

Put the sauté pan on low heat and pour in a little olive oil.

Cut the onion in half and then cut it up in thin wedges. Break up the pieces and throw them into the sauté pan. Leave them alone and don’t stir – I’ll tell you when!

Start peeling the shrimp, unless you were smarter than me and bought them already peeled. Muse how there’s nothing like the texture of the female parts, except maybe a fresh fig, and that’s really more of a metaphor.

When the onion sounds “sizzle-y”, give it one quick stir, just to change sides.

Sing along to “When everybody else refrained, My Uncle Johnny did cocaine,” and speculate on whether it would in fact take away your pain, and if so, how much it would actually cost to stay high until the end of the month when maybe you wouldn’t care anymore. Imagine what you’d wear at Studio 54. It probably involves lamé.

Keep peeling shrimp. Call your significant other to help, which will be a lovely shared moment and get your mind off the cocaine. Imagine them at Studio 54, and do a little disco together in the kitchen. Then stir the onions again.

When the water boils, throw in the angel hair pasta and time it for one song or four minutes.

When the onions are brown around the edges, add the mushrooms, wait a minute, and stir.

Take the pasta out of the water with the pasta spoon and drop it into the drainer, leaving the pasta water in the pot. I know this sounds counter-intuitive, like not constantly checking Myspace to find out when you get moved out of the number one friend slot, but trust me, it will pay off with a similar lack of heartache. If you can manage it. Which I can with the pasta but the Myspace thing already stung me in the lip.

Add a little tiny bit of olive oil to the pasta and stir it around to keep it from getting sticky. Then add some hot water to the pasta water and put it back on the heat – voila! You’ve saved waiting for that sucker to boil from nothing again. Insert your choice of metaphor here.

Give the onions and mushrooms another stir, then add the whole bag of spinach on top. Pour in about a cup of wine and put the lid on the sauté pan.

Toss the shrimp into the boiling water for as long as it takes to pour something to drink and set the table for two.

Toss the pasta into the sauté pan and mix it all around. Drain the shrimp in the pasta drainer (you can dump the water this time).

Pour the whipping cream over the pasta-veg mix and salt and pepper to taste. Add the shrimp and ménage everything.

Dish out pasta. Top each serving with a generous grating of Parmesan. See if you can stay focused on the person you’re with for the duration of dinner. Bon attention!

Flashes

So I get these…flashes. Call it too many years of paying attention. As a 15-16-17-year-old I told fortunes on the street, it was my self-created summer job, between selling shoes and the accessories store. And yeah, half of that, 70 percent of that, 90 percent of that is crap. It doesn’t take a genius to look at another teenage girl and say, “Your parents don’t understand you.” “Ohmigod! Becki! She’s so right!”

But every now and then, something happens.

Last year, prior to his departure, I told a friend about getting ripped off on his travels, that he would have it happen twice, once small, once large. Two months later I spent ten days strongly suggesting he put his cash into travelers’ checks, and when his hostel roommate got his PDA, phone, porn, new jeans, and 1500 euros on Day Eleven, I did not say “I told you so.” The guy was pretty slick – even took the respective chargers, leaving behind the cord for the phone that was being carried by my friend.

I’ve come bolt awake, shaking, before dawn three mornings in a row. No light coming in the windows, not hungry (still), don’t have to pee. Just – present. I see Lover’s next trip. I see his thing with Cute Girl. I see dead people, yeah, whatever.

Are they earthshaking? Maybe not. One thought would be nice to know for his trip, maybe save some frustration, but it wouldn’t kill him. But the other – I could be way off base, or it could be a huge thing forestalled by some simple precautions. Or maybe my subconscious is just trying to make trouble.

So the question becomes, where is my moral obligation? Is this – I hesitate to call it sight, it comes in words, in the form of a question phrased in the affirmative, answered, why, yes - truly something vital? Or merely my brain’s frantic, jealous attempt to connect? If I say nothing, and something happens, have I hurt someone through non-action?

- - -


In older times, and sometimes still, mad people were sedated in a “wet pack.” Nurses and orderlies used strips of linen to bind the struggling, thrashing patient to a board, then mummify them in wet sheets, stop the jerking, the running, the flailing. If you got a little better, sometimes they would let you have your arms free.

Maybe that would stop the shaking.

Breadcrumbs...

Into the city, towers, lights, trailers for a movie production, the pit that used to be the World Trade Center, and the convergence of the universe continues when the really nice guy who saw me struggling to park paid for the garage.

I leave these clues in case I do not return...yeah, melodrama. But as I head inward, it comes to me, how much should it be work and how much should be magic? Lover has been very, very good to me. Dinners and adoration. Shows and support. And now, we're both finding that it's effort to want the other. My bitchiness overwhelms my prettiness. His quirkiness threatens to subsume his power over me.

I've lost a pet - stay with me on this - and it's the only pure grief I've known. I've been lucky that no-one close to me has (knock wood) been taken away (yet). The decision to end my cat's life rather than watch him suffer was wrenching. Last week, Powergirl came home, put her suitcases in my living room, walked across the street, broke up, and returned fifteen minutes later. Quick, like a bandaid. In that way, she's tougher than I am, not knowing whether to fight and work and struggle, or to say, this is a side relationship. This is not meant to be fought for, it's meant to happen beautifully like the blooming of a flower, and then when it's done, it's done. We broke up once before, in the morning, on an island, and circumstances led us to be in each other's company for the entire day afterwards. It was that same wrenching grief.

This morning, before I left my other life, I recut all the stems of the roses in the dining room vase. So little effort for a few more days of pleasant loveliness.

Today I Am...

1) Crushing hard on a Kiwi who plays the ukelele.

2) Bitter that I'm not better at my job.

3) In another time zone.

4) Out of love.

5) Totally thwarted in #1.

6) Wearing a totally ridiculous outfit...

7) ...that I am paid to wear.

8) (Not like that)

9) Alternately loving and hating my hair.

10) On the edge of tears.

11) Behind on a big project.

12) Transported by said Kiwi playing "Sweet Child Of Mine" on said ukelele

13) (Including the guitar riff)

14) to another girl.

15) (Context is important)

16) Contemplating starting a Facebook.

17) Definitely out of love

18) and calling on Beautiful Girl

19) to help me stick to #17.

20) Because if he puts his hand on the back of my neck, it's all over.

21) Craving Thai salad rolls

22) which will be made for me by a tiny Laotian woman

23) whom I think understands how much I love them.

Precipice

Lately I have an embarrassment of riches…this fellow’s back in town and less pushy, another one has rung to tell me he’s in the next state over, I’m aiming for Fucked-Up Guy, Man Who Loves Stars is, improbably, in my town, ten states from his stomping grounds. I’m also supposed to see Lover again very soon. We are inches from a precipice, from I-don’t-love-you-anymore-goodbye, from the scene where I disappear into the crowd and the part of me that’s been his, for him, for him in me and me on him, fades and vanishes into a pleasant memory, the shining bauble tucked away in tissue and lost in a corner of the basement, when did we get this? Who gave it to us?

Aphrodite demanded loyalty from her many lovers, and truth be told I am lately less goddess-like than usual, busy with my other life, my work, closer than usual to Husband due to a working-out, gardening and evening walks for ice cream marital repair plan. I have not been there for Lover creatively as is our usual wont, we’ve been separated by distance and time zones and roaming charges.

These are all excuses.

What’s really between us is the Hershey’s Kiss. And not her, personally, but the idea of her and all her kind. The girls Lover should be healthily fucking, moving from one fun, unattached plaything to the next, enjoying his freedom from the ex-wife now that he’s recovered from the ex- part enough to enjoy the freedom.

I can’t stand this notion.

I’ve grown a lot where jealousy is concerned, I’m comfortable with Man Who Loves Stars having a strong tie to another woman (not the one who deprived him of head), I’m able to wrap my tiny brain around the idea that men who are quality enough for me to fuck might actually appeal to other women, too, and I’ve never had a problem with the permanent partners of men I, too, love.

But. Lover hits me, Lover holds me, Lover bends me over the counter in the hotel bathroom and takes me from behind, watching each others’ faces and our own in the mirror over the sink. Lover slaps me, pulls my hair, rapes me in the back seat, fills me with his hand until there’s nothing else in the world. There is blood, sometimes, and tears, and breathless laughter, and revelation of fears told only to him. There is letting go, letting someone else be in charge, releasing control, the bossy bitch stepping outside for a moment while the raw and naked girl writhes beneath his hand around my throat.

Lover tells me about the other girls, when I ask, when I want to know. Sometimes I didn’t really want to know. I can’t wish it to be bad, and the part of me that wishes it to be mediocre with them, nothing is as good as you, feels mean and shamed.

How fortunate to have found a way to “manage” my jealousy. Simple, really. Step back. Turn off. Disengage. Break up. And in the course of stepping back, the distance fills with all the questions love removes. Has it been too long? Is it only about the sex? Can I do better? Is he handsome enough? Successful enough? Is it worth lying to have this?

Two horoscopes in a row have told me, question the pattern of your intimacy, examine whether the love you need is still the love you thought you needed. And while I don’t really believe in horoscopes, I do believe in the subtle message, the guidance from the Magical Stranger on the path, fortune cookies and what the book you’re reading says that speaks to you. Perhaps Man Who Loves Stars calling to say he is in the next town tonight, the night I am to see Lover, in the same town as Lover, though thank goodness not the same hotel, is God’s banderilla.

It’s not what it used to be. Will it change, deepen, reframe? Or simply stop?

Ahhh...a Meme...The Lazy Writer's Friend

I’ve been tagged by the Dark and Lovely Nia! I haven’t done a meme before, I don’t think, but I’m pleased to have an excuse to sit and write between a long work day and one more work obligation (that I’m looking forward to) before bed and catching up on sleep, oh my god I can’t wait to sleep more than four hours tonight…

Seven Random Things

1)It makes me very uncomfortable if the waitress doesn’t like my table. I hatehatehate it when, for some reason, we’re not “good” customers for her (and it’s always a her), because I don’t ever tip less than fifteen percent unless the service was bad enough to speak to the manager about, and I prefer twenty. So when the service is timely but attitudinal, my nature is in conflict, which is probably bad for my digestion. I also wish I could wear a little sign that says “I know I’m a single person with a book taking up your table. I plan to compensate you for that. Now stop giving me attitude.”

2)When I lie about being late or absent, I choose my reasons very carefully because I worry that it will really come true to punish me for lying. (Nothing like a compassionate God, eh?)

3)There are people who have words I wrote tattooed on their bodies. I find this both thrilling and deeply humbling. It’s a lot to measure up to.

4)I dislike all dogs except pugs, which I think are actually cats in dog suits.

5)My dad used to tell me, “You know, there are people who have never been in the newspaper or on TV.” This was totally bizarre to my ten-year-old self, since I was in the press in one form or another about five times a year as a kid, both incidentally and for achievements.

6)My regular job requires me to be pleasantly nice to lots of strangers, often at times I wish were personal and off the clock. Whoring requires me to be exceptionally nice to people with whom I might not otherwise spend time at all. I love writing because I get to say exactly what I think in the way I want to say it. Or possibly completely lie about what I think and have people believe it anyway. Yay writing!

7)Nobody knows that the reason I’m aloof at social gatherings is that I’m actually terribly shy in groups. As a young woman, this manifested itself as inappropriate comments and desparately not-funny jokes. As an adult, I'm better, but after about an hour, I really have to spend a long time in the bathroom before I can face the mayhem again. I think people suspect I’m a snob with constipation.

The Necklace

I find myself in a funky, artsy southern town, with a quilt shop on every corner and cobbled streets. Shining like a lost koruna in the street (and about as out of place) is one sleek, minimalist, polished-concrete-floored gallery of stainless steel jewelry, handcrafted by the gay couple behind the counter. I think, perhaps I will buy Lover something from here. We’ve been a bit disconnected, challenged by distance and lack of coordinating schedules, and I’d like to give him something heavy and expensive and permanent, but not intended to be worn all the time (see gold earrings). I choose a necklace, but intend to come back later and pay cash following a time of agony about whether or not I want to a) buy a meaningful present for him at all and b) spend that much money outside my household.

I return shortly before closing…except that they are already closed. There is no phone number on the window, or on the front of the business cards face up on the display table inside the window. They are not listed, as a business or as proprietors (their names are in the window). Myspace to the rescue, and later that night, I reach them at home and they agree to open up the shop for me. Gotta love small towns.

This time, I have Husband with me, as he has come along on this primarily business trip. We have also been rocky, and I add to my purchase a heavy bracelet as well as the necklace I claim is for me, or possibly for a girlfriend if I can bear to give it up. The bracelet has a dull sheen, and I tell him, I will get it engraved inside, I will have them put, I would marry you again in a minute. Husband is moved, we are both connected. Lately, it has been a very clear connection. I wear the necklace out of the store, and am indeed half in love with it myself.

* * *

Lover has a new friend. That kind of friend. I call her the Hershey’s Kiss. You know, like when you really, really want chocolate, and you’ve promised yourself that you won’t burn calories on crap, you’ll hold out for Belgian dark chocolate, not that sugary crap that gives you a headache and a weird feeling in your mouth, but then you find that bag of leftover Halloween candy or maybe there’s a bowl on the receptionist’s desk and it’s just…soooo…easy…

This is demeaning to her and unworthy of me.

I’m supposed to be this liberated free spirit, fucking my way around the world and far, far too busy and happy to be jealous and irritable that Lover is FUCKING SOMEONE ELSE.

I meet Lover in another town, one of our last private meetings for months. He has driven a long way to see me. I have told a lot of lies to see him. The necklace burns in its tissue in my bag, and at first, I think, well, no. The hello kiss is nice, we take it slow, he’s very respectful and supportive of my numerous conversations via cell with Husband, who is having a rough night/week/marriage. Good food, a good walk, good conversation. Caution.

It’s not that something’s missing. It’s that something’s there. Focus is divided. He is only with me, yes, but I am also with her. When his cock slides into me, I wonder how tight her pussy is. When he kisses me, I think about how she’s an easy come, it strokes his ego that he got her off with kissing. When he goes down on me, I worry that I take too long, it’s unfulfilling, the few times – very few – I actually come this way aren’t enough.

I sleep all night in his arms, thinking only a few times, do you do this with her? We have already decided that the boundary is no anal, that’s saved, and he tells me fancy dates are also only for me, TGI Fridays is fine for her. I feel a prickling of female solidarity. If I’m truly out for maximum happiness for others and not solely my own selfish gratification, it would be nice if other people had nice things, too, and not just what they’ll settle for, machined corn syrup lowers him and me both.

In the morning, he is actually fucking me when I ask when he’ll see her again. This is not as stupid a question as you might think, given that they live in different states, she has a full-time not-traveling job and he is not due back in her state for quite some time.

She’s coming to see him in three weeks.

He blathers on about how she’s not up for a relationship, he natters about how they’re both only into this part time thing, he whinges about how it’s not a big deal but it would be rude to back out now, and I’m weeping in the shower, washing him off me, packing my things, blind with pain and fury and the realization that men are utterly, utterly stupid. Then I put my contacts in.

A brief note to my Male Gentle Readers: GIRLS WHO TRAVEL TO ANOTHER STATE TO SEE YOU ARE INTERESTED IN MORE THAN A QUICK FUCK. No matter how “busy” or “not into commitment” she is, no matter how many “other people she’s seeing” or “doesn’t have time to see,” NO GIRL NEEDS TO LEAVE HER CITY, LET ALONE HER STATE, FOR A QUICK FUCK. Your friendship isn’t that good. If she doesn’t have another reason to be there (and “my girlfriend was coming up anyway to see her boyfriend in your city” sure doesn’t count – who the hell wants to be a third wheel on a fuck trip?), this is not a no-strings-attached fun time. They may not be the strings you’re expecting to dodge, but trust me, they’re there.

I round up my things in the hotel room, I can’t bear to have him touch me. He says, “I’m terrified that I’m going to lose you.” I say, “you already are.”

Somehow, we achieve détente. And I arrive at a solution. We will break up. I’m not sure if it will be only nominal, if the convention will be enough to relieve the sick, burning jealousy in my stomach, but I have to do something. I will see him one more time this month, and then we’re done. If we want to get back together after he sees her, perhaps. But I can’t be his if he’s with someone else. And the thing I value most about Lover is being utterly, completely his.

A brief note on hypocrites. I AM ONE. I’d like to be able to fuck whomever I like and have them only fuck me.

Breaking up seems, thus far, to be working. I don’t think about Lover fucking the Hershey’s Kiss. In fact, I don’t think about him much at all. I’m certain this is a compartment of some kind, but really, I’m a bit busy for pain right now. And hey, if subpar chocolate is worth using up the calories you’d spend on the good stuff, well, at least it was easy, cheap and available when you needed it.

I gave him the necklace. I told him I hoped it would be something he’d like wearing, and that he could never wear it around Husband.

(“It was worth, at most, five hundred francs…”)

The Key in an Open Hand

I paused a moment before opening the hotel room door, knowing that he wasn’t inside but still disappointed when he wasn’t inside. Before he left, I tucked the second key into his pocket, “In case you want to come back.”

It’s not wanting. It’s flight schedules and long work days and money, always money. Once we had a phone date, both on our cells in different cities having dinner, but I drove to New Orleans instead of Atlanta and met him in the restaurant, the staff charmingly congratulatory when the live girl walked up in dress and heels (I showered and changed at a truck stop, the transformation from driving sweats to dinner girl fazing the guys in the shower line) and they reseated us from the bar where he’d anticipated talking on his phone to a charming corner table, extra appetizers, have a glass of wine on us.

So I am only a little crushed.

Later, Lover rings me, at least I know he left the party alone, he had a little with the hostess but couldn’t outwait the other guests at the end of the day, the three days. Music’s glamorous but it’s hard, the energy pours out indiscriminately and I never worry about the ones who listen, they’re part of a herd. But colleagues are another story, and jealousy is not the problem but possessiveness is. It’s not my call to make. If he is to be a fellow traveler and not a thing to be used and discarded, he cannot be just mine, it demeans, lessens, makes me too sure.

Today I was in Claire’s, hair flowers, tights, purses, tiaras, little notebooks, cheap pleasure in my basket and half-off from the nice guy behind the counter (I ask about a Hair-i-gami to make clever buns, Hans knows immediately it’s wrong for the texture of my hair, so much for retail drones not caring). I want some earrings. Something small, that I can not bother to take out before bed. I want Lover to give me some earrings. Small gold hoops that I can wear all the time, real gold, probably not from Claire’s…

I’m half an hour back on the job before the symbolism crashes into my brain.

Terrifying.

Theory (On Whoring, Privacy and Choice)

Part One is here.

A Gentle Reader, Anonymous Girl on the Verge, continues:

These privacy concerns [about sending out possibly identifying pictures] are all that keep me from following a comparable course as yours.

As a writer and artist (struggling, of course), I anticipate receiving some publicity at some point, hopefully some success. I intend to be very selective, taking the 'courtesan' route from the start. And although I would have no shame about any whoring or other sex work I do in the interim, I'd nevertheless prefer to keep those activities separate from my public work -- at least until I'm ready to connect the dots myself, which in fact I look forward to doing, but on my terms.

Damn straight.

As far as starting with the courtesan route, The Accidental Hooker has a lovely post on “Prostitution: The New Temp Job” on the difference between aspirational marketing and reality, and of course Gillette as referenced in Part One.

As far as doing this at all, well...I cannot advise. But I can offer both my response, and Jenna Jameson’s.

Jenna, on becoming a porn star: Porn is not a career, or even an option, for most women. But if you are seriously interested, consider what you will be doing with the rest of your life, because even if you become a nun afterwards, you will always be known as having done porn.

When you come out, on your own terms or otherwise, some of your friends will be upset that you did this, and some of them will be pissed you didn’t trust them enough to tell them about it at the time. I’m walking a fine line with Power Girl right now where I don’t know how much is right to tell her for her own peace of mind – she’s great at keeping secrets, I trust her judgment and value her input in this as in other things, but how much does one really want to know about one’s good friend’s sex life? Am I doing enough for her in return? How fair is it to put her in the position of Secret-Keeper? (We all know what happened to Peter Pettigrew)

...



Walking through the airport on the way back from seeing Be-My-Real-Friend, I’m craving something. Walk and look. Starbucks? Juice? A book? No, what I really want is to be writing. For the first time in my life I’m experiencing drive and compulsion to write every day. My days write themselves in my head in realtime, I’m one of those awful people at Disney, video camera strapped to face, I’ll watch my vacation at home later.

In the long run, this blog will be a book. Daily readers are the kick in the ass I need to write every day instead of when it’s convenient and inspired (almost never). Gentle Readers who ask if I’m OK when I haven’t posted – you help me be the writer I need to be.

But there’s a catch. If the blog becomes a book, a good book, sells lots of copies in the airport, someone will out me. It is, in this day and age, almost unavoidable. I don’t know enough about internet anonymity, and honestly, part of me must be willing to stand up and own what I write, or I’d have done more research. Fear for me is not fear of being outed, it’s fear of being insignificant. Unknown. If the book isn’t successful enough and good enough for someone to want to out me (and get paid a great deal for the information), then I will have failed.

And when I’m outed, when the book is huge and I’m on Oprah or probably someone more open-minded’s chat show, I will have made a choice.

I have based a lot of my life on not choosing.

Husband and Lover. And more.
Wife and worker.
Home and travel.
Writer and other job and other job and yes, one more job, to the point where I wonder, if I cut out the rest and focused on one, would I go up like a rocket, energy condensed?

In high school, my [one subject] teacher told me, you’re wasting yourself, you should go into [my field]. Another told me I was wasting myself if I didn’t major in English and become a writer. My graduate mentor told me eventually I’d have to focus on one aspect of my field. My writing mentor tells me I should write more, perhaps only. So far, I haven’t made a choice.

What happens if I’m Mandy the Whore instead of Me? If all I can get is another book deal instead of my life?

Right now, I am shrapnel. Will I be a missile? Or just explode at launch?

...

Good luck, Anonymous Girl. Let us know how it goes. And you’ll forgive me if I hope you don’t become competition.

Dirty Little Secrets 2 (You Must Be This Tall to Ride This Ride)

Beautiful Girl commented beautifully, after I also mentioned to her privately that she might consider this line of work:

nice- glad there was a turnaround, my dear. i might try it, but there is something that wouldn't wash away, though i appreciate you thinking that i could. i am too essentially hippy, too uninterested in modifying my righteous me.[...] normal boys think twice about it. boys who pay... same as being paid to make music. there is a large sense of control that is lost.[...]

[...]i wish you were here to share in the night and the moon and the simpler things which do not involve boys and caring what they want and don't want. don't forget, dear one. you are more than the sum of these experiences, though they are heady and draw the attention like an exotic city seen first by night, with its lights and its music and its rhythm.

you are more.

She's right. Parts of it don't wash away. I noticed myself identifying with the group "prostitutes" when hearing that the group is being persecuted, and it's strange to feel one's identity shift. (A bisexual friend is married to a woman, all his long-term relationships have been with women, but he still calls himself "queer" because "when they load up the boxcars, that's who I want to be with.") No matter what else I do in my life from here, I've been a whore, and that's an indelible stamp in the passport that must be guarded forever. Once you go to Israel...

But this journey has led to a spate of writing like nothing ever before and so far the cost is high but worth every penny. Because I am writing about it, it's not about boys. Even when I am with someone, I am writing in my head and that is something they can't and don't touch, and right now it's burning so strong that it burns away a lot of the ick.

If I had to sell 20-dollar blowjobs on the corner to be able to write this well and prolifically (and hey, it's ego but I know when I'm good) I would do it. I would do anything short of shooting up to have this writing, and that's only a limit because I'm afraid of needles.

I said to Power Girl(and probably blogged)when I first started, "the memory of fucking him is already fading, but his money's still in my purse."

It's not about the money anymore. It's that for whatever reason, this is the risk that stimulates me. This is my wooden coaster, looking like it's been assembled by an old guy with a rachet set, the tracks shaking overhead while I wait in line, the jolting of the cars so strong I have to ride in the front seat only.

At the top

of the Pepsi Max One (longest-tallest-
fastest) you can see Blackpool laid out
beneath, the map edged with sea

spreading across the shingle, spreading
across the world.

There's a reason the E-ticket costs the most.

The Dream

I was in a college class, the teacher was Japanese. We were sitting around a table, and John M (my best friend from first grade who is now serving in the Navy) got up to leave a little early. As he stood up and gathered his books, he looked at me and mouthed, “Mandy.” I was in shock. I had to wait for the bell to ring to be able to leave, then run through the halls, out of the building, across to the next campus, a military academy on a wide grassy lawn, backing on a river. I finally caught him in doorway of the foyer. “How did you know? How did you find out?” He looked at me pityingly, “I know how to look around on the internet, it’s not hard.” Sun on the grass. White uniforms. Terror, lasting long after I woke up.