Too Many Men

The last month has felt overwhelming. Lord only knows what drove Jude to contact me, but shortly after he did (and I’m talking no more than a week), guys started coming out of the woodwork. I had this chat session with Nancy last Monday:

Me: “The old broad’s still got it. Both Marco and Phil looked me up and down today.”

Nancy: “Well, Phil is hot for you.”

Me: “Apparently so is Marco.”

Nancy: “Lol. You’re dripping sex.”

Me: “Hardly! I look awful today. They all started coming around me once Jude came back into the picture. Funny how that is.”

And of course I have a theory…

Jude has been very good for my psyche. He has given me more compliments in the last six weeks than my last boyfriend did in eight years. He makes me feel completely captivating and he celebrates my uniqueness and intelligence. Since returning from vacation, I feel as though I have been walking around in a daze; I wake up feeling full of him and he’s in my thoughts so frequently that I feel like he’s with me all day long. I have the feeling of complete and utter peace after I speak with him on the phone. I feel absolutely comfortable and at ease in my skin. He makes me feel so fantastic that I am certain I am radiating love out of every pore.

It almost sounds like I’m describing a religious experience, doesn’t it?

I think that this new, romantic demeanor is what these men are sensing and responding to. I have been asked out on the town, I have been propositioned, I’ve been checked out, an old boyfriend has asked to rekindle the relationship that ended sixteen years ago, and a man who heard about me through Nancy has requested a blind date with me. Even Wolverine initiated a conversation with me.

Tremendous? Yes, but this is also reason for celebration. I celebrate because Jude is proving to be good for me.

Outside the Comfort Zone

There is something to be said for keeping a gratitude journal. Since I started this exercise in May, I have found that I take the hurdles that life throws at me much more in stride; I don’t get as worked up when things go awry. I am able to flip a bad situation around to acknowledge that there may be a positive spin, an attribute that makes me seem a little too much like Pollyanna, I confess, but this helps me feel more lighthearted. And, as an added bonus, I feel much more ambitious to try new things when they come my way.

August has been a month of experimentation, trying new things, and forcing myself to say “yes” to those things that place themselves in my path.

Recently, I went to dinner with Nancy and Criostoir to a tiny Korean restaurant in Hudson, NH, a place which was Criostoir’s choice. From the outside it didn’t look like much at all. In fact, Nancy suggested that at one point it may have been a gas station. Inside, the seating area was one small room, probably no more than 500 square feet. Although the service bordered on slow, the waitress Jeannie was cheeky and entertaining. And the food was surprisingly excellent. I found myself eating Jam Bong, a seafood soup that includes mussels, scallops, shrimp, octopus, and squid. Let me tell you that apart from the scallops, none of those things would have ever made a regular appearance on my dinner plate before, but on this night I weighed the options and decided that I could have Pad Thai anywhere. And, lordy, am I glad I did.

This month, I also filed away my pre-conceived notions of an activity known as “tubing” and gave it a try. For those of you not familiar with tubing, the event takes place on a river where you sit in an innertube, drink beer, and float downstream. White trash city, right? That is absolutely what I thought, but from the riverbank I saw a different side, how being lazy in a tube puts you up close to nature and you see things as you float by that you wouldn’t notice speeding along in a car.

I put myself on an airplane and went to visit my friend Park in Virginia. While this probably sounds like an everyday occurrence, I assure you it took a significant amount of willpower to step onto that plane. Of all the things I am scared of (snakes, spiders, zombies), I’d rather face a room full of one or all of them than to fly. It’s an activity I do only when necessary. In fact, in the last 10 years, I have flown only twice before this trip and each time, I had an emotional breakdown, complete with tears, hysterics, and panicky paper bag breathing. This trip, I had none of that. I cannot admit that I was calm… In the hours leading up to my departure, I paced the floor. Once I got to the airport, my hands were clammy. Waiting at the gate to board, I was texting with Jude and my brain was so ill at ease that I have no memory of what I wrote. But I can admit that I sensibly told myself that if I wanted to get anywhere, if I ever wanted to see anything in this world, I would have to suck it up. So I did.

And what a magnificent trip it was! We spent three days around the Williamsburg area, where Park lives, and four days on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I tried everything. I pulled apart crabs with my bare hands. I showered outside. I ate foods I can’t get easily in New England: fried green tomatoes, peanut soup, venison/duck/rabbit pie, shrimp and grits. I climbed to the top of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse. I got an amazing pedicure, the massage from which I am still feeling.



I pulled the crabs apart, but I wasn't happy about it.



The fantastic, relaxing outdoor shower.



Cape Hatteras Lighthouse



Game Pye, made with Rabbit, Duck and Venison and covered in Currant Jelly

But the biggest surprise of the last month has been Jude. Talk about something putting itself smack in the middle of my path. After some initial fumbling, we started to communicate, first on Facebook, then by text, and now by phone. I have learned from him that he had tried on several occasions to hook up with me in high school, but he always felt rebuffed. My recollection of Jude is that he was quite the flirt, and popular enough in his own way. I doubt I ever took him seriously. But talking to him now, part of me wishes I had. Each day, I find that we have more in common than I ever would have thought possible. My rational side reminds me that in high school, I was particularly self-absorbed; I couldn’t wait to get away from the small town politics and the shallow, small-minded people in my hometown. That rational side makes a pretty convincing argument that I was shallow and small-minded in my own way, and that it may have taken me 20 years to be ready to accept a boy from my own back yard.

So here’s where things get interesting. Jude is 3,000 miles away until mid-December. I haven’t seen him in the flesh since we graduated almost two decades ago. We have never in our lives gone on a date. But we have an undeniable mental connection and I am admittedly attracted to him.

And I’m going to fly, yes FLY, all the way across the country to see him in October.

Is there a problem? I don’t know. Today, I feel incredibly optimistic. But other days, I worry that it’s absurd to feel this way about a man that I haven’t seen in a lifetime. I worry that if I go out there and he hates me, it’s not as easy as taking me home, saying good-night, dropping me at the door and driving away. I worry about how my mother would weather finding out that I’m going to California to see him. I worry that this is jumping headlong into something that neither of us is ready for. And I keep thinking about that old adage, “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

Except that right now, I don’t have any bird in my hand, I only have the bird in the bush. And the image of the Leap of Faith in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade makes me feel very powerful. And I have to remind myself that I am a 36-year old adult, and if there is something that could lead to my ultimate happiness, would I care what anyone thinks, whether it’s my mother or our old classmates? And although I have asked for guidance and clarity of mind, this thing still feels like it is being propelled along by its own force.

So I see no other choice but to address this Colossus that has heaved itself directly in my path, “Yes.”

Act III, In Which the Players Weigh the Consequence of Performing Good or Ill

I never suspected that I would struggle so regularly with ethics, morals, and the question of following or departing from social mores. Had I known that so much of my life would seem like my character was being tested at every turn, I probably would have majored in Philosophy. Or Government.

Why is it that doing the right thing is far from easy? And why does doing the wrong thing come so naturally – and feel so good? Well, I should clarify that it usually feels good for a moment. Unfortunately, I have had more than my fair share of heartbreak and I have carried around a lifetime of guilt because I didn’t do what I knew was right at the time.

Once upon a time, I accepted a date with an older coworker. I was fresh out of college, coming off my breakup with Buck. I was socially idealistic, emotionally damaged, and universally courting trouble. He was a recently divorced man in his early 40s with a grade-school aged son. He was artistically idealistic, financially damaged, and universally courting pussy.

Many of the months in the year following Buck are like a blank appointment book. I know that they happened, that I survived them, but there was hardly any life in my living. I remember the stupid, destructive things that I took part in, but most of the faces and places and names specific to my daily existence don’t feel like they could possibly have belonged to me. In the case of Peter, I have a vague recollection of going to dinner at a little hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurant that was at standing room only capacity, and then going to a local theater to see Evita. After the movie, we may have gone for drinks, but I can only remember finding myself following Peter back to his place.

He lived in a second story apartment in a rust-colored triple-decker that was located in a suburb just outside the city. Despite being the apartment he had taken after his divorce, it had a restfulness and a hominess to it. Peter was a photographer and although his full time job was in a call center, he had big dreams of owning his own studio. I have a recollection of listening to an 80s show on the local college radio station and looking through portfolios of Peter’s work in dim amber light. Predictably, he tried to persuade me to have sex with him and I have an indistinct memory of nearly going through with it. In the end, I thought better of sleeping with him. For the life of me, I cannot remember what convinced me not to or what excuse I cooked up to avoid following through, but I doubt I was very firm in my resolve, and to Peter’s credit, he didn’t push his agenda, although I would have been an easy and captive target.

The reason I bring up this story is because of all the murky memories of this evening (including whether or not Peter and I even kissed), one thing stands out as clear as a saxophone in a woodwind ensemble. In making the case why we should top off the evening with a visit to his bedroom, Peter said, “It’s all practice.” For all I know, this could have been the reason I decided to decline his kind offer. At the time, I had the feeling that this was a fairly sleazy thing to say. Now, after fifteen years of my own experiences, I think Peter was onto something. 

When I consider some of the things I have encountered and undergone, particularly those things that were very poor decisions, I can see the wisdom in Peter’s statement. I’d like to think that I’ve been able to log my mistakes and learn from them. I’d like to think that I am a better person, not because I ever did those things in the first place, but because each experience gave me a basis for knowing how to handle what came next.

After having the joke I made to a lonely middle aged man turned around on me with complete sincerity, I realized that he couldn’t distinguish between jesting and reality. Now when I need to interact with him, I am all business.

After a few episodes of foolishly drinking one beer after the other on an empty stomach, only to discover after it’s too late that I am in a vulnerable and unsafe situation, I finally learned how to supervisee my alcohol intake.

After allowing myself to be seduced by a married man, seeing how friends responded to his overt cavorting, and dealing with my own guilt at transgressing the boundaries of his marriage vow (because I know how it feels thanks to my father’s unfaithfulness), I am more wary of my familiarity with married men. Now, when I come across one that outright solicits me, I urge him to go make things right with his wife.

If you are lucky enough to have never struggled with anything like this, let me tell you, it’s damn hard. Sometimes a single person is lacking for attention, affection, appreciation, or a combination of all three. Sometimes you just want to sow some wild oats, and doing a dangerous thing seems exciting. And sometimes whatever reasons the married man throws out sound so plausible that you trick yourself into thinking that no harm will come of it.  

It takes an unimaginable amount of willpower to say no when he’s absolutely gorgeous and captivating and you’d venture to guess that he’s an expert at the indecent things he’s suggested to you and you really just want to accept his proposition since it’s all practice, anyway, right?

And that’s where making informed decisions based on experience comes into play. Or if you don’t have the depth of experience yourself, to learn from the gaffes of your elders and wisers. Some days you’ve got it. And I seem to be having one of those weeks.

Act II, In Which We Discover the Possibility of the Game Being Over Before It Has Been Played

I had about a second’s worth of flirtation this week.

Out of the blue, I had a message from a high school classmate asking if I were single. Jude is someone that I was hardly close to when we were teenagers; the extent of our acquaintance could be boiled down to a disagreement over the title of a certain Jethro Tull song and some French kissing during a slow dance at a winter formal. Since we graduated, I’ve had the only the slightest contact with him, the full extent of which has taken place since last November, so I was a bit perplexed by his cryptic email. When I questioned Jude’s reason for asking about my status, he said that he thought I was smart enough to fathom that he wanted to take me out.

I feel so conflicted about this situation. I am experiencing the strangest mixture of giddiness and fear; giddiness thanks to the compliment, fear because there are so many unknowns.

First, I know that this man is going through a divorce. So, is his asking me out a play to get some nookie? Or to test the waters and see if he’s still attractive? Would it be a ploy to make his soon-to-be ex-wife jealous?

Second, while his company is located on the east coast, he’s on assignment in California for the next five months, with occasional trips back on the weekends. Wouldn’t it be easier for him to find someone who’s local to take out?

I also wonder if I’m the only one he’s asked out? Or was he casting out a lot of nets to see what nibbled? And, like a paranoid, out of place teenager, there’s a little Piper Laurie voice in the back of my head that wonders if this is some kind of a game so he can have a laugh at my expense?

Well, I gave it some cursory thought, and what I determined is this: you can’t really get down to the bottom of things chatting online. So I sent an open ended message (“let me know if you’re coming to the Boston area for sure”), in the hopes that it would prompt a phone call in which I planned to accomplish two things: 1) try to figure out what his deal is and 2) to lay some ground rules, i.e. let’s get together as two old friends to catch up on the last 20 years and maybe lay the foundation for a better friendship than we had when we were kids.

But my message was sent on Wednesday and I haven’t heard another peep from him since then.

Now try to guess what I’m imagining. Things like he contacted the wrong girl. Or he got cold feet. Or he was on a three day bender during which time he sent the original series of emails establishing my singlehood and his desire for a date, and he sobered up enough on Thursday to rethink it. Or his writing that he wanted to ask me out was a joke that I misinterpreted due to the faceless nature of internet communication. Or someone hacked his account.

God, I feel like such a dweeb. Mainly because I let an innocent little comment to get to me. And it got to me, not just in that Jude’s comment fucked with my head, made me question everything about it, but in that I also let myself be flattered by it to the extent of daydreaming what would it have been like to meet up with him. I mean, I am, first and foremost, a woman, and a single one at that. Granted, most of my imaginings were heavy on the awkwardness of making small talk with someone I haven’t known for two decades, but still – I wasted time and brain power on envisioning it!

Please make note of the fact that the one question I didn’t ask myself was “why me?” I have a perfectly good idea why that is.

I have always been and will always be a good girlfriend. And when you read “girlfriend,” you should liken it to “guy friend,” only with better listening abilities. I think the basis for my reputation as a girlfriend is due to the fact that the majority of my interests would not exactly be classified as feminine. You’ve got an extra ticket for the Bruins game? Call me. You want to drink beer and smoke cigars at 10 am? Call me, please! There’s a 48-hour James Bond marathon on? I’m your gal. And I think men innately pick up on that – certainly it’s something that Jerry would have realized about me way back when. I have always had closer and more numerous male friends than female friends. I am someone guys can be comfortable around, someone guys can relate to on a particular level. I have discovered frequently in my life that I will be allowed into a “boys’ club” and as long as no one points out that I’m female (oh, let’s say by making a date with me for the prom or by accidentally brushing against my breast in mid-gesture), my presence is harmless and things stay pretty hunky-dory. In my time, I have been the drinking buddy, the collaborator, the mentor, the kindred spirit, and just one of the crew.

And maybe, if Jude gets his act together, I will discover that I have new roles to play, such as the sounding board, or the shoulder to cry on, or the old friend.

Or maybe what’s done is done and I’ll just come out feeling like a rube.

Act I, In Which Questions Are Raised And Truths Are Revealed

I once had a boyfriend who claimed he knew when I was feeling sad because I only listened to Eric Burdon and War when I was sad.

Perhaps it is because “Nights in White Satin” from Black Man’s Burdon was playing on the hi-fi on my way to work this morning, or perhaps it is just the erratic fluctuation of hormones due to being off birth control for half a week, but I have been an emotional train wreck all day. And all because of Buck.

The last time I saw him, he mentioned that he was thinking of leaving his job, moving elsewhere, and going back to school. His plans sounded pretty nebulous until we chatted online this morning about going out for oysters at the Union Oyster House; “I figure I should try them while I’m still here.” And that’s when it became obvious that mentally Buck has checked out of New England.

The thought that he wouldn’t be here felt like a knot tightening up in my stomach and I had a moment of panic. It’s hard to imagine not having Buck accessible within a couple of hours.

But then I remembered that for all of the “onlys” that Buck is to me, he is also the only one who can make me feel absolutely worthless.

Like 15 years ago when he broke up with me out of the clear blue sky and I felt like I was just going through the motions of living for a year. Like two months ago when he texted me to break our plans for dinner and a movie and it made me think about how I don’t have anything or anyone else to fall back on. Like two weeks ago when he told me that he has had a girlfriend for five years that he never told me about, and this evasion made me wonder if it was because of some vibe *I’ve* been putting across. Like how with everything being on Facebook these days, the fact that our common friends grant him a more intimate relationship than they allow me feels like a slap in the face. 

Granted, some of our distance is likely because for the last two years, he’s been focusing on the secret girlfriend to the detriment of our friendship, as people in relationships are notorious for doing. It makes me wonder when (or if) we’ll go back to camaraderie we had before. I’m starting to mistrust that how fantastic I feel when things are completely in synch with Buck eclipses all this feeling bad. I don’t want a half-hearted friendship and I don’t want to be jealous that his life has taken a different direction than mine.

I know that after flaunting my wish that he’ll remain in my life into perpetuity, I must sound like a complete hypocrite, but I’m going to put my reflections into writing, anyway…

I wonder if Buck’s decision to move away isn’t really a good thing. Perhaps, even 15 years after our affair, I am still emotionally involved with him, craving his approval and acceptance. Maybe the fact that he can affect me so strongly indicates that I am co-dependent. Maybe it’s time to accept that, because he hurt me so profoundly when I was so absolutely trusting of him, on some level I will never be able to be friends with Buck. But maybe if I am in the position of breaking up with him, ending the friendship, I will be able to achieve some emotional closure.

Maybe the work of hormones gone haywire, maybe the mysterious work of Mr. Burdon, maybe just a hard reality taking shape. Yet I have to put my own happiness at the forefront. Right now, all I feel is melancholy.

The Missing Link

When I was three or four, my grandparents took me to the local fair. While there, we had our photograph taken in one of those old time photo booths, dressed like a prairie farming family. I had an ankle-length, long sleeved pink calico dress and a straw hat with a full brim. I remember loving the outfit so much that I refused to take it off. Finally, the photographer convinced me to doff it by promising that he would mail it to me. I was very excited to think that not only would I get the dress and hat, but that I would get it as a package in the mail and I talked about it all the way home. I don’t remember how long I waited for the package to come before I realized that the photographer had lied.



The much-adored prairie outfit



Sometimes I get this same feeling when I think about love – the feeling that I am waiting for something that will never come.

In the movie Bass Ackwards, the main character, Linas, a sad sack who has overstayed his welcome on the floor of his friends’ computer room and whose main squeeze is shacked up with another man, drives across country in a Volkswagen bus and discovers himself along the way. In a poignant scene before making his trip, Linas is working on a llama farm, trying to feed the animals. He tells one of the llamas that he will give it the food if the llama shows him love. Linas even begs the llama to show him that it loves him. The llama just walks away.

This sentiment is an old friend.

A couple of months ago, I made plans with Buck, only to have him cancel on me by text message just a couple of hours after finalizing our date. We hadn’t seen each other in two years and I was looking forward not only to catching up with him, but to having someplace to be, something to do, and someone to spend time with. When he canceled, I was devastated. I hadn’t felt outright rejected in a long time. And of course it was Buck that was the only one who could reduce my self esteem to nothing.

The next morning as I walked, I pondered the situation and I realized how utterly alone I often feel under the surface. I think I put on a good show for people; I keep myself busy with work or projects, and even if I don’t have plans, I find something unusual to do so that friends looking in from the outside will focus on the interesting stuff I get up to and they won’t see how isolated I actually feel most of the time. I put on this show because I don’t want to appear pathetic or desperate, and I don’t want to be anyone’s charity case.

Being an only child, I am accustomed to being alone. But being alone is different than being lonely. Every so often, I feel solitary and empty to my core. I have the sensation of loneliness being so painful that it uncontrollably bubbles out of me, turning me into the living embodiment of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” In these times, what I really want to feel is that I have someone to love me, need me, and soothe me. Like Linas and the llamas, I always hope that my cat Athena will sense my need and offer some feline affection to fill the void, but she has never been very perceptive of my emotions.

What I long for is a sure thing, something – someone- constant in my life. I imagine that my married friends wake up feeling confident in their place in the world, assured that even if they don’t have plans with other people, they have each other to fall back on. What a lot less work it must be, to know that you intrinsically have someone else around without having to contrive things to do so you aren’t alone. 

My friends always say something to the effect of, “awww, Cat, there’s someone out there for you” or “I’m sure you’ll find the right guy soon enough.” But are they just saying it so I won’t wallow in my loneliness, or is it something they truly believe?

For my part, I liken the search for a partner to looking at a lovely country lane, twisting through the trees and rising up into the afternoon sun. Viewing it, I am flooded with images from Country Time Lemonade commercials. It seems as though when I reach the summit of the hill, I will descend directly into a world populated with tire swings and barefoot boys climbing apple trees and bicycle baskets filled with wildflowers. The possibility of being able to sink effortlessly into that world is both exciting and comforting at the same time. But when I actually reach the hilltop and I’m able to see the other side, I’m faced with a high noon parking lot that’s shared by a strip mall and an airport. The marketing is great, but the reality is more than disappointing.

And this is why I say I feel like I’m waiting for something that will never get here. The image in my head of what love should be always has a dream-like quality, like a picnic next to a Maxfield Parrish-hued lake. I’ve found that reality is too frequently an overcooked hamburger eaten in front of the television with the slight odor of dirty socks in the background. When that wistful anticipation of Mr. Right or Mr. Good Enough starts to materialize in my thoughts, I feel compelled to rationalize him away.

What I need to remember is that nothing good lasts as long as a Country Time commercial would suggest. Even on the best of days, there’s a lot of mediocrity. Our memories string together the good moments, the seconds of optimism, and those instants that are truly extraordinary. I figure love works the same way. Most of the time, being in love is probably quite mundane, but we romanticize the moments that are a little more than average so that we remember them as something phenomenal, an instant that lasted for what seemed like hours, something that transcended this mortal plane. I suppose this bliss is out there for everyone, as long as they find the right llama and offer it the right treat.

Feast or Famine

It seems an unwritten, but predictable rule of single life that the dance card is always completely full or utterly, mortifyingly empty. The last two weeks have been an interesting mix of the two.

• I forewent the Burke’s Fourth of July barbecue and pool party to hang out in Boston with Buck. Full.
• The next day when Nancy texted me an invitation to come over in the afternoon, I felt obligated to go. No sooner had I arrived than Tzi Tzi called to ask me to a Spinner’s game for the same night. Full.
• I made plans with Criostoir to walk the Freedom Trail over the weekend, but he canceled on me, so I spent half of a beautiful weekend locked up reading, the other half driving across the state of New Hampshire on a desperate antique hunt, and the entire weekend alone. Empty.
• To make it up to me, Criostoir took me for a motorcycle ride one evening and the following night I attended an impromptu welcome home party for Nancy, who had spent a week in Canada. Because I don’t usually have a lot going on during the week, this was so full that I didn’t have time to watch the movies that were due back to the library on these same days.
• El Jefe invited me to go to a winery in Maine for Tzi Tzi’s birthday, but I was scheduled to work. What a bummer to be full!
• Looking into this weekend, the Burkes have asked me over for swimming, Amelia and Mark want me to meet up with them for dinner and a movie, and my next door neighbor has threatened to track me down to catch up on the newest crime drama. And to top it all off, my mother is begging me to visit. This is feeling depressingly overfull.

What’s a girl to do?

I remember all too well the feeling of being stranded in Lowell without anything to do or anyone to do it with after my long-distance relationship deteriorated last year and The Dude no longer wanted my company on the weekends. And that is why I am not complaining now. Over the years, I have been fortunate to have friends who have taken good care of me during my single patches, who have sustained me body and soul, and who have included me in their lives. Thanks to them, I have often enjoyed myself so fully that I don’t miss being part of a couple.

I sometimes wonder if it’s a conspiracy. Did these disparate people get together and decide to distract me from my melancholy by keeping me unusually busy? I know that’s unlikely. What it really means is that I have a lot of people in my life that care for me, and I suppose that is also a testament to the type of person that I am. Even now, being fairly new to the community, I have a network of friends who are willing to adopt me for an evening or for a holiday or for a weekend - my own safety net crew. Despite feeling overwhelmed (and occasionally underwhelmed) by the requests for my time, how can I not feel gratitude for having those people in my life?

Bucking the Yoke

 “An old friend never can be found, and nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost.”

– Samuel Johnson

Let me tell you about Buck. I have known him since I was a sophomore in college, where we forged a deep friendship that everyone predicted would grow into something more. Despite denying the possibility, we became involved during the summer after my junior year. Buck is the only man for whom I have ever fallen head-over-heels, the only one with whom I allowed myself to be absolutely vulnerable, the only one I was completely unabashed about loving, and the only man to whom I have ever been able to see myself married. That is, up until he dumped me: swiftly, frigidly, without any prior notice. Buck is the only one who has ever broken my heart.

I was a wreck for a good year after the breakup, what even I would term a “psycho ex-girlfriend.” But through it all, Buck maintained that he wanted to stay friends because he had always remained friends with his other exes. I clearly remember the night that I decided I was just too tired of it all, too tired of the drama, too tired of what he had made me become, and too tired of hearing about all those immature things he was experiencing that I had already gone through. That night, as we talked on the phone, and he complained about the lack of direction in his life and how he was considering moving back across the country to live with his parents, I said, “Buck, go with God,” giving him permission to leave, actually wishing that he would. He did.

We didn’t speak for the next 5 years...

Until he tracked me down and insinuated himself into my life little by little. By this time, I was very guarded when it came to Buck. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know anything about him, or if I even wanted to know him. Yet he persisted. He slowly urged me away from the defensive until we eventually overcame the awkwardness and renewed our friendship. Regularly since then he has told me that I am one of his closest friends.

For a couple of years before I moved to Lowell, we talked on the phone every week. During the final summer in my home state, Buck hired me to do a special project for his employer, so we visited with each other weekly. Then, after I moved to Massachusetts, and he was only an hour away, we met up a few times for dinner or to explore Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. I’m not sure what happened, but until Monday, I haven’t seen Buck for the last two years.

But, finally, here we were, together again, just as comfortable as slipping on an old pair of jeans. Because of everything we’ve been through together, because of everything we’ve known about each other and meant to each other, it is reassuring to have someone who knows my quirks and who doesn’t pass judgment, and vice versa. For instance, when I showed up wearing a tropically-hued madras blazer. Or when Buck admitted to owning the complete Hall and Oates collection, including all of their solo albums.

It’s also heartening to have a friend that has similar interests. Buck is my only friend who has the same broad and eclectic interest in music that I do, the only one with an advanced degree like me, the only one with whom I can talk on an intellectual level for any extended amount of time and never notice the ticking of the clock, the only other person I know who doesn’t like chicken. He is the only friend who will willingly and eagerly accompany me for Indian food, the one who instinctively understands “The Record” exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, and the only one who has a bigger predetermined monthly spending allowance for music than I do. And while I am wary of marriage for fear of ending up like my parents, Buck is wary because he doesn’t believe any relationship will equal the precedent set by his own parents.

You may wonder why Buck and I don’t rekindle our collegiate romance, because even to me, he seems like a pretty good match... he likes jazz, he’s comfortable in cemeteries, and while I think he may be lacking in the Kerouac department, I have no doubt that he would make an effort were I to ask him. For many many years I carried a torch for him, going so far as to joke with him that he “had ruined me for any other man.” 

The truth is, as I discovered the summer that we worked together, and in the words of Buck’s favorite musician B.B. King, the thrill is gone. While I am not physically attracted to Buck any longer, I very selfishly want to preserve the singular mental synchronicity that I have with him. And I vehemently pray that Samuel Johnson is right… and that he will always be in my life.

Like a Carrot on a Stick...

Maybe I’m jinxed.

What’s that old saying about unlucky in love? Yeah, that would be me, without the cards. The last thing I want is to be maudlin, but I recently realized that on more than one occasion, I’ve had boyfriends throw marriage in my face during the break-up. The most devastating line was, “If I weren’t gay, I’d marry you in a second.” The most recent one was, “I’m not sure if I should marry you or let you go.” Guess which one he chose.

What is it about me that marriage is a carrot that is dangled only when a relationship is over?

In my last relationship, I thought I did the right thing. After our first year together, I went on a week-long business trip and while I was gone, I asked my partner to consider whether he felt as though we had a future together. As I explained to him, I was in my late 20s and I was beginning to feel as though I would eventually want to have a family, so if he wasn’t going to be the one, well, time was a-wasting and I needed to start looking around. I came back from my trip and he indicated that he was on board. The second year, I went on another business trip and asked him to consider the same question. Two months later he asked me to move in with him. Five and a half years after that, I was the bass in a catch-and-release tournament.

I’ve said before that I’m glad I haven’t compromised my standards and I still maintain that. So what is it about being married that holds such an allure? I suppose it’s the feeling of being singled out as special, that someone prizes me above everyone else. Not only being treasured, but that I have been specifically selected me from a pool of millions, indicating that what I have to offer is more unique, more desirable, and more precious than what anyone else has.

So imagine the kind of self doubt that creeps in as the years pass and I am no closer to connubial bliss…

I’m sure some of you scoff and say there’s no such thing as a happy marriage. I say any situation is what you make of it. Relationships are work, just work of a different kind, and in my favor, that INTP in me is famous for throwing herself into her work.

Yes, I realize that I wrote something very similar to this a mere two weeks ago, and you may be asking, “is this horse dead, yet?” But it’s not the only idea that has had a revival. To demonstrate how certain thoughts keep coming around, here is a little piece of wisdom from Marilyn vos Savant that I stumbled across, “Everybody loves an accent. If you’ve been unlucky in love, consider pulling up stakes and moving to another country. Then you’ll be the one with a neat foreign accent.”

Another country? I fear flying, so maybe not. But another region? I’ll happily continue to deliberate.

The SAD Truth

I think my introversion is a problem.

I follow a group event called Nerdnite, which is a social event for intellectuals, integrating academic-sounding presentations and beer. The Boston area event is held on the last Monday of the month at a bar in Cambridge. And every month, I find a reason not to go.

When this month’s presentations were announced last week, I perked up. The first presentation was entitled, “Wake, REM, Light, Deep, and WTF: A Savage Journey to the Heart of Sleep and Dreams” and knowing my fascination with dreams, you can bet I was intrigued. The subject matter of the second talk was the kicker, though: “The Neurobiology of Zombies.” Now, I want to say for the record that of all the movie monsters, zombies scare the living bejeesus out of me. I was the kid that could not watch Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” without whimpering into a corner and I am the adult that watched all of AMC’s The Walking Dead in the middle of the afternoon. Let’s just say that I have a very active imagination and zombies are a perversion of the human form… it’s a little too close for comfort, much the same reason I will not eat lobster in the shell. But I’m off topic. What I was trying to get at is that I was curious to hear someone’s theory on zombie brains, because in my own rational manner, I would challenge that they don’t exactly have a nervous system.

My point is that I was interested in the talks, and slightly less interested in the proclamation of “nerd appropriate music,” so I put out feelers with people I know in the area as well as on Facebook… does anyone want to check out Nerdnite on Monday? And guess what? Apparently, I am the only nerd among my friends apart from Mr. Horror, who, to my chagrin, had to work tonight. And this is when Cat Muldoon takes the “I” in “INTP” to the next level. I am a nerd, a nerd who desperately wants a social life, but I am a shy nerd who is not familiar with Cambridge and I expect that if I were to go, I’d feel so uncomfortable that I would just leave anyway.

I think affectionately of my friend Lily, a loud, opinionated Southerner who came to New England because her ATF-agent husband was stationed in the area. One evening a few years ago, a group of us got together in Boston for an evening of drinks, theater, and dessert. Lily, who is on her second marriage, quipped that the reason the rest of us were unmarried was because we were afraid to talk to anyone. In all fairness, she was referring to asking directions to the theatre, but I sometimes wonder if she wasn’t right. And then I remember one of the worst, most embarrassing nights of my life.

Before entering any new social situation, I compulsively flash back to myself at 15 years old when I had been invited to Maybelline’s Sweet Sixteen party. Maybelline and I went to kindergarten together, but I had attended another school district since first grade. In the weeks leading up to the party, I was completely excited to go, even though I didn’t know anyone. I was excited up until I got to Maybelline’s house and realized that I really didn’t know anyone and I wasn’t familiar with the mores of the kids outside of my own school, and that no one was the least bit interested in talking to me. I don’t like feeling like an outcast and being eyed suspiciously by cliques, so I spent the entire night alone in the living room watching bad Friday night television and listening enviously to the party going on downstairs until my mother arrived to drive me home.

It is by reliving this painful memory that I invariably talk myself out of going to a club alone, or going to a party where I know only one or two people, or traveling to Cambridge to hear the zombie talk at Nerdnite. I usually don’t mind being alone, or even being alone in a public place, but the thought of being alone in a social place incapacitates me. I just feel better when I have a wing-man or a wing-woman. And this forces me to acknowledge that my dream of going to New York is just a dream. For all of the things that I envision experiencing there, I know I wouldn’t be able to comfortably take advantage of them… I don’t have the support network. I didn’t socialize in Portland, I don’t socialize in Boston, and I wouldn’t socialize in New York.

It occurred to me that I may suffer from Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD), so I did a bit of research. Without wanting to self-diagnose, it seems as though my fears escalate in interpersonal situations, such as starting a conversation, attending a party, going on a date, and (yes, Lily) asking directions. Interestingly, my reaction to performance situations, such as voicing an opinion or giving a public speech, is quite relaxed in comparison. I also took two versions of the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale Test to gauge my own anxiety level. My responses generated a score of 73 on the first test, which classified me as having “marked social phobia” and 62 on the second test, which was listed as “typical of persons entering treatment for the generalized type of SAD.” Really? My score was lower on the second test, but my diagnosis was more severe.

I am not convinced that I need formal treatment, especially not the kind of treatment that is pill-shaped, but I do think that if today were December 31, I might be tempted to make my first ever New Year’s Resolution. It’s clear, particularly after putting this all into writing and sobbing over the memory of Maybelline’s party, that I am compromising my quality of life and my enjoyment of a significant portion of the world because I am socially discomfited. And that needs to change. I don’t yet know what I need to do, I don’t know how long it will take, but I am making a public declaration that I am going to find a way to tackle this fear… if I am unable to eradicate it, then at least to lessen it. Because, maybe, that’s what this New York fantasy is all about, in its essence.

Prelude to a Kiss

If there’s one thing I miss about having a boyfriend, it’s the kissing.

It’s weird, isn’t it, that a self-diagnosed germophobe such as me should want to have someone else’s mouth against her own? Especially when it’s common knowledge that a human bite would be more hazardous than a dog’s because of the bacteria in our saliva? And remember that dogs eat shit and dead things that they find in the yard, so that’s not saying much for the human race.

Putting all ideas of coprophagia aside, the significance of a kiss is in the intimacy, a shared moment of pure abandonment. A kiss is its own particular brand of currency.

It seems as though I have always been in search of the perfect kiss. My first crush was on John Schneider, Bo Duke on The Dukes of Hazzard. I can remember lying in my bed at night at probably all of four years old trying to imagine what it would be like to kiss Bo Duke. But at that age, having never kissed anyone before, I found that in my fantasy, every time my lips would touch his, he would fold over backwards, just like a sheet of paper. That year in kindergarten I experienced my first kisses thanks to an unwilling boy named Darren Dillingham. All of my female classmates would gang up on Darren during recess and chase him down. When we caught him, we’d hold him against the school building and take turns kissing him while he yelled, “Nooooooo!” Considering Darren’s vocal contempt for our game, I'm surprised that the recess monitor never prevented us from doing that. Certainly, if we were kindergarteners acting that way today, Darren’s family would probably have a sexual harassment lawsuit slapped on the school as well as on all of our parents. 

Many of the girls in my class started “going out” with boys in fifth or sixth grade, around the same time that I was watching A Room with a View and thinking that Lucy and George’s kiss at the end of the movie was perfection. Partly because I was a late bloomer, partly because I was never really enthralled by the boys in my small town, my first kiss happened in the spring of my sophomore year in high school. Needless to say, that kiss was far from electric. It was exciting enough at the time, a feeling that I attribute to so many years of anticipation, but it was hardly the stuff that movies are made of. And how could it be when the soundtrack was Guns ‘n Roses and Tesla?

Happily, the kissing has gotten better, much better, since that first awkward embrace.

Over the years, I have studied screen kisses for inspiration. Many are mediocre at best, but a few stand out for me. The pause before Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway’s lips meet in The Thomas Crown Affair… That soft and tender greeting between Grace Kelley and Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window… The hunger between Keira Knightley and James McEvoy in Atonement’s library scene… That playful, explorative kiss that Audrey Tatou gives to Mathieu Kassovitz at the end of Amelie… The breathtaking longing that Ryan Gosling has for Rachel McAdams in the The Notebook’s rain scene… The way that Gerard Depardieu envelops Andie McDowell during the final scene of Green Card… The decisiveness of Michael Vartan’s kiss when he runs onto the field to embrace Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed… The reunion between Maria Bello and Hugh Dancy on a suburban street at sunrise in The Jane Austen Book Club.

I don’t particularly consider myself a romantic and I am known to scoff at over the top displays of affection, but show me a well-crafted kiss and I’ll always turn to mush. Better yet, send one of those well-crafted kisses my way and let me show you.

Blue Crush

I have alluded to being an INTP in the past. But I had a train of thought this evening that very clearly elucidates the random nature of my brain.

I started by thinking about an interaction I had with our very steamy FedEx guy, Wolverine, this morning. There is probably a blog all about Wolverine simmering inside of me, but for the time being, let me leave it by saying that no matter how garrulous I am feeling for the other 23 hours, 58 minutes, and 44 seconds of the day, when I am faced with Wolverine, I turn to absolute mush and I’m lucky if I can string the words “good morning” together.  I started wondering what it is about him that turns me so taciturn. Then it occurred to me that I know the word “taciturn” because I saw it on an episode of The Monkees when I was in sixth grade (I also learned “banal” and “insipid” that year because of the same show). And then I began to think about other old ‘60s television shows that I loved, which got me thinking about Bewitched and I can never think about Bewitched without experiencing a pang for Elizabeth Montgomery. Which leads me to the subject of this entry… girl crushes.

In general, I am able to fall into infatuation with just about any walking, talking, breathing man out there and sometimes with a historical figure or a character in a film or a book (Captain Frederick Wentworth, I am specifically referring to you). But a girl crush doesn’t have anything to do with lust or romance like a crush on a guy does. Instead, it is about recognizing characteristics in someone else that I wish I possessed and it is about raising that individual to the level of a role model.

As Samantha Stevens, Elizabeth Montgomery had it all. Not only was she beautiful in a very classic sense, she was enthusiastically clever. She had a loving (albeit quirky) extended family, the patience of a saint, and the matchless ability to seamlessly set wrongs right with a few twitches of her nose and a well-placed comment or two. She could pop over to Paris for lunch and still greet her husband at the door that evening with a cocktail in her hand. She was the girl next door with a history. And to my first grade self, she was absolutely the most gorgeous thing I had ever seen. In fact, she probably still is.

Now, how do you think I felt when I read JazzWax on Sunday and discovered this little picture under the Oddball Album Cover of the Week? You got it, like I was five years old again.

I’ve had many other girl crushes. From 2000-2005, I kept pictures of both Ashley Banfield and Tina Fey on the inside of my medicine cabinet so I could gaze upon those brilliant, boundary-pushing girls in glasses and hope that I’d grow some balls like them. My recent crushes are Zooey Deschanel and Emma Stone, who both possess a quirky lightheartedness, an indelible youthfulness, and a sweetness that camouflages something unexpected. It seems as though when I admire a woman, it is because of the qualities for which she’s known, qualities that I feel I need to develop at the time.

But in the end, the origin of all girl crushes is Samantha Stevens: gracious, poised, and genuinely able to do anything she sets her mind to… all the things a first grader hopes to some day emulate.

Wedding Bell Blues

Where I’m from, we have Mud Season, Black Fly Season, Tourist Season and Winter. A fifth, unofficial season, Wedding Season, usually bridges Black Fly Season and Tourist Season. I can confidently report that Wedding Season is in full swing. Living in Massachusetts, I keep tabs on most of my friends through Facebook and for the last two years, I have gradually watched as an old acquaintance, Dave, planned his wedding.

The thing that amazes me is that the last time I saw Dave in person was about five years ago at a reunion. At that time, I was still working in the hotel and had decided to pursue my Master’s degree – and Dave was married to his college sweetheart. In the same amount of time it took me to apply to graduate schools, complete my program of study, gain my Master’s degree, and move to Massachusetts, Dave ditched his first wife, met someone new, realized he wanted to try married life again with her, and is now heading into the home stretch before his wedding day.

I don’t want to be cliché and reference the march of time, but I don’t think I really internalize how quickly time passes until a comparison like this smacks me in the face. It makes me wonder what I’ve been doing with my life. I used the same number of years as Dave’s change of romantic partners to focus on my education and to expand my knowledge, my skills, and my experience. But I wonder if I haven’t been too selfish? Why does it feel like I have to choose between having a relationship and having a career when it seems like other people very happily and competently manage the two.

In the interest of full disclosure, I was never the type of girl who dreamed about her wedding day. Even as a kid, I was focused on tasks. My favorite toy was my Fisher Price cash register. I never played house; in fact, my best friend Maybelline and I would pretend we were city planners, or fashion designers, or we’d make and sell handmade greeting card for ten cents. Later, my focus was keeping my grades up so I could go to college and get away from the small minds in my hometown. As far as romance was concerned, I had one boyfriend for a total of six weeks before I went to college. I always thought the story about my Grandmother going home after a blind date with my Grandfather and reporting that “she had met the man she was going to marry” was sappy, and I outwardly scoffed at my friends who sighed over “Brides” magazine and planned their dream weddings. To this day, all I have for wedding daydreams is a vague notion that I would want the ceremony to be held at Castle in the Clouds in Moultonborough, NH and a list of songs that I would eviscerate the DJ for playing. I suppose I’ve always held the belief that I would get married “someday,” but now I’m starting to wonder. By now even Maybelline, my childhood co-entrepreneur, has snagged a husband. And what rubs it in about her marriage is that she met her husband at college, the same college I attended, the same college that touts that 13% of graduates meet their future spouses there.

Would I sound completely pathetic if I wondered aloud (in writing) whether there is something wrong with me? Am I not open enough to love? Am I too scared? Am I too intimidating? Too unapproachable? Too experienced? Too much of a ball-buster? Not sexy enough? Not flirtatious enough? Not demure enough? Not in the right place at the right time? Have I replaced that instinct to have a partner and a family with a work ethic?

In my own defense, I think I am a pretty interesting and unique person. A few weeks ago, late on a Sunday afternoon, I had a strange feeling like the combination of anxiety and indolence and incarceration… and after analyzing it for a bit, I realized that foreign feeling was boredom. It struck me so strongly because I truly cannot remember the last time I felt bored. I am not often idle. I may fill my time by writing poetry, or making collages, or baking, or exploring a new place I’ve never been, or sewing, or photography, or going to a museum, or reading, or browsing for antiques, or making obscure Monty Python references, or prowling around in a cemetery. I generally get to the end of the day and realize that I wish I had ten more hours in the day to try all of the things I wanted to do. I can entertain myself just by thinking. I try to take every opportunity I can to learn something new. And I try to surround myself with people who have a wide range of pursuits and experiences to stimulate my mind. I’ve said it before and I will probably say it a hundred times more: as long as you know me, you will never have occasion to say that I dumbed you down.

Yet, with all of my talents, and my education, and my inhumanly wide range of interests, not to mention my ability to drink beer all day long without getting drunk, I remain alone. I’m not unhappy about it, but definitely feeling a little insecure.

On the up side, I got a fortune on the underside of a Magic Hat bottle cap the other night (yes, while drinking to not get drunk) that heartens me a bit. The best advice I could receive right now, so good that this bottle cap has a permanent residence in my spice rack where I will see it every day?

When One Door Closes, I Hope Another Opens

It’s very difficult to be good at so many things. Especially when you are good at things that you don’t even like to do. And if you are also not at all adverse to change and relatively flexible when change comes along, this can be a fine recipe for disaster.

Case in point, the news that I got at the end of the day… But let me backtrack so you know where I am coming from.

For more years than I would like to acknowledge, I worked in hotel sales and management. I was successful enough because I believe in doing the right thing by my customers and taking time to build relationships with people. But as far as my role as a salesperson, I would probably be about average and I often felt as though luck played a larger part in my accomplishments than my actual skill. However, I will admit to working hard, logging long hours, and mentally taking my work home with me to try to conceive every possible advantage. When I finally realized that I was stagnating and decided to pursue my Master’s degree, I stepped out of the 60 hour work week routine of the hotel and into the slightly more manageable 40 hour work week of property management – yet again in a sales capacity.

Please realize that I am an introvert to the nth degree. I am not at all excited to pick up a ringing phone; in fact, phones have always caused me undue stress, even when I know it is a friend calling. I’m good with words, but better with them when they are written instead of spoken. I like to internalize questions or problems, think about them from different angles, and then come up with a solution; I am not very good at off-the-cuff discourse. Ah, discourse. That’s a problem all of its own. I am pretty terse. I don’t do small talk. And have I mentioned that I’m a germophobe? I definitely do not want to be shaking anyone else’s hand. Ever.

Doesn’t really sound like a winning amalgamation for a salesperson, does it? Not at all, but I used to be a theater geek, so I usually just pretend that I’m on stage. And you know what? I get compliments all the time on how cheerful I sound on the phone, even when I want to hang up on the caller because I’ve just said the exact same thing for the 26^th time today. And somehow I usually fudge through the small talk and the question-and-answer period by having a mental script (yes, the repetition of the stage really does come in handy to make the presentation sound unrehearsed). But although I have a fair closing ratio and I’m now in my 13^th year of selling, doing sales still feels unnatural, it feels forced, and it in no way makes me feel happy.

So imagine my absolute delight when I was asked to step into a new position a year ago when a co-worker went on maternity leave, this time focusing on numbers and statistics and calculations. Yes! Something structured, something that makes order out of chaos, something completely controllable! While many would see this as a lateral move at best and a step down at worst, I viewed it as a step up because I could finally feel content in my job. I wasn’t on edge all the time. I didn’t physically fear going to work. And when the manager asked me to stay in the position because she thought I did the calculations better, I was flattered.

But now imagine my absolute despair when I was asked to return to the sales position in a short two weeks because the manager thinks I do it better than the person who is doing it now. Truthfully, the entire first half of the day went dark; anything positive that I had accomplished was wiped out. My stomach immediately felt like it was full of knots. I declined going out for drinks with some coworkers because I didn’t feel like pretending to be cheerful. And for the last hour, I’ve been cruising the internet contemplating new jobs in New York where maybe I would be able to use that Master’s degree I left the hotel business to gain, and wondering if I would be able to afford to live there. For me, thinking about July 5 is like knowing the day you’re going to die.

The news of my return to a job that I loathe is all very new and I’m not yet sure how I’m going to turn this sinking sensation around. I keep thinking about Temple Grandin and how she would say, “it’s just one more door to walk through.” Maybe my desire to avoid regressing into something I hate will be my door to a whole new world of possibilities.  

Makin' Bakin'

Despite what I revealed yesterday about being lazy in the kitchen, I maintain that it really only applies to my motivation toward pleasing myself. I would bend over backward to astound and amaze someone else with my culinary acumen.

On that note, I confess my secret dream to be a baker.*

Bread, cakes, cookies, I would be happy to do it all if it meant I could be creating something. And the working conditions!

• For years I have touted that I am much more productive in the morning. It doesn’t matter what time I get started, I always hit a slump around 2 pm. As a baker, I could start in the wee-est hours of the morning and wrap up by noon… long before the 2 pm coma overtakes me.
• Although I am quite good at whatever I put my mind to, I prefer working independently without much contact with customers. Because as a baker I would be at work long before the rest of the waking world rises, I could have several hours of productiveness, uninterrupted by the public. If I were lucky, I could avoid the public altogether.
• Let’s not forget the best part – the baking! I truly believe that there’s something magical about baking, not the least of which is putting a piece of yourself into what you create. I am always amazed that the reality television chefs are so angry – don’t their guests taste the anger in their food? When you hear someone say “the secret ingredient is love,” you should believe it.

I am addicted to books, fiction or non-, that use baking as a metaphor for life: By Bread Alone by Sarah-Kate Lynch, Recipes for a Perfect Marriage by Morag Prunty, Cherries in Winter by Suzan Colon, and of course, Confections of a Closet Master Baker by Gesine Bullock-Prado. It doesn’t matter how trite or predictable or cheesy the storyline may be, I find those books to be full of truth. But maybe that’s because my personal experience with food, both as a cook and as an consumer, has proven that it nourishes body and soul.

I recognize that the reality of being a baker would probably be less romantic than I imagine. Still, it is an alluring notion that I suspect I could be cut out for if I just gave myself permission. Were it not for the fact that I presume there’s not a lot of money in the bakery business (and I can’t say for sure because although I’ve tried to do some research on open bakery positions in Massachusetts, it seems that companies no longer post salary ranges), I’d give it a go. For the time being, I’m resigned to being satisfied by planning the cupcakes for my friends’ birthday parties.

Chocolate-filled Strawberry Cupcakes with Chocolate Butter Cream
for Tzi Tzi's 30th Birthday

*A few other dream occupations include master brewer, archivist, musician, forensic scientist and cemetery caretaker. Jobs from Hell would include any job in which I would have to work in a mill, clean, plan and execute events, or manage people.

Kitchen Confidential

When I booted up the computer tonight, I was expecting to write a very different entry, one that delineated how, although I often feel like a teenager, when put in contact with the youth of today, it is abundantly clear that I am not, and maybe never was. But when I booted up my computer tonight, I had not yet made a horrible discovery.

A week ago, I bought a bag of mini red potatoes on a whim. I don’t especially like potatoes, but now and then, I feel as though I should explore the dark side. I mean, a gal can’t live on rice alone and, really, I appreciate a good no-bones potato salad with just oil, vinegar, salt and pepper.

It occurred to me this afternoon that tonight would be a good night to eat those potatoes. Except that when I picked up the bag, I realized that something was rotting. And not just beginning to rot, but in full out decomp. The bag was sitting in a sticky pool of black goo which, conveniently, also spread underneath the adjacent bag of onions. So all of it went into the trash while I wondered if that was the origin of the vaguely fishy odor I have been noticing for the last couple of days.

The regrettable thing is that I am now the first ring of Single Person Hell, which is lovingly known as “What’s for Dinner?” I always imagine Janet from the movie Singles asking, “What can I eat?” as she stares into her pathetically empty refrigerator. My refrigerator isn’t empty, but butter, Miracle Whip, and pickles don’t make a very satisfying meal.

Let’s face it; there are a lot of pitfalls to cooking for oneself.

1)      The time involved. Now, I’m not saying I’m not worth it, but unlike everyone else in the free world, I work until 6 pm. And by the time 6 pm rolls around, I am already starving. Priority #1 is putting something onto the table immediately.

2)      The leftovers. I am not adverse to leftovers. Were it not for leftovers, I would not have eaten much of the time when I was a kid. But when you live alone, you are potentially eating the same thing for 4, 5, 6 meals sometimes. And I like variety. In fact, I have only a few go-to meals that I make more than twice a year.

3)      Convenience foods are there for convenience, not for health. Have you ever noticed how full of sodium and additives pre-packaged foods are? I am known to “doctor up” a frozen pizza once in a while, but as a rule I do not invest in “crap in a can.” Homemade is just better all around.

4)      Very few things you can buy in the store are portioned for the single person. And when they are, they’re more expensive. Bonus!

5)      And what if you have a humid, poorly ventilated kitchen like mine, where nothing fresh seems to last beyond a few days before growing hair and legs? I hate to waste food, but I have a hard enough time psyching myself up to go to the grocery store once a week, much less to make daily trips so I can avoid pantry penicillin.

The thing that causes me so much embarrassment about the “What’s for Dinner?” question is that I really enjoy cooking – AND EVERYONE KNOWS IT. Book club is due to be at my house this month? No reheated appetizers for my guests! They get savory tomato and basil cupcakes and a giant bowl of Mediterranean Orzo Salad! A coworker is having a birthday? Great, I’ll bake the cake and stay up until midnight decorating it! A friend has a question about what some obscure ingredient is? No problem, ask me, I’ve probably used it! What’s in that bowl next to the kitchen sink? Why, that’s a batch of beans that I’m sprouting! And who’s got the Facebook photo album called “Food Porn” that has nearly as many photos as all of the other photo albums combined? That’s right, this chick!

So why is it that my evening meal so regularly becomes no more exciting than a tuna sandwich and no more exotic than tortilla chips and salsa? *sigh* As much as I want to tout what I wrote in #1 above, that my single self is worth cooking for, I realize that I am much more inclined to cook or bake for someone else. And honestly, I rack that up to pure, unadulterated laziness.

I can’t lie. I can’t evade it or make up excuses. Despite feeling really good when I have leftovers to bring for lunch the next day, after 10 hours of soul sucking drudgery at the office, I do not want to put in any extra effort. I do not want to have to think one more second about anything. I’d rather escape into the pages of a good book or explore my eccentricities via blogging. And I definitely do not want to engender anything that needs cleaning up. That isn’t just about dishes, but about spills on the cooktop or having to pull everything off the bottom shelf to get to the elusive wasabi powder that’s crammed in the back. I like it when my countertops are uncluttered and my sink is empty, and occasionally I even like the way salsa con queso tastes at 10 pm.

So there you have it. But just so you don’t think I’m a complete loser in the kitchen, I am putting in some photos of good eats I have created in the past.



Roast pork, green beans and quinoa pilaf









Avgolemono Soup



A hearty Sunday breakfast:

omelette, homefries and toast



Baked apples and pears



Wasabi-White Chocolate Cupcakes