She's Writing a Novel

Saturday night the Russian lover and I went out for drinks and dinner and meandering through the city. To celebrate what would probably be the last warm night of the year, I put on a new dress. The dress was sold as a shirt, which is to say it was not much of a dress. (My definition of a dress is anything which clears the bottom of my ass. The Russian lover's definition of a dress is anything which might potentially clear the bottom of my ass.) The Russian lover wore a suit, because he always wears a suit.

Walking arm in arm down Walnut St. where people were heading to and from dinner, we were lost in conversation when a short middle-aged white guy came running across the street and leaped in front of us. Fortunately, he looked like a stereotypical former hipipe/suburban baby boomer and not a cracked out mugger, so the Russian lover's reflexes did not kick in; otherwise, with the way he startled us, he might have found his head kicked in.

The man apologized profusely for interrupting us, and then declared that he felt compelled to inform us that we were an absolutely stunning couple, just absolutely gorgeous, so stylish, and did we know this?

Um. Yes? No? ThankyouverymuchWhatdoyouwantyoucreepyman?

When confronted by awkward compliments or grand gestures, my face freezes into a benevolent and slightly condescending smile. It's a defense mechanism, I think -- an attempt to mask the fact that I'm not sure whether to be delighted and amused or whether to run away. The Russian lover, on the other hand, just squints and slowly, deliberately brings a cigar to his mouth, as if waiting for the other party to wither under his cold scrutiny.

The guy rambled on a little longer, asking where we were from. Because people in Philadelphia just don't look like us, he explained. Don't we know it.

In Philadelphia, dressing up to go out makes you feel like the kid in an 8am college lecture who bothered to put on clothes while everyone else showed up in their pajamas. I never thought I could go outside nearly naked and feel overdressed, but this city has made it possible. And you know it's that bad when total strangers chase you down to tell you so.

I read my old blog sometimes, like going back to read an old diary. I am always surprised by the amount of whining. I remember that I was often depressed, frustrated, and exhausted in my early twenties. I put all my energy into achieving perfect grades in college to avoid the facts that I had a dysfunctional love life, a difficult family life, and an awkward social life. A near-perfect GPA was an accomplishment that I wrapped my arms around and clung to, even as so much else in my life was making me miserable.

There was a transition sometime in my mid-twenties, and while there were too many changes to count during that time I think the biggest was a change in perspective. And the most significant difference there is that I stopped allowing myself to whine about events or circumstances in my life. Those circumstances became better in some ways, harder in others; but I promised myself that my response would always be, if not one of gratitude or resolve, then at least one of perseverance. I told myself that there were basically two acceptable options when it came to facing something unpleasant: change the unpleasantness, or shut my mouth and deal with it.

Actually, it was probably the Russian lover that told me that and I just decided to listen.

Whoever's idea it was, it has ultimately led to greater happiness and contentment. I know that it is up to me to change things for the better, and that until I am ready to make changes I have no excuse to sit around and whine, and will gain nothing from doing so anyway.

Which is not to say I've given up criticism or bitchy and judgemental observations about the world. I am a cynic by nature. It's a shit world as often as not, but that doesn't mean I have a shit life. I think that's what genuine happiness is; the ability to carve out a beautiful life from the stinking pile of awful that so often threatens to smother us.

I used to think the Russian lover was a hedonist. Now I know that the Russian lover is a hedonist. And I know that i am too, and I know that it is a wonderful thing to be. During the recovery from my accident, I stopped entertaining "deep" thoughts. I didn't need then to ponder the mystery of living, because holy shit I was just so happy to be alive.

I had a close friend drift away during that time, and she later told me it was because I had lost interest in subjects like theology, philosophy and the like. I didn't want to spend hours discussing meaning. I wanted to pour myself a glass of vodka, put on a ditsy movie, then later dance in my underwear and laugh at dirty jokes. In short, I had become a shallow person.

I had no response for her; I couldn't explain it. I'd always lived my life as a deep person, and I knew that just meant you were in greater danger of drowning in the brackish waters of your own pretentions. I'd stepped to the line of my own mortality, and I was lucky enough to step back. And I did learn the meaning of life. I learned that the meaning of life is to live. And to live for today. Because yesterday and tomorrow are just abstractions, and now is your only chance to eat, drink and be merry. But I am happy to let others have their thoughts in the clouds; when they are done with that, I will pour them a glass of wine and invite them to finally feel the grass under their feet.

I've never been to a real dinner party; but then, I'm just now at the age where dinner parties become part of the social repetoire. Americans don't do dinner parties, really; they do the idea of dinner parties. At least, this is what I've heard from people who've attended such things.

Apparently, the Young Adult Dinner Party is the social equivalent of the Bad High School Play, brimming with forced and stilted performances. Everyone is fixated on how they are supposed to act, and what they are supposed to say. Everyone pretends to know something about wine and cheese, and while no one actually knows anything about politics or current events or history, this is discussed enthusiastically; everyone has an articulate ignorant respose to someone else's articulate ignorant statement. Playful banter is discouraged; sexual suggestion is forbidden. Even if you are the designated Foreigner Invited for Purposes of Displaying the Worldly Sophistication of the Hosts, you can only get away with so much bawdy behavior before people start squirming in their seats.

I'm not entirely sure why young adults hold these excrutiating soirees. In part, I suppose, it's to show off their aquiring adult wealth; a new house or condo, pricey wedding china, expensive minimalist furniture. Young adults need to tour each other's homes to get a feel for what keeping up with Jones's is going to entail. They especially want to observe their couple friends in domestic action, so they can either go home to feel smug about their superior relationship, or so that their frustrations are vinidcated and she can go home to belittle his laziness and insensitivity and he can complain about her cooking and her low libido.

And I think that part of the reason these events are so awkward is the curve of the transition. The same people that spent their early twenties drunk on beer and shots, groping strangers, and up until all hours in dirty bars and frat houses are suddenly trying to spend a quiet evening sipping wine with new spouses while holding intellectual discussions. I think the infuriating tension you feel at a young American dinner party is the collective desire of all those in the room to strip down to their underwear, fling the plates off the table, and set up a game of beer pong.

One of the lovliest things in the world is to be held in someone's arms as you both fall asleep, to hear yourself rambling on about everthing and nothing as your tired mind races toward stillness, and to hear their slight murmurring indication that they are listening, just barely, but to every word nonetheless.

One night last week after work I caught myself standing in line at the corner supermarket holding a bag of cat food and a pint of ice cream. I was only ten pounds and a faded banana republic suit away from looking like the total cliche of a sad twenty-something professional urban female. For a terrifying moment I envisioned myself in that life; going home to the cat, sitting down with a spoon in front of the TV, wearing pajamas and a college sweatshirt. And then I remembered, hey, that WAS my life. I was the girl who came home to talk to her cat and eat cold cereal and ice cream for dinner. I was the girl whose big weekend plans consisted of taking a shower. I was the girl who hadn't been on a date in three months, who was getting so bored she was in danger of sleeping with the first thing that took her out to a BYO. And then did. And has to live with the memory of putting her arms around a man's shoulders to discover back stubble. Back hair? Bad enough. Evidence that a guy shaves his back? Shudder.

Those were dark times. I think the only thing that kept me going was my naive optimism. Had I not met the Russian lover when I did, I don't know how much longer I could have lived as a broke recluse, letting the wrong men into my life just long enough to disappoint me or bore me to death. I found the Russian lover's ad the second day I started perusing online ads at lunch looking for men to buy me dinner and keep me company for a couple of hours, and heaven only knows what horrors I could have stumbled into if I'd answered any ad but his.

It's strange, but when I opened his ad, I knew. As I read the words he'd written, it was as if something heavy fell down and lodged itself in my gut, and something else took flight out of my heart. I felt a little dizzy. I knew that this moment had changed the course of my entire life, because I knew I was going to answer his ad. I immediately closed the browser window, turned off the computer, and left the office as quickly as I could.

A week later I went back to the site. The ad was still there. There were also a bunch of new posts on the same site, by women taking issue with something or other he'd written; apparently they weren't content just to ignore whatever had offended them. Mostly they seemed offended that he wasn't interested in women like them. I decided I liked him even more for being the cause of so many ruffled feathers. I sent him a carefully worded email.

And when another week passed and I hadn't heard from him, I was surprised that I was so disappointed. After all, it was just a whim. My email had probably been lost in a mountain of spam, anyway, so it wasn't necessarily a rejection. Still, I had thought it inevitable that I would at least hear something back from him.

Then, a week later, after I'd taken up dabbling mindlessly with back-stubble guy, I spotted the email in my inbox. The one I had been waiting for, the one that would start it all, whatever that was. My heart pounded, wondering if his reply would simply be "thanks but no thanks" and more scared to think what if it wasn't.

It wasn't.

Sunday night I was out with the Russian lover and a friend of ours. Said friend is uninhibited; or at least, she becomes uninhibited when were are out together. And the Russian lover and I are never inhibited, so the three of us together can become quite the bawdy ruckus.

We went for dinner at a famous sushi place in New Jersey, and the hostess seated us in a tucked-away corner booth. We opened a bottle of wine, and soon we were swapping sordid stories. The Russian lover was just about to explain something useful about men and their responses to the proposition of a blow job when a woman in the booth next to ours turned around and snipped "Excuse me, you are being very inappropriate. You are out in public, you need to stop talking about things like that."

We'd been so caught up in detailing exploits, we had not even noticed a table being seated next to ours. The snippy interruption came as a suprise, so instead of returning something witty, I only managed a raised eyebrow in amusement while the Russian lover countered with "Oh really? Is that so?" At which point the man sitting next to the snippy woman turned around and stared intently at the Russian lover while removing his glasses the way a father does when he wants you to know that he is Very Serious About Disapproving of Your Behavior. "And? What do you want to do it about?" the Russian lover asked. The man turned back around.

Nothing irritates me more than prudish Americans getting snippy with sexually well-adjusted adults, as if they are entitled to neuter the public sphere. I know that these people probably don't have sex, or have religion and therefore have weird guilt about sex, and so they don't have patience with anyone who not only has sex but is also able to openly express their enjoyment thereof. The group of adults in the booth next to us looked like the kind of people who take sex Very Seriously. Hearing people laugh and joke about all manner of sexual behavior offended their sensibilities; apparently, sex is supposed to be a humorless Friday night fifteen-minute missionary-position appointment, not a rich dimension of one's life and self.

They don't like overhearing attractive young people talking about sex while they're eating in a restaurant? Well, I don't like having to look at ugly fat miserable people while I'm eating in a restaraunt. But that's life, and that's the risk you take when you decide to leave your house. I'm so polite as not to interrupt your table and announce that your appearance disgusts me; maybe next time you could return me the courtesy and keep your disgust with my conversation to yourself.

Since the economy is going down the toilet anyway, the government decided to go ahead and take a huge dump on it.

Thanks guys!

Watching the US government in action makes me wonder sometimes just how far we've managed to evolve from our feces-flinging ancestors.

We haven't yet learned that everybody should be responsible for wiping their own ass; most of the population is content to sit on theirs and wait for Uncle Sam to show up with the Charmin Ultra.

Unfortunately, Uncle Sam always leaves a mess. That's OK, though. That just means we'll have more shit left to throw at each other.

There are times when no one can make you feel better except yourself; when there is no consolation or comfort that anyone could provide that would be enough. Sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands and masturbate your own soul.

I've found various ways of doing this; some of them might be considered destructive. What, you've never felt the need for a vodka shot at 8:30am? That just means you don't know how whacked out and stressful life can be because I assure you, sometimes a vodka shot at 8:30am is the fastest life raft back to sanity. Also, a cigarette or ten can help.

But when I've reached the real depths of panic or despair, when I am existentially overwhelmed and don't even know how to express that to another person, that's when I go shopping for lingerie. As a very late bloomer when it came to sex, I was in my twenties before I owned anything of satin or lace that was meant to be seen. I thought lingerie was something you bought just to wear for men, to make them lusty or at least easy to manipulate. It never occurred to me that buying sexy things for myself, whether or not anyone else would appreciate it, was something that could make me feel infinately better as a result.

The first time I realized this was after an accident my senior year of college. Once the pain subsided slightly and I started to feel remotely human again, my vanity kicked in. I had an eight inch scar stretching from my collar bone to well past my shoulder; they'd finally taken out the twenty or so staples, but an ugly fused gash remained. I tried not to think about it; and really it wasn't something I thought about often, as I was more preoccupied with physical therapy and classes. But one day I decided that after surviving a month of barely be able to wash or dress myself, my milestones in recovery deserved a present to myself, so I went to Victoria's Secret.

New to the world of all things lingerie, I looked for training wheels. No garters or teddys or corsets for me...with my good arm, I browsed a rack of slips. I found exactly what I wanted; short black satin with just a little bit of lace. There was only a size XS, and I thought it probably wouldn't fit, not remembering I'd barely eaten in the weeks since the accident.

In the dressing room, after the long and painful process of undressing, I pulled the slip over my head gingerly. I looked at myself in the mirror, and for a split second I was shocked by the sight of myself in a good way. But I hadn't even exulted over fitting into something size XS before the sight of the angry red deformation on my arm distracted me. And then I broke down sobbing.

For a few minutes, I held a pity party on the dressing room floor. It was one of the first times I'd allowed myself to cry since the accident. I'd had to be strong, I'd had to fight, and I'd had to make sure the people around me felt that I was OK. But there, half-naked under the bright lights, I faced all the ugliness of the past month in the ugliness of the scar it had left behind, and it was overwhelming.

I bought the slip. I brought it home, and instead of lounging around the apartment in dirty t-shirts and sweatpants I lounged in satin and lace. I could never be a sexy woman without a scar, but just because I was a woman with a scar didn't mean I couldn't be sexy. And not having anyone to be sexy for didn't matter quite so much, although I still longed for it.

Lingerie, it is good for my soul. Buying and wearing it makes me feel sexy and beatiful and a little bit spoiled, which in turn makes me feel confident and powerful. And all of that without a male voyeur. I'm not gonna lie, though. A few weeks ago, in the midst of some angst, I bought a lace bra and miniskirt with garters - I felt better after putting it on and prancing around the apartment. But having the Russian lover's appreciation for said lingerie, even if that appreciation was expressed by immediately removing said lingerie, reminded me that lingerie...is good for much more than my soul.

And I don't care that all he wants to do is strip me the second he sees me in something diminuitive I paid a lot of money for. As long as the lingerie isn't the only thing getting off, I don't mind in the least.

I looked at the calendar today, and realized tommorow is September 11. I hope the media goes easy on us.

I don't have any poignant 9-11 memories. I remember where I was when it happened, blah blah blah. I didn't lose anyone, and I don't know anyone who did. I was shaken up for a day or so, and then I moved on with my life.

I was a bitch who joined up with a peace march the evening of the attacks, and for the life of me couldn't figure out why people shook their fists at us in range. Now I look back at that girl who thought the worst thing we could do was go to war as a country, and realize how much she didn't understand everything that happened that day was war already. Smothered in the anti-capitalist, anti-America environment that is a liberal arts college campus, I blamed us. I was wrapped in self-righteous, self-loathing ideology; so much so that I didn't see the horror and therefore couldn't hate it.

Some years later, I went through a fascination phase with 9-11. I read everything I could find on the topic and let it consume my imagination. Eyewitness accounts, survivor accounts, technical reports. I avoided the conspiracy theory shit; I wanted the real human stories. I wanted to know what had happened; I wanted to know what reality I'd been hiding from when I had my head stuck in the sands of the ultra-left. All the facets of that day's terror tumbled in my head as I tried to make sense of it; I felt somehow that if I read every story, every account, that it would be enough that I would finally understand. If I could fully grasp the whole of it, maybe I could somehow file it away again, except this time put it where it really belonged. Then I could forgive myself for that day when I made smug liberal remarks while people were dying the worst kinds of deaths.

I found out recently that the Russian lover had been conducting business in the Twin Towers late at night, just hours before the attacks. He left in the very early morning when it became apparent a deal wasn't going to be made that day; he left a floor which would have no surivors. I shuddered when he told me this, and he shrugged. Horrible things happen in the world, and mostly we are lucky to have them not happen to us. This was just another time when he was lucky. He was already in another city by the time the plane hit, and so he didn't consider it a close brush at all. It was just one of those things.

Still, I couldn't help but think what would have happened if the negotiations had stretched a few hours longer. And he dismisses my speculation and tells me he would have made it. And he's so fucking smart that I believe him, even as I think about all the widows and girlfriends waiting at home who probably thought the same thing. 9-11 happened before the Russian lover and I met; and I think that as horrific as it would be to lose the amazing man I love, I am more sad at the thought of never having known him at all.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

And don't worry about turning off the lights; we'll be drilling enough oil in Alaska to keep them on.