As If

On my way home, I was stopped by my friend Charlies who is a former UN economist. He hadn't seen me in a few days and wanted to know how things were. While we were chatting a guy in his late twenties came out. He was wearing a madras shirt, long nike short with paint on the bottom and flip flops. He was more than a little heavy-set. He interrupted me in mid sentence to apparently continue a conversation with Charles.

I waited patiently.

This guy launched into a long story about how despite having backers, opportunity, connections, his attempt at entrepreneurship failed. The entire time he talked, he was scratching his ass. At the end of his story a leggy blonde, a friend of Charles, walked by and waved.

"Great body," he remarked.

Now not only had he failed to acknowledge me when he interrupted or my patient wait for him to leave, now he was judging women based on appearanc?! It was too much. I said, "You are just revolting. You have not earned the right to level such superficial judgement on anyone. And Charles, I would make him wash that hand before you shake it."

From Here to Eternity

The high school prom was not what I expected. It was a boring event, perhaps because my date, my first boyfriend and love, being predictably antisocial had agreed to go, but not actually do anything like dance or even talk while he was there making him all but useless. While others danced, I sat in my prom dress and heels and watched. My best friend had come stag, a move that I considered incredibly brave on her part. She’s married now, has been for a while; I can’t give myself away with a free cellphone. Her father owned a beach house. Since he was an architect, it was a beautiful house full of bedrooms and large windows overlooking the beach. After the prom, the three of us drove up there. We changed into pajamas and hung out on the overstuffed couches in the living room listening to the surf. Some genius had scheduled the prom for a school day so we were exhausted and fell asleep-chris and I on one couch, Jess on the other. In the morning, I woke up before any of them. The couches faced the huge windows opening onto the beach. The fog had rolled in, and I couldn’t see where the ocean stopped, and the sky began. Chris was curled up behind me, his breathe against the back of my neck-this arm thrown over my waist. Instead of being terrified by that image of overwhelming vastness, I lay warm and safe contemplating eternity. Because in that moment of infinity possibility, I knew that everything would be alright.

The End

I'll say a proper thank you to all who helped me survive blogathon 2006 later tonight. For now I seriously need to crash. Thank you so much to the monitors, sponsors, and commenters who helped me make it through the long dark teatime of the soul that was Blogathon 2006.

And of course thanks to all those boys! Could have done it without you.

You Can Keep a Good Girl Down: Part II Quid Pro Quo

He led me to the bedroom. Offered me a t-shirt. I lay down on the bed. After brushing his teeth, he lay down next to me. Neither of us moved. I thought he was just going to go to sleep when he took my hand and put it on his crotch. He began to move it. I thought it was foreplay, until, well, you know. There is, I believe, an unsaid contract that sexual contact is a quid pro quo kind of deal. For example, if I give a blow job, I expect to be paid in kind at some point. Not that I don’t enjoy giving blow jobs. It’s just unfair if I serve your needs and get no reciprocation. None. The next morning, he got up and dressed. I showered. He offered me a banana for breakfast while I stared out the window. “There’s something I want to tell you.” Oh lord, I thought, he has a girlfriend. That’s what it always is. “I think you need to see a doctor.” “What?” “Well, I’ve been thinking about it and with all the advances that medical science has made there is no reason why you couldn’t be better.” Now, the night before I had been restrained because I thought if I played dumb I might get some. But now I had played dumb, been used, not gotten ANY satisfaction, and been insulted on top of it. “What was the name of the cancer I had?” “What?” “What was the name of the cancer I had?” “A lymphoma?” “You know, I’ve been living with this disability for the last twenty years. You heard about this disease twelve hours ago and you can’t even remember the name of it, but you presume to tell me how to deal with it. And don’t bother to call me because if you think I want to see you again, YOU need the doctor.” I marched out of the room. Later when I told my friend Vinnie Whispers about the “date”, he said, “Damn you’re like Jack Palance in Shane. ‘Pick up the gun.’” “I don’t want to shoot him. He would be a waste of fucking bullets. I want to pistol-whip him. I want him to go to work tomorrow with a huge fucking black eye and have to explain that he got pistol-whipped by a four foot six disabled Jewish girl.” “You will tell me if I ever piss you off, won’t you?” he asked. “You’ll know when you find yourself blindfolded in an unmarked van.”

You Can Keep A Good Girl Down Part I

All I wanted was the sex. That’s it. That was all. All my life from every source from my grandmother to NPR I’ve heard that all men want is sex. So when I agreed to go to his apartment to watch movies, I thought it was pretty much a done deal. True, I was only twenty-one and very inexperienced at the time. I hadn’t had sex since the one time when I was in high school, and I didn’t want to go through my entire college career without any sex at all. On the bus to his apartment, I kept wondering why I was doing this. It was wrong, just to go over to have sex with someone, someone that essentially I knew almost nothing about. On the other hand, it was the best offer I’d had in a long time. I had met him in a bar a few days before. Because I was with my gay friend Four Eyes, I didn’t have more than twenty minutes or so to chat with him, but when Four Eyes began yanking me towards the door of the Tenth Street Lounge, he insisted on getting my phone number. He was an older guy, not too old, not Humbert Humbert old, but older than a college student should have considered, but he looked like a younger handsomer version of Willem Dafoe so I gave him the right number. He called a few nights later and asked what I was up to, when I said I had no plans he asked if I might want to come over to watch movies. He had vodka and cranberry and could make us cocktails. It would be a relaxing evening. Of course an older, and the assumption is more experienced, man is supposed to take control of the situation and so my mind was filled with fantasies of him seducing an innocent and inexperienced girl and teaching me what my gay male friends never could. I hadn’t had anything even vaguely resembling a date since I had come to NYU mainly because I was constantly surrounded by beautiful gay men. When I got to his house he made cocktails while I perused his movie selection. I picked Tootsie, a film I was very familiar with so if we never got to see the end I wouldn’t be disappointed. I sat on one side of the couch, he sat on the other. I waited for him to make his move, but he watched the film, riveted, apparently, by the performances. After the movie, he made another drink and asked me a few questions. Somehow the topic of my medical history, specifically that I had had cancer, came up. “What was it called?” He asked me. “A neuroblastoma.” I tried to explain to him what it was. How the damage worked. Finally I just had to tell the whole story. “So by the third day I was paralyzed.” “Are you making this up?” Now I have been asked some amazingly stupid questions in my life, but none quite this ludicrous. I mean, seriously. What the hell would be the point? That’s a lot of research and self mutilation and for what? “No, I have the scars and the medical records if you really want to check.” “And what was this called again?” “A neuroblastoma.” When I got to the end of my story he asked, “Isn’t there anything that can be done?” “No, not really. Not in terms of improving the situation.” “But I would think that medical science….” “I’ve been seen by specialists across the country. The best. My mother runs a hospital. If something could be done, I would know about it.” “It just seems…” “Trust me.” I turned the conversation to other things and all the while I was waiting for a hand on the knee, a kiss, a hint, a tour of the bedroom, something resembling anything vaguely like a pass. Finally he said, “You know it’s late. You can stay here with me, I don’t mind. I’m sure you don’t want to travel alone so late at night.” Jackpot, I thought.

Reversal of Fortune

Not really a story, but it's tired and I don't have the energy to write the other story I planned.

He's talking on the phone to me at the 3:30 mark. I can hear him falling asleep on the other end of the line.

"We are the champions," I say.

"No," he corrects me, "you're the champion, I am the cheerleader."

It doesn't occur to me until after he hangs up to ask him if I still get to wear the little skirt.

Madame Cleo

The second Halloween after Eric left, my friend the Deadliest Vegan Alive and I were invited to this big party downtown. The Vegan, a six foot four computer programmer from Thailand bought a bear outfit, while I wore a Valkyrie costume. Unknown to me, the Deadliest Vegan Alive, who had been a close friend since college, also invited a coworker who bore a striking resemblance to Timothy Carhart, an actor I’ve always had a crush on. By the end of the night, after seeing a man in an Elvis costume wrapped in Christmas lights, a topless medusa, any number of outrageous nymph and fairy costumes, the Vegan sweating like a maniac in his bearsuit trying to dance, Timothy and I found ourselves on the sidewalk kissing, just as the Vegan intended. A week later we went out on a date, which I thought went well. He seemed to enjoy himself, laughing and joking. I ended it early to leave him wanting more. The next week, I ended up in possession of tickets to the theater. I called Tim and asked him if he wanted to come. “Um, well the thing is I don’t think I can see you anymore.” “Why?” “Because I can’t see us together three months from now.” “Well thank you Madame Cleo. While you’re looking into the future can you also see if I am going to come into some money this month? That would be really useful.”

Valentine's Day Massacre: Reader's Digest Edition

I once broke up with a guy named Truelove on his birthday, which was Valentine's Day.

Dessert Squared

When I was high school, I had a crush on a waiter who used to work at an Italiant restaurant on Franklin Ave. in Hartford. His name was Santo. My friend Jess and I used to go there for dinner, but really we were there to watch him push the dessert cart, not towards us, but away from us so we could watch his butt. Every time he'd push the cart away she remark to me.

"There goes dessert pushing dessert. Dessert squared!"

Rock Me Amadeus

When I was in graduate school, my friend the Black Dahlia and I used to hang out in a bar called Mars Bar. Mars bar is the cheapest bar in NYC, not only because the beers are cheap and every third beer is a buy back, but because the bartenders are often so strung out they don’t remember to charge you for half of what you drank. The only drawback is that you often have to place your drink order four or five times in a two minute period. One night I was waiting for Dahlia, who was chronically late, at Mars bar. As I sat there, British guy sidled up to me. He was older, I’d say in his forties, with rough hands. Mars bar is supposed to be an artists bar with a rotating “gallery.” What this translates into is that everybody in Mars bar is an artist but…I’m an artist but I make my money in construction, computer engineering, personal training, etc. So this British guy with a heavy cockney accent starts talking to me. He’s an artist, but makes his money building shelves. We chat for about five minutes when he asks me if I have an email address. All of my email addresses are maintained under pseudonyms so there is no way to trace the email back to my real name unless I give it to you. I asked him why he wanted it. “Well, I would like to send you saucy emails.” I had never received a “saucy” email. I was intrigued and figured I was at absolutely no risk for stalkerdom. I gave it to him and promptly forgot about the whole incident. A week later I received an email from Saucy. He claimed that he had a girlfriend and in no way wanted these fantasies to come true, but he wanted to write me graphic emails. I wrote back that I too had a boyfriend, but I liked the idea of getting sexy emails during the day-the thrill of something forbidden, but without any of the guilt. Besides at the time I was dating Duke Nuke’em whose lack of sex drive was forcing me to eat the wallpaper in frustration. The idea of being someone’s sex fantasy would give my ego the perk it needed. So the terms were set-an exchange of emails only. The next week I received my first email. The basic structure of the fantasy was fairly standard. We meet at a restaurant. I’m wearing a sexy black dress. He doesn’t want to touch me, but he can’t resist. He slides his hand farther and farther up my thigh. He tries to get a reaction from me, but he is only reward with a slight blush. He works his fingers inside my panties and feels how wet I am. He can’t stop himself. He tells me to go to bathroom. He joins me there. And here is where it gets fun. “I pull down your dress to reveal your breasts-like two white rabbits escaping from their warren.” I immediately forwarded the email to Dahlia who forwarded it to her friends. And thus Saucy’s email began a regular circulation making him one of the best known sex writers at the NYU graduate creative writing program. The next email featured me as a kind of Heidi of the Swiss Alps character. He is hiking and comes across a little pub on a mountainside. I’m there dressed in leiderhosen with my hair in long braids. He ravishes me there in the green grass like some ricola ad turned porn film. As time went on the emails began to dwindle. I had left Duke Nuke’em and was with a new boyfriend who actually had a sex drive so I had lost interest. Months later when I had a forgotten about him, I received a new email from Saucy, a mass mail announcing the birth of his first son, Wolfgang, by his lovely new wife.

Same Time Next Year

About a year after September 11th, I went to a promotional party for the New York Press. I was there with a fellow professor and his wife chatting, when a vaguely familiar guy came up to me. His name was Darren, and we had lived in the same dorm. The moment he introduced himself, I remembered him. I had chatted with him in the courtyard of Third North a few times. We talked a bit and he gave me his card and asked for mine. He was working in PR, and I figured he just wanted information for business reasons. About a month later he called and asked me out. We met downtown and ended up having a date that if we were still college students or if he was even vaguely interesting would have been decent. We ordered burritos at Burritoville and then walked around the park. I attempted to discover something vaguely like a personality, but no. He told me about living in his parents basement in NJ, while I tried to plot my escape. When it seemed like he was getting brave enough to try and kiss me, I decided to claim exhaustion and grab a cab. Now, I’ve had lots of guys say they were going to call. The truth is about 3 million men right now have my phone number, and yet my phone never rings. It’s the best magic trick in the world. So when Darren said he would call as he put me in a cab, I wasn’t particularly surprised when he didn’t. A year later, I got a voicemail from a number I didn’t recognize,” Hi Bunni, it’s Darren. I don’t know if you remember me, but we went on a date last year at this time and I said I would call you and never did…” At this point, I hung up. I didn’t know what the hell he was thinking by doing this and didn’t want to know. If you wait so long to call me back after a date that you are concerned that I don’t remember you, don’t bother.

Tease

So believing the worst was behind us I started dating Mitch again.

Smart women, foolish choices.

We have drinks a couple of times, some fooling around.

And then I got rejected from Princeton.

I had been drinking at the bar, trying to drown my academic inadequacy in vodka, when he walked in.

He was in the mood and the flesh was willing.

I went back to his place. He pushes me on the bed. My clothes vanish. His clothes vanish. And then he says to me:

You know I'm not in the emotional place right now where I can have sex.

"It's 2:30 in the morning. We're both naked on a bed. And you aren't in the emotional place to have sex right now? You couldn't have said this when we were say fully clothed on the couch? What the fuck was all this about then?"

"I didn't think you'd be that upset by it."

"Oh cos I'm a girl right? It's OK to tease me because I'm a girl. Is this some sort of get back at the cheerleader who fucked you over in 9th grade thing going on here?"

"No, no. Look, really I'm sorry. I just, well, I didn't think things would go this far."

"You know what, just stop talking. It's better when you don't talk." I gathered up my clothes and walked back to the bar where I had a double vodka on the rocks to nurse my twin rejections.

The Apologia

One night while I was having a glass of wine after work, a decent enough young man asked me out to dinner. I gave him my number and firmly expected never to hear from him again.

He called and we went out for a nice dinner. He walked me home and we kissed on the doorstep.

So far so good.

He called again and we agreed to go to the movies.

I could tell right away when he picked me up something was different. He was distant, would barely talk, avoided eye contact.

After the movie, even though it was early, he immediately dropped me off. He gave me a quick hug and left.

I called him a few days later, "So, uh what's going on?"

"Well, I'm thinking I'm going to move in a few weeks so we should just be friends."

Brush off.

"Ok," I said, "whatever."

"No, no I'll call you. I'm just in a wierd place right now."

Right, he's in a wierd place.

"Sure," I said and hung up.

Two years later.

I'm sitting in a bar and I notice this guy keeps looking at me. He doesn't look like anyone I know, but hey maybe he's a friend of a friend who once saw me a at party that kind of thing.

After about an hour of staring he comes up to me.

"Uh, we went on two dates two years ago. I don't know if you remember me, my name's Mitch. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I did actually move. That wasn't a line. I did like you. I'm back and I saw you and I just wanted to apologize for what I did. I was worried you might still be mad."

"Honey I think 2 years is more than the statue of limitations about being angry over 2 dates."

One fish, two fish

As I said before, Eric wasn't much of a drinker.

The first time I went to Las Vegas, his hometown, I ended up a pool party with all of his friends. Of course, I had to go through all the ritual girlfriend hazing including the obligatory being thrown into the swimming pool.

Of course, anyone who knows me knows that such tactics completely fail to embarass me, but I digress.

Eric soon ensconced himself in the basement with his best friend to catch up on whatever guys catch up (you so know they gossip, but whatever) and I ended up in the kitchen where the drinking games were about to commence.

Which was when an entire party of college students suddenly discovered they were drinking with a college TA.

And thus the game for the night became drink with the teacher. Or more accurately try and get the teacher falling down drunk.

Eric passed out face down at around 2 am. I was informed via the grapevine that was he was safely tucked away in a bedroom. The college students had picked their champion to go up against me as I had proven no light weight. I was pitted against a guy nicknamed Fish.

As in drinks like.

Although other people occassionally joined our game, it was Fish and I head on until about 4 am, when I finally folded.

"You did well," he said patting me on the back as stumbled towards the bedrooms. He hand was steady his voice unslurred. "You did better than most" was the last thing I heard before I curled up against Eric in merciful sleep.

Tippacanoe

I was sitting outside my favorite coffee shop one day when two twenty something year old guys walked by talking about sex. The first one was making the case for technique rather than size.

"Listen, man you can have a huge fuckin' cock man, but if you just lie there it isn't gonna do much for her. It's the motion of the ocean, man, right? that's what I'm sayin'."

The other replied, "Well, I guess so, but if she doesn't know there's a boat in the water, the motion doesn't really matter does it?"

The Reluctant Goddess Part II

The crowd wasn’t what I expected. If I hadn’t been told it was a dungeon, I would have thought it was a Dungeons and Dragons tournament. Most of the party goers were men who looked like they rarely left their parents bedrooms. In the back were two 18 year old dominatrixes. I quickly dismissed Tony. I could take anyone at the party with an eyebrow. I chatted with one guy who attempted to handcuff me to a chair. For his trouble, he found himself handcuffed. While I sat chatting, the dominatrixes brought out the “house slave.” A house slave has to serve anyone instead the specific needs of one master. One of the dominatrixes chained him to the wall and whipped him for our entertainment. For the first time, I was amused. “I bet you he’s some big banker or CEO,” I said to my hostage. “Let’s find out,” he said to me. Once the whipping was done, the house slave, whose name was Jim, went around the party refilling drinks, lighting cigarettes, carrying trays of cheese and crackers. While he stopped to refill my glass, kneeling first so he would be below me, my hostage asked him what he did for a living. “Oh, I’m teacher.’ “What’s your specialty?” “Classical literature.” My hostage and the rest of the party guests were quickly forgotten as Jim and I began chatting. He was handsome, kneeling at my feet, and I thought, “How can this go wrong?” The universe likes to answer that question very quickly. After dating for about a month or two, I noticed the day after I saw Jim I would be very depressed. At first, I thought it was because I missed him, but then I realized it was because every time he opened his mouth, I wanted to throw a toaster at his head. There was the fact I couldn’t do anything right. Why didn’t I go to the Met more often? Why is it when I greeted him, I was immediately affectionate? Why couldn’t I stop being such a drama queen? And he was obstinately opinionated. If I pointed he was incorrect on a matter, even if it was insignificant, he would get furious. He would defend himself and claim I was an idiot, how could I question HIS authority? If I showed him evidence, he wouldn’t apologize, but slowly his anger would subside. Now I would like to think that eventually I would have broken up with him. One night he casually mentioned that he saw other people. “What?” “Yeah, I see other people.” “What are you talking about?” “I told you that at the beginning.” “No you didn’t.” “Yes, I did.” “No you didn’t because I would never have agreed to see you if that was the case.” “Well, I remember telling you.” “Well, maybe you remember thinking about telling me, but you didn’t.” “I can’t remember, but I thought I told you.” “Nope.” “Oh.” I don’t remember how we ended the phone call, but I remember being crushed. Not because I liked Jim that much. He was horrible in bed and rapidly becoming a bore. But if there is anything worse than being broken up with, it’s being broken up with by someone who you didn’t even like anymore. Here you’ve bargained down your self esteem and even the miscreants you rationalize dating don’t want you.

The Reluctant Goddess Part I

The last show I ever did in NYC was an adaptation of Faust. I was about to graduate from NYU. I had no idea what I was going to do in the future, I just knew I wasn’t going to continue to be an actor. I had no boyfriend, had barely even had a date in four years. And I was getting depressed because I was coming to the end of my college career with absolutely nothing to show for it except a whole bunch of shows so off Broadway I could see Jersey. One of the guys in the show, Tony, had just broken up with his girlfriend of 8 years. Apparently they were into the S and M scene. Tony spent most of our rehearsals trying to talk one of us into going with him to S and M clubs. He would say to me, “Listen, you’re angry. You’ll go spank men. You’ll feel better, they’ll feel better. It’s win-win.” But I refused. About a week after the show was over, I got a phone call from Tony. “What are you doing tonight?” “Nothing.” “Get dressed.” “Where are we going?” “An opening party for a dungeon. Don’t worry, it’s very exclusive, and I won’t leave your side until you say the word.” Being me, I already had an outfit ready-short black catholic school girl skirt, black stockings, knee high lace up stack heel leather boots, black scoop neck top, and my black leather hat which had the word “Bitch” in red stitching. Tony picked me up, and we went to the dungeon which was on the Upper East Side.

Next Time Just Send a Card

The Asshat and I were already “taking a break” after only being boyfriend and girlfriend for a day. He was away in California for the week and I was in Upstate. When I had gone to Upstate I was fully committed to breaking up with him when he returned. He was too crazy even for me. Which is something of an accomplishment. But during the course of the week, without remind me how much of a crazy asshat he was, I thought of all the good times we had together and forgot how long ago they had been and how they were becoming radically outnumbered by his assholic tendencies. And so I actually wanted to see him when he returned. He was supposed to perform at Rififi’s, but slept through his own gig because he was drunk on a park bench. When he did arrive, he was in a bad mood-a mood that I had to get him out of despite the fact that I had been waiting for him to show for an hour. After hanging out a bit, we walked to the park. He lay on a park bench with his head on my lap and cried about his mother. And I felt such sympathy for him in that moment-not at home in his mother country, not at home here-functionally illiterate in two languages-the ultimate outsider that I told him that I loved him. The only man I said that to in five years. He looked me in the eye and said, “Thank You” and then sent me home at two am on the 6 train alone.

Everyone needs a hobby

Last year, when I was still with the Asshat with an Accent, we found ourselves walking through the park on a lovely spring day. The cherry blossoms were blooming. The grass was green. It was the perfect temperature, warm without being hot. The children just out of school and full of spring fever were playing all around us. We were holding hands, and he turned to me and said, “You know, I agree that it is cruel to kill children…on the other hand, you have to do something with them.”

Have cat. Will travel.

It was a hot summer day. One of those days where walking ten blocks to my therapist’s office is an act of sheer will. I was waiting to cross the street when a young frenchman said to me, “Have you ever run away to Paris?” He was obviously a mover, dressed in his company’s shirt, but without one of those waist trusses. He was young and lithe, like a greyhound-the type of guy who I could wrap my legs around and squeeze for days. I hadn’t made it to Paris yet, and told him so. “Would you like to run away there with me? I could show you the whole city. I’m from there.” And as much as I wanted to, wanted to skip out on my therapist and my job and my apartment and my friends and just go to Paris there was only one thing that kept me from going.

My cat.

Who would take care of my cat?

He asked for my number so that we could meet up for a drink later and never called. I’ve been prepared ever since that day for the next time a hot French guy asks me to go to Paris so I can say,“Have cat. Will travel.”

Fingerpainting with Jesus

please forgive the delay experiencing technical difficulties

My closest friend during graduate school got married the week after we graduated. I had just moved into my apartment, and Eric and I were sleeping on the floor. I didn’t have chairs or a bed. I had a lamp.

One.

The day after the wedding, Eric was leaving to go home to Vegas for the summer. This was going to be our last day together until he returned in the Fall. The wedding was absolutely on the outer limits of the New York Transit system. Dressed for a wedding we had to get on a wubway train, ride all the way to the end, get on a bus, and then ride to the end of the bus line, and then walk another ten blocks

The wedding program done had been homemade thanks to cheesy graphics courtesy of Deluxe Print Shop. (How's that a trip in the Way Back Machine for ya?) The reception to the wedding was in the basement where Sunday School was held. On the wall in multicolored handprints it said, "Jesus is Love." After the wedding we waited downstairs for two hours with no food. The caterer forgot the drinks. There was no liquor because the bride's mother was a recovering alcoholic. But finally we ate and danced. I don't remember the long trip home.

Despite being so exhausted we couldn’t find the energy to order food, he made love to me on the floor of the apartment. Afterwards, I didn’t want to sleep, he would be gone soon. He stroked my hair and told me that everything would be alright, we would talk on the phone and before I knew it, he would be back. I was afraid he would fall out of love with me or find some other woman. He told me he had the best woman in the world, and he sang to me “You are My Sunshine.”

Eventually we fell asleep wrapped in each others arms.

And everything was OK just like he said.

For about another 6 months.

Girlfriend in a Coma

I was living in 3rd North during the Blizaard of '96. My friend Vinnie had been dating a particularly posessive girlfriend and so when I stumbled across him in the dining hall during lunch because we were snowed in, it was one of the first times I had seen him in weeks.


After an engaging lunch we went up to my living room to catch up. I was in an apartment style dorm with large windows in the living room. Vinnie always thought of me like a sister and so at one point when I was being obnoxious about his girlfriend he tickled me until I fell off on the couch onto the floor. After I regained my breathe, I sat up again.

After a few hours and some cups of cocoa later he went back to his room.

About five hours later I went down to dinner. My RA, a quiet asian guy, saw me and said, "Oh is everything alright?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I had a call from one of the other residents. They thought one of you was being strangled in the living room."

"And you didn't bother to just walk down the hall?"

Silence.

"Well, now that you mention it my roommate has been lying face down in the living room for five hours now, but I just thought she was doing yoga."

Strangers in the Night

My friend Four Eyes and I were so desperate in college that we used to joke about dating strangers. Just walking up to some random person and saying “I just need you to love me”, give them a hug, and then walk away.

One day I was particularly pissed at the entire male gender and I walked into my friend's dorm room and said, “Fuck dating. I want to break up with a stranger. Just walk up to some random guy and say ‘You know, I just don’t think it’s going to work out between us. We want different things. And walk away. He’ll spend the rest of the day trying to figure out what the hell happened.”

Ready, Willing, and Able to do What?

Around where I live are all these guys who wear blue jumpsuits and pretty much just keep the streets clean. They are part of this Ready Willing and Able campaign, which I think it part of some welfare to work program.

I can't be sure.

One day I was walking to work and one of these guys started following me.

"Hey Miss, Hey Miss. How tall are you? Excuse me. Miss? How tall are you?"

Well I figured he couldn't follow me for THAT long.

Apparently he could.

After two and half blocks of incessant harassment I finally turned on my heel.

"I'm four six OK. I'm your IQ squared!"

"Well I didn't mean by it."

"So the fact I didn't respond for two blocks didn't tip you off that MAYBE I didn't want to talk about it with a perfect stranger?"

"I'm sorry."

"You should be. How would you like it if I followed you down the street harassing you about why you can't have a normal job like everyone else?"

I turned back on my path to work and he was smart enough this time to let me keep walking on my own.

The 24 Hour Relationship

The first guy I “dated” was nicknamed Opus. He was the best friend of one of my closest friends, Joe, from high school. I called Opus one day for some advice about Joe, whose father was going to jail. Over the course of a week, we began talking every day. “Talking to you is addictive,” he said to me. I was aware that Opus was a diagnosed bi-polar on meds because Joe told me so, but I didn’t see any fluctuation in his behavior. He was always in a good mood when we chatted, and we spoke everyday with regularity. No withdrawing suddenly for days. No rages.No incoherent talking jags. After a few weeks, he asked me to go with him to Boston to see They Might Be Giants. We had a wonderful day-the concert, shopping, chatting. On the bus ride back, he kissed me. “I didn’t realize how much I wanted you until this moment,” he said after we kissed. He walked me to my car and kissed me again. “ I don’t want this night to end,” he told me. I felt the same way. I was ecstatic. I hadn’t had a date all through high school. Boys had crushes on me, but they would never do anything about it because I was “intimidating.” Because, you know, I actually had a brain and used it. So by my senior year, I had barely been kissed once. The next day at eleven or so, my phone rang. It was Opus. His tone was distant. “I can’t do this” he said. “Do what?” “I can’t handle a relationship right now.” “What are you talking about? We haven’t even been on a date.” “It’s all too much. I can’t take the pressure.” “What pressure? I don’t know what you are talking about.” After twenty minutes of trying to explain to him there was no pressure, we could just hang out and have fun like we had the day before, I finally gave up and said good-bye.

A month later, he was committed.

Everyone's a Critic

One day I was sitting Washington Square during lunch and noticed a man about 60 years old with no shirt on. He was sitting on a bench, his shirt around his waist, a few days worth of scruff on his chin, very politely asking for change. If a person gave him change, he would say "Thank you and god bless you."

Well there aren't many polite bums in the world, and this one looked like a genuine guy down on his luck so when I got up to go back to work, I put change in his cup. I walked a few steps before he called out after me, "Oh miss!"

I thought he was simply going to tell me "Thank you and God bless," like everyone else. But instead he looked me in the eye and said, "You look tired."

I looked into my purse and spied another quarter. I walked back to him and put it in his cup.

"That's to help you work on your act," I told him.

The Seductive Countess Part II: Carlos and the Art of Cocksucking

The following week Carlos decided to try and teach me something else.

“Do you know the secret to cocksucking?”

“There’s a secret?”

“Cockworship. You have to forget there is a man attached at all. You have to do so many things to it that he doesn’t even know what’s going on. Because that’s what most people don’t know. There isn’t one universally accepted way that works. Some guys like you to play with their balls, others can’t stand it. Some like a lot of pressure, others want little butterflies running down their shaft. So you have to try a lot of different things and pay attention to what works. More attention than he pays because, and this is also true, just cos he’s had it all his life doesn’t mean that you can’t teach him a thing or two. And if you do that, he’ll think your G-d, Jesus, and the Virgin Mary all rolled into one. You will be his new religion because you taught him something new about his cock.”

I didn’t really know how to respond to this. I had no idea how many things you could do with a cock. To me it was kind of like a toaster. It basically had two options, and now it turned out it was like a cappuccino maker-complicated and idiosyncratic. And the closest thing I had to an instruction manual was Carlos. And balls? Jesus people did things with them? Who knew?

To hide my utter ignorance, I simply smiled and shook my head hoping he would end the conversation. Sensing my lack of comfort, Carlos switched his later tutorials to make up-teaching me about contrasting colors on the lid of the eye or how to select false eyelashes. Finding me a much better make up artist than a cocksucker, he was pleased with my progress and didn’t revisit the fine art of cocksucking again.

The Seductive Countess Part I: Carlos and the Aesthetic Nature of Cocks

When I was in college, I was cast in a show called “the Seductive Countess.” The director, a flamboyant gay man, decided to do all the casting with reverse genders. The Countess was to be played by a six foot drag queen named Carlos. For a cheap sight gag, I was cast as “her” husband. Carlos in his blonde wig and platform stilettos would tower over me as I professed my love to him in Moliere’s words.

There were only two other girls in the cast. One was a fairly mousy actress who did nothing to accentuate her amazing body. The other was a hag wannabe. Finding herself suddenly in the company of all these drag queens and fags, she was trying desperately to be accepted-renting movies like Mame and Mommie Dearest. She would try and sit next to Carlos while he applied his false eyelashes and eye shadow.

Carlos, of course, hated her.

To defend himself from the constant onslaught of questions, poses, and invitations, he began having me sit next to him while he put on his make up. I was young then. I had just barely lost my virginity. I was so innocent that I refused to have sex on top because I didn’t want to embarrass myself by not knowing what to do.

Carlos decided to fix this problem by submitting me to a series of tutorials. The first was how to tell if a man had a big cock just by looking. Very subtly, Carlos instructed me to look at the crotch of various cast members. “You know Ari has a big one. Look at the bulge. Too bad about his face. Still, you know, when you are down there, a pretty face doesn’t really matter. Of course, you can tell if a cock is big or small by looking, but you can’t tell how pretty it is.”

“Pretty?”

“Oh yes. Some of them are just beautiful, flawless even, you know, like something that should be framed and put in the Louvre. Others, well, others you just close your eyes and hope the next one isn’t so ugly.”

But despite his effort, I couldn’t master the art of “sizing.”

Holocaust Revisionist

Alternative Title: The stupidest thing someone interested in me has ever said

The first show I was ever cast in was for the Vampyr Theater. Mainly, it was a vehicle for the main actor/director to chew on the scenery with Nosferatu fangs, but it was good fun. Every night I got to dress up, prance around in garters, seduce an older woman, chew on the necks of several assorted victims, and then kill a baby. One of my fellow cast mates was about my age, but had already been married and divorced. One night she begged me to come with her after the show. A guy she had a serious crush on had asked her out for drinks, but he had a friend. Could I play wingman? I told her there was no way that I would ever be allowed into a bar. Pictures of an 18 year old Bunni reveal a girl who looks about fifteen, not 21.But she assured me she knew people who could get me in. Sure enough, we sailed by security and into the bar. I hadn’t though about asking where we were going. The bar was called the Pit Stop, a hard core biker bar. While we were there, two of the women got into a vicious fight over a balding man in chaps missing teeth who cheered on the fight. My girlfriend’s man was attractive-long straight black hair, tall, high cheekbones. His friend, however, had frizzy hair, a big nose, and eyeliner tattooed onto his face. He asked me about a drink and because I had been cautioned about NYC bars, and this one didn’t look to safe, I accepted only a soda. Why he became interested in me, I can’t say. I can only guess that my body and my youth overwhelmed the fact that we had absolutely nothing in common. How I managed to even pretend to chat with him for an hour or so, I can’t imagine. Luckily the music was loud so I could do a lot of smiling and nodding. They walked me to my dorm afterwards, and Eyeliner insisted on getting my phone number. I was too nice to give him a fake one and not yet fast enough to invent an excuse. A week later he called me. I had just gotten in from watching the film Schindler’s List. We chatted for a while. He asked what was up. I mentioned the film. “Oh,” he said, “The Holocaust…That was terrible…That wasn’t in this Century was it?”

I'm With the Band

So for a while I was dating a band. Not one guy, the band.

Or more accurately they would play gigs, and I would show up and try and decide which one I wanted. There was the very cute lead singer, but he was doing the Sensitive Artist thing. Depressed poses in the corner and if one managed to torture a syllable or two out of him it was always about how no understood his vision. The bassist was not as attractive, but outrageous and funny. Unfortunately, he wasn’t very good about calling me and telling me about gigs. The drummer was good at calling, but wasn’t attractive or funny. So I’m not actually dating or sleeping with any of them.

Essentially I’m just a fan.

Their only fan as far as I could tell.

The guys were playing the Continental. Afterward, I was leaning against the wall while the drummer was attempting to lure me into the stairwell to kiss me when a guy sidles up to me. He says to me, “You’re the shortest person I’ve ever seen.”

That’s it. That’s the whole come on line.

I’m about to say something really snarky like “I’m glad I could be here for you.” But the boys gathered around me. “Oh are you with one of these guys?” “Actually she’s with all of us.” My would be woo-er slunk away and later that night, ever indecisive I went home alone.

Again.

That was the last gig they ever played.

The Worst Buddhist Ever on Breaking Up

On top of his inability to control his rage, his tendency to practice what I laughingly refer to as X-treme Buddhism, his uncontrollable gas, the Buddhist has this belief that his love life is of unending interest to me.

One day he pulled me aside and started spilling out this long tale about this girl who had been dating and who was very ambivalent about had broken up with answering machine. Now true, I believe there is a special level of hell reserved for people who break up with answering machines, but in his case I understood. He set out his case for me very methodically.

"Look B not that your points aren't valid," I said, "but you aren't going to argue her out of breaking up with you."

"Oh, I don't want to stay together," he retorted.

"You don't?"

"No, it's just her grounds for breaking up are bullshit."

"So you want to call her up and not get back together with her but argue about the grounds of the break up?"

"Yeah, I mean, she's totally wrong about why we shouldn't see each other."

"You let me know how that works out for you."

The Princess and the Pea

I work with a professor who claims to be a buddhist, but if he is, he is the Worst Buddhist Ever. Every time he's in office he's snorting and stomping and slamming like he's a one man version ofIonesco's Rhinocerous.

Anyway, his office and mine shared a common wall and his office shared a common wall with this other female professor, let's call her Belle. Belle was in her early thirties and had a habit of holding court with her female students. They would gather round and talk about make up tips and dating. Why the department didn't take issue with a professor acting like the cover of Cosmo I don't know. But it drove the Buddhist insane.

One day I was furiously trying to get work done and Belle is holding court and the Buddhist is ranting at some poor student in his office about how loud Belle is. The only thing is that his ranting was louder than her chatting. I tried to focus, I put on my earphones, but he was bellowing too loudly.

Finally, I marched around to his cubicle and said, "My aren't we a fragile little princess today? Fussy because we didn't get much sleep thanks to that pea?"

Lolita

Forward this story to anyone who has ever considered internet dating.

My friend Rich had a theory that any girl in NYC could have a boyfriend, it was simply a question of effort. He decided to take me on as a kind of project to prove his thesis. His first task was to create a profile for me on Match.com. He selected a picture and drafted a profile he insisted would be irresistible to men. It’s true I received responses, but most of them were revolting. Men from Turkey and India looking for casual relationships. Men who typed response emails like a 13 year old nymphomaniac. The requisite dirty old men trolling for the desperate. Guys writing me long philosophical emails about my attitude on life and finishing with “I just want some action with no strings attached.” And way too many pictures with mullets. But Rich wouldn’t let me give up. He insisted that I continue to read my email and screen for possible candidates. One day a very attractive man who could not only spell polysyllabic words, but also string them together sent me his profile. We began emailing each other. He worked in the film industry and was impressed with my knowledge and ideas about film. After about two months of emailing, he asked to meet me for a drink. I wasn’t expecting much. Or actually I was kind of expecting an experiment in terror-something like a 300 pound version of the Toxic Avenger dressed as Baby Jane. But he showed up as cute and well put together as his picture. We sat in a lounge downtown chatting over two glasses of wine. He began to flirt-a touch on the knee there, a brush on the arm. And I was all for it-a cute, funny, successful guy who works in film-wants to brush my knee? Who am I to stand in the way? But as the villain says in Oldboy, “You will never get the right answer if you ask the wrong question.” What I should have been asking myself was “Why is this guy single?” Of course, he told me a story that he had been seriously involved with a girl, and they had broken up recently. “I never thought I would find anyone online, but in my job I don’t really have that much time to hang out in bars and clubs trying to meet someone.” As much as I was enjoying myself, it was getting late, and I was about to suggest calling it a night when he leaned in and said, “I want to ask you something.” I was expecting the usual comeback to my place inquiry, but instead he looked in my eyes and said, “Has anyone ever asked you to dress up like a 13 year old girl and pretend to rape you?” I never went on Match.com again. Rich never mentioned it.

I say good-bye, you say hello

A few years ago, I was hanging out in Fitzpatrick’s waiting for a friend of mine to come and meet me when I noticed this guy staring at me. He was very tall and fairly good looking sucking down what seemed to be a Long Island Iced Tea. Although he was staring at me, he was clearly with a girl, tearing his eyes away from me long enough to engage in some fairly animated conversation with her.

Trouble.

But I never get involved in these types of situations. If a guy has a girl to begin with he is off limits, but one with such blatant disregard for his date is out of the question. I decided to stay in my corner and well out of the way of trouble. When his date went to bathroom, he came over to me and started to talk. I tried being polite but cold, he wasn’t having it.

Finally I turned to him and said, “Look, you are clearly with that woman, and I’m just trying to have a quiet drink without getting my hair pulled and my eyes scratched out over some guy that I don’t even know.” “Oh,” he said, “she’s breaking up with me.” “What?” “Yeah, we’ve been dating for a few months. Apparently she doesn’t want to date me anymore.” At which point his “date” showed up and confirmed exactly what he just told me. She put her hand on his back “Oh, he’s a great guy. Really wonderful. I’m just not in the place right now where I can date people.”

Right. Finding a decent man in New York City is harder than finding the Holy Grail. No woman leaves a guy just because “she isn’t in the right place to date.” She bought me a drink. Now he’s standing there trying to talk her out of leaving him, “Look, I don’t want that much from you. I want to take you out to dinner. I mean, we have a good time right?” but at the same time trying to ask me out, “Listen, we can just meet for a drink. No big deal. Just like we are now. Here’s my number.” And she’s trying to talk me into dating him, “He’s very funny. He has a job. You don’t have to worry because he is a total gentleman. He’ll pay for everything.” After half an hour of this, I told them that I had to go home. They were still talking at the bar when I left. I called my friend as I walked down the block, “Don’t ask, I’ll tell you when you get here, you late ass bitch, but I’ll meet you at Tin Lizzy’s.”

12 Step Program

Now a sane person probably wouldn’t have called Speed Freak back after that, but I’m not a sane person. So I continued to date him for about 2 months. I was already fairly sure that I didn’t want to see him again when he confessed to me that he used speed with so much regularity that when he said he’d been up all week, it hadn’t been an exaggeration. Because I don’t have much experience with hard drugs, I hadn’t been able to recognize the symptoms. After we discussed how much he used, I said, “So you’re addicted to it.” “No, no, I’m not addicted to it.” He said, “It’s just that if it’s in the house I have to do it.”

Speed Freak's Cure for Depression

So Freak fell hard and fast me, and I tried to fall for him. But at this point I'd been left my the love my life and then dumped by my freakin' rebound guy, Chainsaw, so I was a little guarded.

Anyway, he kept hounding me to let him in, to be open with him, to talk about my feelings.

Imagine that, a man who WANTS a woman to talk about her feelings.

Well, I kept deflecting him until he took me to see Black Hawk Down. I don't know what it was about this film, but something about it triggered a response to all the surgeries I had to go through as child. Suddenly I felt very fragile and very sad.

And since he wanted me to let him in...

So I told him about what it was like to have multiple surgeries, to have an insane father who couldn't be relied upon to be emotionally supportive during terrifying and painful tests, to be used as a living teaching aid to young medical students. How isolating, sad, and terrifying all of this was. I got to the end and looked up with him tearfilled eyes expecting him to be happy that I finally revealed to him a small part of what I have gone through.

His eyes met mine and he said,

"Well, just don't think those thoughts."

Crazy for Being My Baby

I met Speed Freak at a Silicon Alley “I made a huge settlement before I was laid off and now I’m going to go and spend three months in Thailand” party. He was another casualty, but he had made enough money that even though he hadn’t worked in a year he had a spacious apartment and a sports car. Apparently, he had a girlfriend when we met, but he didn’t mention her, and he broke up with her only hours after we met.

When I found out on our first date, I thought meeting me was obviously a catalyst for the termination of a clearly shaky relationship. Clearly. On our second date, we were sitting on his couch kissing when he pulled back, looked at me and said, “You know, I’m crazy in love with you.”

I said, "But you don't know me."

Looking into my eyes, he said, "That's what makes it crazy."

50 Ways to Leave Your Lover

The timestamp continues to screw with me. I'm not sure why blogger is convinced that I'm living in a different time zone. Apologies.

Two weeks after Eric left me, I met Kevin Rose at the Library. He had alabaster skin and black hair with a deep radio announcer’s voice. He was a bouncer at another local bar where his nickname was Chainsaw even though he was a thin pacifist from Canada. What drew me to Chainsaw, aside from the fact that he was completely not my type, was his disclosure that every girl he had ever been involved with had left him for someone else. He might as well have worn a t-shirt with a Bull’s Eye and the word “Rebound” printed on it.

So I gave Chainsaw my number, and he took me out for drinks later in the week. We met shortly before Halloween, three weeks later I knew I had to leave him. He was depressed. Apparently he had been a radio executive at some point and, the details never were clear, lost his job. Why he had become a bouncer, I also don’t know. But he had lost his life, everything he cared about, when he lost his job. I hadn’t told him about Eric, but I couldn’t help being terrified of turning into Chainsaw-some depressed lost soul in a bar.

I needed positive attention. I needed someone to tell me I was gorgeous and brilliant. I needed someone who actually smiled when he saw me. I couldn’t take the constant depression. Three weeks into a relationship is too early to be his therapist. But since he was depressed, I didn’t want to break up with him right before Thanksgiving. Two days before Thanksgiving, he called and asked if I didn’t want to come over after work. He lived close to my office, so after work I walked over. I sat down on the couch and he took my hand in his and said, “I never thought I would have to do this, but you know I care about you. I want us to continue to be friends, but I can’t see you anymore. It’s not you, it’s me.”

I was the first girl Kevin Rose ever broke up with.

I stood up. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You’re breaking up with me? You can’t do that. I haven’t wanted to date you for awhile but you were so depressed I didn’t want to break up with you before Thanksgiving. I was doing fucking charity work, you unappreciative asshole. You care about me? Right. You care so much you didn’t think about what it might be like for me to have to go and an explain to my family that not only did the guy I was supposed to marry left me two weeks after September 11th, but then the fucking bargain basement rebound boyfriend who was supposed to feed my ego had the audacity to leave me before a major fucking holiday because he doesn’t understand his place in the fucking cosmos, which is to be a place holder until I could find someone I could be serious about since I certainly couldn’t be serious about a pacifist bouncer with the nickname Chainsaw. I don’t think anyone ever could, which is why no one ever has been.”

The next day, I walked into class and said, “If I teach you nothing else, if you learn nothing from me this entire year, learn this-never say 'I care about you', 'it’s not you, it’s me', or 'we can still be friends' if you break up with someone."

After a brief pause, a female student raised her hand. “Yes?”

“What if it’s true?”

“Honey, it’s never true." I told her, "If it was, you wouldn’t have to say it.”

SECURITY!

In the desperation to feel attractive and validated after the disappearance of my fiancé, I ended up dating a guy who referred to himself as “Lil Chris.” In college, I had developed a no dating anyone under five six policy partially because they had Napoleonic complexes, but mainly because they couldn’t reach the top shelf in the grocery store either. But in the freefall after Eric’s departure, Chris was interested and I didn’t care about anything excepting feeling wanted. Until Chris inexplicably vanished after two months. A year and half later, at a party, I would find out that the reason why was because Chris got back together with his ex. But at the time, he was just another man in a long line of men who disappeared without even a phone call. At the time, I was still talking to one of the more colorful character characters from grad school. Well, talking isn’t exactly accurate. Blue would call me up, deliver an hour long monologue, say “let’s get together for drinks”, and then not call for two months. Luckily his monologues were so entertaining I often took notes on what he said when he called. When I told him how depressed I was over the loss of Chris, or rather depressed over the loss of attention and validation that accompanied Chris. Blue’s response was, “ You were dating a guy who called himself ‘Lil Chris’? Listen, you need to have a no tools policy and I don’t mean like ‘Hey don’t be bringin’ that chainsaw in here.’ I mean you gotta be like the Pentagon, man. You gotta have a ‘Don’t even think about bringin’ in that little screwdriver that you use to fix your glasses no tools’ kind of policy. Because, and trust me on this one, once the ass train starts moving we are all getting a piece. Don’t worry, you’ve got some comin’, but that shit is not like Christmas, you can not put it on the calendar. And when it gets to be your stop, you don’t want to be wasting your energy on some cat called ‘Lil Chris’. You want to have all your energy conserved so you’ll be like Super Pussy. Have some red cape comin’ out of it and totally blow the dude away. Fuck, I gotta go, I’ve got to cover this art opening. Some guy has pissed in jars and set them around a studio and I have to go interview people about it. But let’s get together for drinks. You know, maybe in two weeks or something.”

Coney Island High

My junior year the Ramones played Coney Island High, back when it was on St. Mark's Place, not far from where I lived. My roommate Tara, a heavy blonde from the midwest, wanted to see them.

Considering my size, I was never much for concerts-can't see over people and tend to get crushed by the crowd. Not a fun evening.

But I liked Tara, and I thought I would give it a try. We got into the small space which was packed by punks. Tall punks. I knew there was no way to see the stage especially since we were way at the back.

Tara went to get us drinks and as I was standing there what looked like a Red Wood in punk regalia strode over to me.

"Want a lift?" he said.

He had a thick Scottish accent, and I wasn't quite sure what he meant.

"Want to sit on my shoulders?"

Of course, it was the only way I would ever see Joey Ramone.

"Sure," I said.

I thought he meant to lift me up for a song or two, but he kept me there the whole concert. Afterwards, Tara wanted to buy him a drink.

"Not necessary. It's honor to help a wee bonny lassie."

I was about to ask him to put me in his pocket and take me home. When he bid us good night and strode away.

Surely to help some other lassie.

You Might Have Girlfriend If...

I was hangin’ out at my coffee shop one night when a decent looking guy came out and started a conversation with me. He looked familiar, and apparently he remembered me from college. After some reminisces about professors and classes, he asked me out. He was articulate and nice looking and didn’t demonstrate any major signs of mental illness during our hour long chat so I thought it was safe enough.

A few days later, we met at Auction House for drinks. After two drinks we decided it was too nice of a night to stay inside. We started to take a walk to Carl Shurz park.

As we walked he asked me, “So do you have a boyfriend?”

Over my years of experience with boys I’ve learned that this question only means one thing. “No, if I had a boyfriend, I wouldn’t be going on a date, but you have a girlfriend.”

“No, no not a girlfriend. I mean, I’m seeing someone, but it isn’t serious.” We walked in silence for a moment.

“But you know, if she saw us together, she’d kill us both.”

What I Like About You

I was an acting major in college and my sophmore year we had to take a course called extended techniques. Essentially it was a singing class taught by a man named David Bucknam.


David was one of those wonderful yet utterly terrifying teachers who can look into your soul and no exactly who you are, your weakness, your strengths, your fears. And we knew it and so we both feared and respected his judgement. If he said you had no talent, you knew it was true.

Halfway through my first semester, we had conferences with all our teachers individually. Normally the comments we got were the type of bullshit comments you might expect from a kindergarten teacher-"Good effort, but you need to commit more", "you're really committed to the process", "you're very good at listening and accepting direction." But we all knew David wasn't going to go in for that.

I was one of the first to go into the conference.

The room was a large space usually reserved for dance auditions. The side of the room was lined with mirrors. I had to walk all the way to the end and sit in a chair placed fifteen feet away from the desk.

David was looking down at his papers scowling.

Silence.

I waited for him to tell me I was a talent no good hack and get the fuck out by the end of the end of the day.

He lifted his head and looked me.

He didn't smile.

"Well," he finally said slowly, "You're a busty girl, Bunni. And you're good at it."

"I was unaware that talent was involved," I said.

"I mean, you don't apologize for it. You don't hide or slump."

"I didn't think they were anything I should hide."

"And that's exactly what I like about you."

Breaking Up is Hard To Do

When I was in high school, I used to go to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. The guy who played Rocky was my type physically-blonde, blue eyed, with a runner’s body, He was also 24 to my 16. But at 16, I had only been kissed once and was sorely in need of male desire. Rocky was quickly smitten with me as were most of the men at the show. The guy who played Frank, even Pete the blonde and very pretty transvestite with a strange affinity for teal.

Later I would realize how much self restraint these men had demonstrated. I was a virginal 16 year old with an amazing body and a desperate need for male approval. Yet, instead of exploiting me, they protected me. Walking me to my car. Cock blocking me from the less than ethical regulars.

Or most of them did.

Rocky was a notable exception.

He flirted with me to be sure. He was one of the only ones to ask for my number and call me, but he never actually saw me anywhere, but Rocky Horror. We never kissed or held hands. He never so much as bought me a cup of coffee. So imagine my surprise when he introduced me to one of his friends as his girlfriend.

Lucky for me it was a week before I was to go and be a counselor at camp. I figured I just had to ride it out and then I would be safely at camp, and he would hopefully find someone else to be the foci of his romantic delusions. About half way through camp, I got a six page letter from him. Most of the letter was detailing minutiae from his life-oh wait I probably forgot to mention what he did for a living. He was a grave digger.

Yes, a grave digger.

Anyway most of his letter detailed problems with his job, issues with his apartment, the stuff of adult life which at sixteen I was in no rush to encounter. But then this man who had not even so much as put a hand around my waist, started in with the sexual innuendo. He was refreshing his backrub techniques for me. Cleaning up his apartment so it would be nice for me. Clean sheets, the whole thing. I could see where this was going. And me, if you can imagine this, sweet virginal me confronted with real adult male desire was terrified.

There was, to my not very well developed mind, only one solution:Invent a camp romance.

I proceeded to write a letter in which I invented a boyfriend, disabled like myself and a similar age. This boy understood me in ways he just couldn’t. It was no one’s fault, an unfortunate circumstance. That was all.

And that is how I broke up with a man I never dated.

Or so I thought. I received another letter. Just one page this time. Telling me that although he understood, that he was saddened more than I could imagine. “I had so many dreams for us that I was afraid to tell you. I thought about where we would live. Going back to school. What kind of wedding you would want. I never thought I would ever get so close to a girl like to you. I never thought a girl like you would even talk to me. I want you to know I will always feel so close to you, a bond with you that is unbreakable. I will always be there for you if you should need me.”

And that is where it ended.

Although there wasn't anything there in the beginning and he thought I was his girlfriend, so by now we're probably married.

Miss Popularity at Dick's Bar

Technical Difficulties: This was the post that I thought was up at noon, but discovered that blogger just does not want to remember the correct time zone for my blog. So here it is again for the first time.

(For anyone who ended up dating a gay man. Yeah, you know you did.)

I met Brian while I was auditioning for Woyzeck. Although few people showed up, the director was taking his time with each and every auditioner, so I ended up sitting in the reception area for about two hours. Brian was the “receptionist” which didn’t really involve much. ( I was cast in the production as Carl the Village Idiot and Child #2.)

When I first started talking to him because of his affectation, I thought he was gay. I wasn’t particularly surprised when he asked me out to coffee because gay men love me. I was constantly being asked out to dinner, parties, movies, dances, graduations by gay men. But Brian spent our first date trying to convince me that he was straight. He certainly acted the gentleman, walking me home, kissing me good night, making sure I got inside safe, calling the next day to set up our next date. And he was fun-a dramatic conversationalist, well read, funny, but still fairly well gay in his affectation. But I was young and foolish…and lonely with low self-esteem, a diabolical mixture for dating hijinx.

Our second date-perogis and chocolate egg creams at Veselka-was great. We went back to his place and fooled around, but when I decided to go, he immediately walked me home with no "baby just stay a few more minutes" whining (he lived nearby) and made sure I was safe. A few days later he called me to tell me he was reffing a pool game at a bar around the corner. I was only 19 and looked about 15, so I told him there was no way I could get in. He assured me there wouldn’t be a problem.

The bar, it turned out, was Dick’s Bar, a notorious gay dive. A not just a young gay dive, but a fifty year old man wearing chaps gay dive. Still you put me in the middle of a pack of gay men, I’m going to do well. Brian introduced me around. It was clear that he was well known there. He got me a drink and quickly returned to the pool tournament, while I sat at the bar with a dreary fag downing martinis who kept telling me that I was an old soul.

During a break in the tournament, Brian came over to apologize about not being able to spend much time with me, “I didn’t realize I was Miss Popularity.”

I was dating Miss Popularity at Dick’s Bar.

He leaned in and said, “I hope you understand why we can’t be affectionate here.”

“I think I figured it out.”

Finally, I decided to go home. As usual Brian insisted on walking me home, but then he had to return to the tournament. A week later I got an irate phone call. “Why haven’t you called me?” he asked. “Because you’re gay.” “How can you say that? I thought we went through this.” “Brian, you took me to a gay bar on our third date. You were clearly trying to communicate something to me. Now if you need me to be your beard for some reason, I’m OK with that, but don’t lie to me.”

Brian was horribly insulted that I would think he was gay and never called again. A year later I saw him walking down the street with his arm around some girl’s shoulder. I saw him sneer at me in triumph as he passed, while I wondered if he had taken her to Dick’s yet.

Over the Rainbow

When I was in college, my friend Four Eyes and I used to spend every Saturday night in Wonder Bar. Wonder bar was a “mixed crowd” which meant gay men and straight women in equal numbers. Occasionally a straight man might wander in, but he would be so beset upon by the queens, it wasn’t worth the fight. I was there for the fags anyway. They appreciated my makeup and clothing choices instead of just using my cleavage as a drool cup. Shortly after we arrived, Four Eyes would abandon me and stare at some guy with the intensity of a serial killer. Because Four Eyes was so blind that he had the equivalent of the Hubble telescope on his face my job was to make sure that what appeared in his blurred visions as a handsome stud actually was so. After I had confirmed that the target was appropriately fuckable, I would be dismissed to find some other fag to make conversation with. One night, Four Eyes was engaged in a particularly long conversation with a target. I was so tired, and all the couches were taken when a fifty year old leather queen leapt up and said, “Oh my God you look like Judy Garland! Oh, Judy needs to sit down.” He pawed two of the men next to him. “Move! Judy needs her beauty rest.” When Four Eyes returned, the Leather Queen chastised him for ignoring me. “Not many of us are lucky enough to have friends who look like Judy Garland. You must take better care of her. She’s so young. Look at this face.” Four Eyes peered at me. I knew even in close proximity I would appear fuzzy at the edges. I thanked my defender, and we left. One we were on the street Four Eyes asked, “Who was that?” And because I didn’t know I had to respond, “Oh, you know, just one of my many fans.”

Love Sick

Eric and I had been seeing each other for two months when we were invited to a party being thrown by a friend of mine. She had just bought a great apartment with her boyfriend and invited all of us to come over for drinks and snacks

. Eric was a very light drinker. And of course, at that time so was I. I didn’t have much reason to drink then. But at the time, I wasn’t paying attention to how much he was drinking. We were both buzzed, but it wasn’t until the walk home that I realized how drunk he was. At Union Square, we stopped and sat on the curb in front of Barnes and Nobles. The first night we met, we had kissed for hours in Union Square in front of the statue by Carlysle Court. Now we sat there talking. I can’t remember about what or what prompted it, but he told me that he loved me. That he had been afraid to tell me even though he had felt that way for weeks. Although what exactly he was afraid of was impossible to say, he knew I loved him already.

I finally got him up to his dorm room where for reasons I can not understand he wanted me to come comfort him while he was sick. I kept my eyes closed, but rubbed his back while he threw up. Thus started the most important relationship of my life.

Not quite the moment I dreamed of as a little girl.

But certainly a harbinger of things to come.

Monkey Business

This story goes out to Blogmonkey who is always my IT team for Blogathon, my source for typhoo, and the only man's whose sock drawer I would consider living.

I don't what guy who I was in love with at the time, but whose name I can't remember now had upset me on this particular day, but I know I was crying at my desk.

The familiar blink of my msn messenger went off.

He had started off as a lurker on my site. I had traced him through my sitemeter and by commenting on his site, he openly started commenting on mine. Then the emails. Followed by emails. Not romantic you understand, just two single people struggling with their lives with similar tastes in cartoons unfortunately on opposite sides of the ocean.

But when I needed him, he was always there is his quiet British way. Never tried to "fix" me, never tried to talk me about of feeling badly just a kind of pat on the shoulder "I know what you mean" kind of guy.

I sat there with tears rolling off my cheeks trying to get myself together for class. And he told me not to cry. Which was sweet.

Being me, I had to write, "I don't understand why you care so much about some random idiot you've never met across an ocean crying at her desk."

And he had the perfect response which immediately cheered me up:

Because you're an idiot I've come to think of as a friend.

Even now I'm laughing as I write it.

Light My Fire

The first St. Patrick’s Day after September 11th was predictably insane. I hadn’t actually celebrated St. Patrick’s Day in years. I had done the parade and the requisite drinking one or two years when I first moved ere, but after that I lost interest. Anything that popular and crowded generally fails to hold my interest.

But the St. Patrick’s Day after September 11th was different. Any excuse to indulge in public drunkenness was embraced. I thought arriving at the neighborhood bar at around 1 pm would be early enough, but there were people who had been waiting for a seat at 10 am. Luckily, I was grabbed by a couple of hot firemen, and space was made. Hot drunk firemen. To me this was the equivalent of the Playboy Mansion.

One fireman, John, was particularly taken with me. He got me a Guinness and after about fifteen minutes of conversation he said, “Let’s get married.” “Sure,” I said. “No I mean it. There’s a bus to Atlantic City. Let’s get married.” “I’m saying OK.” “But where would we live? I mean I live in Westchester. Would you move there?” “Why not?” “I’m serious. I have a beautiful house.” “So am I.” “You don’t believe me.” At which point he dragged me out of the bar, called a number on his phone and said, “Hi Dad, this is the girl I’m going to marry,” and put me on the phone.

His father was predictably upset. I assured him that we weren’t going to do anything crazy like get married. I told him his son was being well looked after by his friends and not to worry. I hung up the phone. “Let’s go get married,” he said. “Why don’t we go on a date first?” I asked him. “Oh,” he responded balefully, “that never works.”

John kept trying to get me to marry him, I told him I couldn’t marry him that night, I had promised his father. “Well, what are you doing this weekend?” “I didn’t have any plans.” “Let’s get married this weekend.” “OK” I said to him. At around six at night his friends carted him home, but he took my number. Before he left, he kissed me long and deep. He was a good kisser even as drunk as he was.

He never called.

I’ve never admitted this, but the truth is if he had called, I would have married him.

The KKK Took My Baby Away

I went to a 75% Jewish high school. It wasn't a parochial school, but it was a very academically competitive school with a good reputation right by an enclave of rich Jews of which I was one. Go figure.

Well, strangely enough 3 neo nazis went to my high school. Two of them were white blonde and the other was kind of a dirty blonde if you really squinted and were partially colorblind.

Now why any neo nazi would want to come to a school dominated by Jews I can not undertsand unless they were REALLY ambitous or incredibly stupid.

I'm going to let you guess which side I'm coming down on.

Anyway, one of them happened to be in three of my classes. I noticed he looked at me alot, but then I figured he was silently hating me because not only was I Jewish, but I was also disabled and an intellectual. The neonazi hate trifecta.

Well, one day I was in the library and one of his white power friends comes over to me.

"Hey, you're in Jason's French class, right?"

I kept my nose in my copy of Cyrano de Bergerac as I answered, "Yeah sure."

"He's a pretty good looking guy."

"MMmmmmm."

"Nice one too."

"Hmmmmmm."

"You know, you two should go out."

"What?"

"Yeah. I mean, he's a good guy. You guys have a few classes together. You know like the same stuff."

"Like the same stuff? OK in case you haven't noticed I'm Jewish, disabled, AND intellectual which puts me right out. Read Mein Kampf again."

"Oh c'mon he really likes you."

"I can't tell you what kind of insult that is."

The conversation went on for another 20 minutes until I finally asked, "What do I have to say to you to convince I will never date your friend?"

He ended up dating another Jewish girl, who he beat on a regaular basis, which I guess is how he rationalized it.

Perspective

One summer I worked as box office for a very small "summer stock" theater in Upstate New York. It was just starting out then, and the woman running it was a former soap actress who basically came up with the theater so she would have a venue in which she could be Taken Seriously as an Actress.


The play that they were producing was an atrocity-this preachy piece about an older man who stumbles upon a college drop out in a hospital bathroom and they end up, of course, helping each other having an epiphany complete with flashing neon sign obvious symbolism and stilted dialogue. It was bad enough that I had to sit and watch this play THREE TIMES to help paper the not very surprisingly empty house, but I was sent to pick up the playwright and his girlfriend at the train.


Now I'm four foot six. Not a dwarf, not a midget, just short.


The playwright was about six three or so. So I load them into my car and start to drive them to their hotel which is only about 15 minutes away. We make small talk. He asks me how I like the play. I lie. And then he asks me, "So what is it like to be that tall?"


"Well, you know," I said, "I was only shorter than this and you were once this tall and continued to grow. So you have a better idea what it's like to be this height than I do."


He was silent for a moment. Then he said, "That's a very good answer."


"Yep," I agreed," to a very stupid question."

I Always Like to Keep My Audience Riveted

I was out with a group of friends at the local having a good time, when I went up to get a drink. A young guy about 23, good looking, nice body, blonde, blue eyed-my type started talking to me. When I first started talking to him, he seemed like he was tipsy, but not that drunk. Still he wasn’t that interesting. Nice body sure, but not nice enough to override my boredom. I would have found a way to extricate myself if he hadn’t mentioned that his girlfriend had just broken up with him. I couldn’t be just another rejecting woman, so when he offered me a drink I accepted. He asked me a few questions. And when I answered his attention seemed to stray. He kept asking me to repeat my name. I started to try to find a way to slip away. The opportunity came when he passed out stone cold in the middle of trying to talk me into staying for another drink.

Over Hill and Dale

When I was about five years old, I lived within walking distance of Mirror Lake. My favorite babysitter, Ursula, would walk up the hill with me to the little grocery store on the corner (it was called Universal, even though it was anything but) and buy the cheapest bread we could find. Then we would go and feed the ducks at Mirror Lake (which was really a glorified pond). We would often be met by two UCONN students, roommates, Sunny and Dale. Sunny was taller and blonde, while Dale was shorter with brown hair and eyes, but a fabulous smile.

It took me awhile to figure out that Sunny was Ursula’s boyfriend, and Dale was the good-natured friend brought along to entertain me. I couldn’t understand why Ursula would want Sunny because Dale had one quality that distinguished him as the perfect mate as only a five year old girl could see it. Dale could get the ducks to sit in his lap. To me this was the single most amazing feat of human achievement. That Ursula didn’t recognize it was, to my mind, a travesty of justice. So I did what I could to make him feel better, marveling at his abilities.

Unfortunately, as all things do, the relationship between Sunny and Ursula didn’t last and so I no longer saw Dale. Though I spent many days trying to charm the ducks to sit in my lap, I never succeeded.

All About Boys: An Introduction

I’ve always gotten along better with boys and so I have spent a great deal of my time in the company of men. After all these years, I have quite a cache of boy stories. My friends often treat me like a jukebox making requests for specific stories. I didn’t really quite know what to do with them aside from use them for cheap entertainment, and then I thought, “Well, I’ll use them to raise money for charity because that way at least something good will have come out of it.”

Not all of these stories are about dating, and the term “boy” has been applied here very loosely in some cases. Mainly this is just a celebration of some of both the stellar and the ridiculous moments I’ve had in my life because of boys. Some boys have only one story, others have several. Because of the time constraint, (there is no prewriting allowed) some very long stories have been split up into smaller stories. Feel free to make requests, ask questions, or tell me your own stories.

This blog is specifically for the 2006 Blogathon. I promised my mother last year that I would help raise money for the Columbia Memorial Hospital Foundation, but a few months ago I decided I also wanted to revive the project I did last year for the American Heart Association. So, in what I can only call one of the most misguided gestures to be performed in the name of charity, I, Bunni Speigelman, have decided to run two blogs during the blogathon.

My fulltime blog, Bunniblog, will be reviving my trivia game from last year. I'll be posting a line or a premise from a horror film every half hour. Readers have a half hour to correctly identify the film. At the end of 24 hours, the reader with the most correct identifications will win a small prize.Please feel free to stop by there and venture a guess or two.

This blog will be more of a literary project. I'll be posting 48 stories about boys. This is not to say they are all romantic stories. Some stories about male friends from colleges, others about men I worked with in the theater, but all promising more wacky hijinx than a Sex in the City marathon. To sponsor me go here Sponsor Me! or to get further information please go to the Blogathon site.