A Life Lesson In Gender Relationships

A girl must have her girls.

But when in doubt, when you're feeling very small and unsure and scared and alone...

Call on your boys.

Have a few good, solid, hearty guys in your life who you know will always pick up the phone. Who will always sound like hearing from you is Christmas morning all over again. Who will sit through you having a crisis of faith in everything from yourself, to others, to the real estate market, to the state of your lungs and just listen and let you get it all off your chest. Who, when they say, "it's just a few more weeks," makes it sound not only doable, but enjoyable.

Because while your girls know what they should say to make you feel better, your boys can say things to you that make you feel like you're back at home in someone's living room in your warmest, most comfy sweats, passing a bowl and smelling spilled beer and stale cigarette smoke.

It may not sound all that glamorous or comforting.

But my god, it is.

So here's to the men in my life who pick up those calls and listen to all the small, scared thoughts and are intuitive enough to say things like, "We miss you too, muffin," which is pretty much the psychological equivalent of a giant bear-hug from across the Atlantic. Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of this scared little unbeliever's heart. While I may have shitty luck in housing, the job market, and love, I am overly-blessed in my friends. And when it comes down to it, they usually have a couch and enough room in their life and love for your poor homeless ass, too.

XOXO

Planes, Trains, And Automobiles

Planes, trains, and automobiles are where I’ve been doing most of my learning here in Italy. Jetting off to new locations on mini-vacations has slightly settled my fear or flying, or, rather—my fear of crashing and burning. In the horrendous traffic and speeding cars in Rome and Dublin, I have trusted people enough to hand my life over to them and let my white-knuckled fingers go from clutching the seat. I always sit facing backward on trains. I like being able to see my past so I know what’s done and gone is really gone. Plus, travel, especially on slow trains, gives you hours and hours to think. Hindsight is an amazing thing. Once you start to gather together the pieces, the picture is astounding.

I’m a runner. It’s true, so I’ll admit to it. I don’t tend to face the hard stuff and have been known on numerous occasions to turn my back on it and put some distance between us instead. I am flawlessly passive-aggressive. I don’t like facing things head-on—I’d rather saunter around the side of it and meet you somewhere near the conclusion. But you can’t live life like that. Italy (which may possibly be my biggest runner ever,) and the circumstances I’ve dealt with while here have changed me, just like I expected and hoped they would.

I came with a purpose: to get better at saying what I wanted to say. To actually say what I needed to. And damn it, if I could learn to do it in Italian, there was no way in hell it couldn’t be easier in English by the end of these 3-plus months. But I never expected that there are some aspects of this trip that wouldn’t be so easy. I don’t know what I was thinking when I left—maybe it was exactly that, and that I wasn’t thinking. I was operating solely on survival mode, for the last two weeks in the States, and for the first month I was here. There was no time to think outside of the present and where I was and the what I was doing, RIGHTNOW. I didn’t have the luxury of time to think or dwell on what happened. I didn’t have the opportunity to miss people or be any less selfish than just thinking about myself. In other words, I was literally not thinking. I was not thinking about how my choices affected others. I was not thinking about how other people’s past choices affected the choices I was in the process of making. I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to put all those pieces together and to start to map out my present. It’s no wonder I got a little lost along the way.

I remember getting off of the train in Assisi and standing there at the entrance of the station, looking left, then right, then at the distant hilltop town far too far to walk to and being floored because I never expected that it wouldn’t be easy. I had been taking so many things for granted, or just not even choosing to think about how hard they might be that I had completely overestimated myself, right until the point at which I took a deep breath, turned to look at the bus schedule, and then walked into the station’s tabacchi shop and asked for a return-trip bus ticket, in Italian. That’s what terrifies me sometimes. Sometimes, it really is just as easy as stepping off one thing and onto another, and other times, you find that you’re out in the middle of nowhere with not a clue how you got there and not a clue where to go from there. And that's when it all hit me-- how lost I was, yet how sure I was about some things. How much I missed people and how far I'd come, literally and figuratively. How much I'd grown and changed. How much time I still had to pass, when, internally, I was pretty much done with what I had set out to do. The Number One fear of all children is that they will grow up to be exactly like their parents, and lately, I’m terrified that this could be it and 20 and I could find out I’m more like my mother than I really would like to admit to. I’m terrified by how fast time has passed. I’m terrified to prove everyone right, and all my friends wrong. I’m terrified to admit that I’m growing up and getting older, but I’m also terrified that I’m too young for all of this. I’m most terrified that this thought doesn’t scare me or even give me a moment’s sway. I went to Assisi, and I had an epiphany as I sat there in the train station.

As Holly Golighty asked in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”: “You know those days when you get the mean reds?”

Paul Varjak: “The mean reds, you mean like the blues?”

Holly Golightly: “No. The blues are because you're getting fat and maybe it's been raining too long, you're just sad that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?”

Paul Varjak: “Sure.”

Holly Golightly: “Well, when I get it the only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany's. Calms me down right away. The quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there. If I could find a real-life place that'd make me feel like Tiffany's, then - then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name!”

For me, the only thing that calms the mean reds and all the questions and terror of the unknown is the fact that in 45 days, I will be home. Every new sunrise brings me one day closer to being home. I can take all of the things that I’ve learned in Italy: how I am not afraid to ask if I’ve lost my way; how I have mellowed; how I can be confrontational—I can demand answers, and I can demand them in both English and Italian—; how I have learned about 20 other new life skills I did not have before, or did not know I was capable of and were hidden away somewhere inside of me, and I am going to bring this new girl home. I have changed, for better or for worse, which means that like it or not, my entire life has changed with me. So, like I recently discovered, even if I do somehow miraculously find an apartment, I don’t have a freaking bed to put in it. So it’s time to buy some furniture, and finally settle on a name for the cat. My path may be straight, but it’s not narrow. The mean reds are not here to stay.

XOXO

Daughters, Students, Friends, Lovers.

All the men in my life are inordinately worried about me being over here. My father keeps telling me to “have fun” like I’m not already eating the best food of my life or working my way through a bottle of wine that I buy completely legally, free and clear, every other night. A favorite professor sent me a very comforting email about how the initial “initiation” phase in Italy can be very tough, but I’ll get through it, fine. Geoff, if he had had the time before I left, wanted to string together all the empty .38 shells from our afternoon at the shooting range and make a necklace for me so no one would fuck with me when I was out and about. Twanthony writes me wordy and hilariously, disturbingly violent weekly emails from home about what’s going on at work, who he wants to lay waste to and why, and to keep up with my adventures in his native land. Robin and the boys upstairs walk with me, even in broad daylight, right up to the front door, as if I could be whisked away somewhere in the 100 feet between the corner and front stoop. And after the first night I almost called you as I did it to have someone to walk me home over the phone from across the Atlantic, I re-thought it and realized I won’t dare tell you that I do the 20 minute walk home from my late-night class in the south end of the city to my apartment in the north end alone, because after the multitude of “be safe”s and “come back soon”s and the rest of the unspoken worry that nested somewhere between your guarded eyes and furrowed eyebrows, I would not put it past you to pitch an unholy fit and start developing the beginnings of an ulcer.

“Be safe” seems to be the rallying cry of all the important men in my life right now.

This is all I can say to you: I am fine. Stop worrying—not all the way, but enough to just know that I am enjoying myself here, and being as safe as I can be, and I will do all that I can to return myself back state-side in one piece, save for some liver damage from all the good vino and home-made liquor and about half a lung less than I started out with—both self-damaged and from the unavoidable second-hand smoke. The women here like me because I am up-front and assured while still being polite. The men, so far, are a little mystified at an American girl who looks them straight in the face and doesn’t play coy or seem to overly want their attention. Eh. They’re pretty, alright, a collectively beautiful people, but too clingy and a little too poetic for my tastes. “We be together tonight?” is not in my registered vocabulary at the moment. This is not to say I mind the occasional familiar heavy lean against me while seated, or hand on my hip or arm around my waist. These things are as reassuring and informally intimate as hearing an old friend’s voice, or a firm handshake. But I don’t have time for broken English or flowery Italian. Give me my American boys and an intelligent and fully comprehendible conversation, and call me a happy girl.

So. I’m being safe. I’m having fun. Short of saying “I would live here,” I hope it gets the point across. And rest assured, I worry just as much about you all being there, and me being here. I can’t wait to see you again.

There. Properly satisfied? Are we clear? Are you a little less nervous? A little more soothed that I am not running off with random Italian counts to their villas in Tuscany? (Though, I have not yet actually met a count. If I do, the game might change.)

XOXO

Lessons In And Out Of Foreign Classrooms

Love is an eternal theme. Everyone wants it. If you told me today that I would never find love, today is the day that I would stop eating and start smoking every waking hour until I died. The idea of love and of being in love is so all-encompassing that we find we still question it as much, I believe, as they did centuries ago, from the age of the great philosophers who raised the intelligent questions, to the Renaissance, to the Romantic era, to today. Still, we find ourselves questioning—what is love? How do we know, either what it is, or when you find it?

It is often said that women tend to be more preoccupied with these questions and concepts then men, but men are, after all, still human. In a study-abroad program predominantly populated by young women (90% female, to 10% male participants), I was amused and interested to see that my Renaissance Theory of Love class has four men in it, a tremendously large and concentrated number for our small classes (they make up a third of that particular class). It makes me wonder—to what extent are men preoccupied with these questions?

The mere fact that so many signed up and showed up for a class such as this points to the fact that we are quick, as the female population, to assume that men aren’t as interested in these ideas as we are, when in fact, we know jack shit about how they really feel. I would feel safe in hypothesizing that although women are the ones doing the actual talking and external and internal agonizing and gossiping about it, men are just as invested in the subject as we are. After all, it takes two to make a pair, doesn’t it? And if we go back to that central idea what “everyone wants it,” that “everyone” includes men, too.

I need to start thinking and investigating how men approach the concepts of love. I’m exceedingly excited to see where in this class the similarities and differences in thinking lie.

In Plato’s “Symposium,” he discusses, through dialogue (a clever trick to contrast conflicting or agreeing arguments), how three philosophers of his time approached the idea of Love. Phaedrus, apparently an eternal optimist, points out that Love tends to bring out the best in people. He argues (in more words) that if someone is close to their lover or the object of their love and affection, they tend to feel as if they must act to a higher standard because of the proximity of someone whom they want to impress.

I think we can all agree this tends to true. Acting deplorably is usually the quickest way to turn someone off and drive them away, whereas we try to be as charming and winning and generally lovable as we can be, at least in the beginning stages of any relationship, platonic or otherwise. However, when distance is introduced between two people, static between who we really are and who we are trying to be often occurs. There are two popular contrasting phrases about this—“Distance makes the heart grow fonder,” and “Out of sight; out of mind.”

I am hesitant to jump onboard of either of these. Thousands of miles away from everything and everyone I know, I am fearful of the change that one of these phrases suggests, and skeptical of the other, seemingly too romantic, one. If the idea that being near to someone means that you try your hardest to inspire to someone else’s expectations and desires while still remaining true to yourself, but as soon as distance or other blocks are introduced, you return to your base instincts and engage in all sorts of less desirable and different behavior, what does this mean for the hopes or desires of both parties? What does it mean, in essence, for your relationship with the other person?

I have seen and lived this idea in action, both on the offended and offending sides. It’s not pretty, but it’s human. People are people. We are not infallible; we all make mistakes. We all give in to temptation and what is easy and settle for something at one point or another. I realize this. It’s natural. It’s millions of years of evolution and survival of the fittest. It’s something we should have figured out by now and reached some sort of conclusion on.

This being said, I still struggle with the idea. Having been there, I can only tell you this for logic—though I may not have followed through in physical action every time does not make me any less guilty. In my mind, I had already committed the crime. In my weakness and loneliness and sheer boredom, I was willing to do the same in that same situation. Is it the same? Is that how you justified it? Can you justify it? Can we ever justify what we do by who we are, or who we are by what we do, or is there someone, like a companion or lover or friend, we have to hold ourselves accountable to? Do we need someone to strive for, or should we be able to do it on our own, for ourselves and for the idea of being someone better? Though I am supposedly in Italy to figure out who I really am in the first place and how to relate myself and my desires and emotions to others, I shy at this idea of having to justify myself to anyone else. I remember, clearly, vividly, going back to that specific moment, considering carefully my two options, wondering if I would have to explain myself. Wondering if I would have to confess; if I could be able to confess. In a world where we are so used to only thinking about ourselves, I realized my shortcomings at this moment in which I realized that I wanted to be accountable only to myself, the gentlest audience, and not anyone else who I might want to be better for. From this, I realized I am weaker than you may be. I realized that where I was willing to sweep my indisgressions under the carpet and ignore them and pretend they did not exist, that I was as normal and flawed as I really am, it is the bigger person who acknowledges these causalities and faces them and explains them.

As we explored this idea in class, I realized that though I should only be worrying about me right now, in this strange city full of strange strangers, grappling with the strangeness that is getting to know the me inside of me, instead, I am worried about other people.

Normally confident, Italy has already chipped away at one hastily-plastered over façade of mine, and I find myself facing the first challenge to grapple with: I am not as sure of anything as I think I am.

In the same dialogue, Plato introduces through Aristophanes an old myth—once, there were three genders: male, female, and man-woman. These creatures were made of two distinct people, joined together at the back—four arms, four legs upon which they walked upright, one head on one neck with two symmetrical faces, separate sex organs, but all similar characteristics. These creatures were, as people tend to be, rather power-hungry, and because of their extreme strength and joint cunning, the gods grew worried that they would try to overthrow them, as the giants and Titans did. So after much consideration, Zeus came up with what seemed to him to be a reasonable solution: to cleave them in two, down the middle, severing their strength and capabilities by half. If they were still too much to handle after this, he was prepared to again sever them, rendering them to hopping beings with one leg and one arm.

The gods were shocked to find that after the cleaving, the formerly joined pairs clung together, and refused to eat or sleep or do anything of use, so grieved they were to be separated from each other, until one of them or both of them eventually died. If one of a pair died, the other would then go wandering, searching for a like half—if the creature had been originally man/man, they searched for another man. Women/women halves searched for another woman, and man/woman survivors searched for their other opposite gender half until they found that lost half that they then joined with, as closely as they could without being one entity anymore—two people, retaining their autonomy and independence, while still being part of a fully-functional couple. The ideal relationship.

Not only does this myth quite neatly sum up the idea that no matter what shape or form it comes in (heterosexual or homosexual or anything in between), Love is the same idea, it also brings us another popular phrase, explained. Your “other half.” The idea that someone, somewhere, will fit you as surely as if you were split down the middle from the same original form and sent on your separate ways until you find one another. That, I believe, is what Love really is. As a friend of mine once said, it is finding someone “who fills a part of you you never knew was empty before.”

“What’s it like to find someone who you can be comfortable with?” another friend of mine once asked.

“It’s using their same toothpaste and smoking their cigarettes,” I told her before even stopping to think about formulating an answer that actually makes sense. “It’s how one person can say to you, ‘We need to do this,’ and when you ask why, they give you 15 different answers, and not a single one makes sense, but when the right person says ‘We need to do this,’ and you ask them why, they give you one answer, and that’s the answer that makes sense to you, too. It’s finding someone who says out-loud to you what that little voice in your head is always telling you, but you don’t actually believe until you hear them say it.”

And that, also, it what makes us human, and makes up for out inherent weaknesses—the idea that we can, and would want to, somehow actually change and become a more solid person, for someone other than ourself.

---

I’m finding my Pairing Food and Wine class to be an allegory for life: To be good at tasting, you have to have to have done lots of other eating and drinking and smelling and exploring. It’s important to have lived a full and diverse life before you try to put any of it to practical use. You must be wildly impractical and experimental and daring before you can start to build any sort of solid foundation that you would stake any sort of basis on. You must, through trial and error, find what works, and what does not. You must have someone first show you clearly what you are looking for or working to find, and then you must go after it with nearly suicidal tenacity until you find that you can realize it for yourself, by yourself. As my professor in this class, Giancarlo Russo, said, “Drinking is to do without thinking. To truly taste, you need to concentrate fully for at least one or two minutes on nothing else.”

This is what I am doing in Italy. I am eating and drinking and smelling and exploring, and concentrating fully on myself for three months. Like the wine we drink in that class, I am aging. I am tasting, and learning to trust my instincts and speak my mind, even if I am afraid that I am confusing the smell of white berries for that of pineapple, like I am finding the subtle nuances that I never knew existed within myself in the hopes that by the time I return to what it is I do know, I will know more about myself and where and how I fit in, or how I want or need to fit.

---

The lines between reality and fiction are easily blended, especially for a writer. The fine point between the two was raised in my first Women in 20th Century Fiction class, and how we define “reality.”

It’s a tricky little question. One is tempted to say that reality is the action and experiences that one goes through in daily life; the world we live in. However, reality is different for every single person. You may share the same experience with someone, but the reality of the situation is interpreted differently by all involved. The interpretation tends to become the reality for someone, itself, which, I can tell you, is a Gemini’s curse. To a greater or lesser extent, we all tend to believe what we want out of a situation, and rely heavily on that belief to guide our thoughts or actions in regards to it. Reality, then, becomes the extents of what we think is possible.

Without the concept of “reality” like a rigid framework or cage around us, so much more would be possible—you would not have the previous concept or opinion that something is not “feasible”—that it is up to you to bend and stretch the frame of reality for yourself and see what you can actually accomplish if you don’t worry about where other people have failed before and staked the signpost of “impossible—it can’t or shouldn’t be done.” No one is an exception or a rule—we are all blissfully individual and unique, with different strengths, talents, fortes, and ambitions. Someone with less perseverance may have not been able to accomplish something, but if you have more fortitude, tenacity, cunning craftiness, or just sheer bull-headed stubbornness, you may blow away all previous expectations. As my professor said, “Words change the meaning of the world.” Your own definition of reality may shatter someone else’s.

---

“Sex” and the “College Girl”:

Interesting:
Oxford Dictionary’s definition of “sex”: “Condition of being male or female; gender. // Sexual intercourse.”

As you may have noted by now, the title of this blog is “Sex and the College Girl.” Not only is this a titillating marketing mechanism, as I’m sure some of you characters who stumbled your way here typing like-minded words into a search engine in aims of finding something quite different, but it also is almost stupidly apparent in its meaning of what the purpose of this blog is. On one hand, yes, I am a college girl, and yes, I do occasionally discuss sex and similar themes. But the other point to this blog is that I am exploring topics from the point of view of a specific gender—the condition of being a female college student and how my gender and station in life affects the situations I find myself in or explore. It’s an interesting little double-edged sword—cerebral one minute, smutty the next. I love the duality of it.

XOXO

Ciao, Bellas!: Goodbyes Before The Great Adventure Begins

"We're not going to encourage you to cross an ocean. We're selfish bitches who like you where you are."- Samantha, Sex and the City, Season 6.

In 24 hours, I will be somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean between Boston and Italy. I have 2 bags packed fully to the brim, my student visa and passport, 3 guidebooks, 3 new novels (2 bought, 1 very contentedly borrowed,) and lots and lots of people I don't want to leave.
...And a horse. She's equally, if not more, important.

The funny thing with the people who are close to you is that you can always, always, invariably tell when they are doing something strictly for your sake and trying to hide their real feelings on the subject. There is always the person who is not so keen on your leaving who knows that they should be excited for you, and so tries to pretend to be excited for you so that you aren't worried about them, because they are worried about you, and you just start a whole circle of projected feelings.
"I'm excited."
"Good. You should be excited." (Falsely cheerily.)
"...I'm coming back, you know. Don't worry."
"I'm not worried."
"You're so worried. And I'm worried about your being worried."

I can't be excited if you're worried. I'm worried about you. Me, I could care less about. So you care about me, and I'll care about you, and we'll both pledge to be nervous but excited for each other, and in no time flat, I'll be back. Easy as pie. Chocolate mud pie. My favorite.

Some don't try to hide it. Some, like Samantha, tell it to you exactly how it is. Friends are funny. They do unexpected things for your benefit that you never expect and then you have to balance their love for you with the situation at hand to see it from their perspective. (I recently remembered the fact that when a good friend of yours says they're going to do something, they usually do it. So take them seriously, or you're going to be the one feeling your jaw drop against the desk in shock.)

"I'm inviting you to go to France, not to jail."- Alec.
"I just--"- Carrie
"Have more questions?"- Alec
"Yes. I'm not finished with New York."- Carrie, all Sex and the City, all Season 6.

You always leave for a trip sooner than you want to. Universal truth. Am I ready? No. Am I going to do my best? Yes. I may or may not have mulishly not planned some details, like, plotting points around the city in regards to the college or my apartment because, frankly, at this point, all of the paperwork and planning has left very little room for the adventure in this adventure, and I really would just like to get lost enough to have no other options than stop wandering, find a good bar, sit down, and just...let it go.

If there is one thing I have learned recently, it's that when something keeps popping up unexpectedly-- a book, a person, a place-- you better face it head-on and get over your shit, because if you don't, you're just going to waste time and an opportunity. You can't deny what is right in front of you. You can try like hell, but sometimes, it's just best to stop the fight and resign yourself to the fact that at times, things greater than your own force of nature are at work. Sometimes, it's to help you. Sometimes, it's to teach you a lesson. And other times, it's to open you up to possibilities you never imagined were possible.

When two things work in tandem, they are always stronger and more sure than one. Remember this. Find someone or something else that works at your speed, and don't give up on it easily.

"There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous."- Carrie, Sex and the City, Season 6.

So here's to traveling and friends and letting go and new adventures. Speaking of, I have no idea when or how I will be getting internet access in Florence, so I'll do my best, but it may be a little while. Rest assured, I'll be back.

Ciao, bellas! I love all y'all.
XOXO

Ciao, Bellas!

Special announcement.

This little college girl was just accepted to study abroad at the Scuola Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence, Italy, this coming Spring Semester.

"Sex and the College Girl" will be going international, babies!

Fantastica!

Men of the world, watch out!

XOXO

P.S-- I will also be in Montreal this weekend. So close, yet so far to Miss Sarah. By like, all of Canada. :( But really-- look-- legitimately international!

P.P.S-- Sooooo manyyy exclamation points...

S.O.S-- Save Our (Relation)Shipping: Care Packages From The Killer-Cool Not-Girlfriend.

So, another dilemma calls for another mass poll. I'm sending Perfect a care package at college. That much has already been decided. Mainly because I texted him this afternoon for his mailing address. Some flirting and trying to weasel out of my what I was sending him later, I got his address. He didn't get any hints as to what I'm sending other than me saying "it's totally you and I don't think you could/should live without it."

At the beginning, the care package consisted of the book that sprouted this whole idea, The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook, and a card. It's true-- the WCSSH lived on my bookshelf for awhile, and has been lent to a couple exes and boys in the past, but when I looked at it with fresh eyes a week ago, I was like, "Damn, that is so perfectly Perfect. How to land a plane? How to fend off a shark? How to deliver a baby in a taxicab? How to jump off a bridge into water? Hey, wait-- this may keep him alive longer and safer when jumping off concrete barriers at the Mills!" I am all for keeping him alive longer.

So we started with the book and a card. As of 3 PM this afternoon while I was texting him for his address, that was what the care package consisted of. But give me time to think, money in my bank account, and the challenge of being the world's best Not-Girlfriend, and I get dangerous.

"I need another little something," I thought. So while card-shopping at Borders (we'll get to the card itself later), I picked up a few Vermont postcards thinking of scrawling a "Greetings from Home!" on the back of one if I could find one of Montpelier.

I one-upped myself.

Almost right after I finished that thought, I picked up one of a beautiful rural town in winter and flipped it over to read the location. Worcester. I can take a sign.

So we have the book, the (soon-to-be-infamous) card, and the postcard of Worcester/home. But no-- this wasn't cutting it. I needed something fun. I needed something that Spencer's Gifts didn't sell because I wanted something neither beer- nor sex-themed because I don't want him A.) drinking his way into another girl's vagina with the help of my loving gift, or B.) in another girl's vagina with the help of my loving gift. Melissa suggested a mini First Aid kit to go with the WCSSH. Perfect. Helpful, and themed. I loved it. To EMS we went.

But as we're standing in EMS debating over small First Aid kits, I get struck with a thought. I don't want to be considered the (gasp!) Mommy Girl. I don't want to be thought of as the girl who's constantly telling him to be careful and watch out and oh go, don't do that! I want to be the fun girl who sends great care packages. I want to be the best Not-Girlfriend there ever was. I needed...something fun. And a mini battery-operated light-flashing frisbee was fun. There was only a moment of worry about the fact that while I can palm it comfortable, Perfect's hands will eat it up-- what the hell? It's a mini light-up frisbee! It's great! It's...dare I say? PERFECT.

At the register, after forking over my debit card for the umpteenth time that day, the guy behind the counter looks at me. "Hey. How are you?"

I huff a sigh. "I'm good."

"That doesn't sound good."

"Well, I'm just trying to put together a care package for my guy and spending more time and thought and money on it than I thought I would be originally. But I guess it's a good day if you're having a hissy-fit over being generous."

And then this total stranger said something while ringing me out that made my ears ring. "Hopefully he's not out drunk and hooking up with another girl."

Ummm, EXCUSE ME? I worry enough about this on my own time. Aren't you paid to make your customers feel GOOD?! Thankfully, after seeing my glazed and then bitchy expression (the bitchy more at the thought of what if Perfect is out getting some other girl off rightthissecond), Register Dude calmed his shit down and assured me I was putting together a kick-ass care package a guy would love. Thanks.

So...we have the WCSSH. The Worcester postcard. The mini First Aid kit, which will totally be used, with Band-Aids and athletic tape and aspirin and alcohol wipes...yeah, I feel good about that one...and the mini light-up frisbee, which is a great homework breaker and roommate bonder. (Melissa, my roommate of the past 3 years, bonded over a light-up rubber ball our freshmen year. Anything light-up and toy-themed is apparently the key to roomie love in college.) And then...there's the card.

Oh, the card. I have to say, I'm not really posting this to sway my mind about sending it. I'm posting this to see the responses I get A.) about the care package items and if you think Perfect will like/enjoy/use them/love me a little more for sending them, B.) to see how many of you think I'm totally off my rocker for sending this boy a care package, even though I send EVERYONE car packages, (They're kind of my deal. I make bitchin' things to send to people. Although it's usually to my girl friends and that's why I'm freaking out so much about this particular very "boy" care package,) and C.) to prepare for what Perfect may think about the card. Regardless, that card, and it's message, are going into the care package box tomorrow. Perfect knows my humor. I know what he takes seriously and what he doesn't. If I can get away with telling him one of my other lovers took the sexy pics of me, I can get the point of this card across in the way it's supposed to be-- funny college sexy humor-- and not the way I wouldn't want it to be taken-- I want him to follow the directions on it because I'M SO IN LOVE WITH HIM.

I'm not. To clear up any questions. I adore him with all my heart, and I do love him, but I'm not IN love with him. I still haven't had enough time or time with him to see if he's someone I could be in love with. My gut tells me that yes, given time and the chance, I could, but my mind is telling me I've had neither time nor the chance.

...Although it was pointed out that we have now known each other for 5 months and been more or less together for all of it. (I'm going for the "less." True, for the first month we were solidly together, but June and July were iffy and weirdly polite and formal and non-thrilling. August and September are shaping up well though as to the Return of the "Us.")

So. The card. It reads on the front: "How to please a woman? Love her, die for her, take her to dinner, miss the football for her, buy her jewelery, be interested in what she has to say... How to please a man? Show up naked; bring beer."

The inside is blank. In it, I plan to write, "Sorry-- couldn't ship any beer."

See? Funny. Light. College. Not crazy wannabe housewife and babymama. No pointed hints that I want him to skip the football or buy me jewelry. In fact, I would yell at him if he turned the football off, and my father the goldsmith and jeweler is the only man I accept jewelry from, thanks. I also plan on writing some other little stuff about the contents, like "Have fun, and the First Aid kit is for when you need to stick yourself back together after jumping off those buildings and wrestling those alligators," (referencing inside the WCSSH). Keep it light. Keep the front of the card and him thinking about me, naked, with beer, and the inside calm, cool, collected, sweet, and funny. The best Not-Girlfriend there ever was, in other words. The kind of thing that will make him want to take this Not-Girlfriend and tear the "Not" right off of the beginning.

So, loyal readers, what do you think? Is this a winning care package? Will my dyslexic Prince Charming be so taken with the survival guide's quirky subject matter that he'll maybe read some parts of it and keep himself alive a bit longer and not succumb to a random drive-by shooting or shark attack in quintessential, land-locked New England-town Fitchburg, Mass? Does this score me major boy brownie points, and, as I screamed in the parking lot outside of EMS to Melissa, not realizing that there were families waiting to get into the Italian restaurant next door, does this at least deserve getting fucking laid next time I see him? (The amount I have spent will remain a secret known only to me, but in any case, the sex would be worth it. I don't expect a care package of my own back, unless you're counting the package inside his jeans, and then, YES PLEASE.) And, how do you think the card will go over? Hmmm? Hmmm???

Tell me. I'm all ears.

...And eyes and lips and arms and legs and boobs. Of course. Sillies.

XOXO

Settling In The City, and The Chains That Bind.

[“So are you a pipe, or are you a diamond? Because pipes burst under pressure, but diamonds are made.”]

Life’s a funny little bitch. Sometimes, just when things are going right, a wrench gets thrown into the works from somewhere unidentifiable, and then you’re left sitting on your ass, wheels spinning in the air kind of uselessly. Basically, you’re wasting time for a bit.

That’s what I feel like I’m doing right now: wasting some time. Perfect is still rather incommunicado, though we did text back and forth a few times yesterday. Knowing that I’ve been getting the same treatment (if not more contact,) than his family and his other friends keeps me even most days. Also, I’m reminded of something Cait said once: Perfect likes to get close and cling to people, and then he likes to have his space for awhile. Admittedly, we were pretty close in contact the week before he left for college—I’m considering this a good time to let that contact a little loose, give him his head (as we say in the horse world), and let him settle in a bit.

In the meantime, I’ve been doing little things: sending him video clips of guys in flying-squirrel suits jumping off of cliffs in Switzerland and coasting the airstreams; setting up play-dates for him and two of my guy friends who also love downhill and free-ride biking when he comes back home for a visit; and just generally keeping a watch on him from the wings. He’s tired; he’s struggling with being back in school already; he’s being run weary by meeting people, commitments, and starting training for the track season. I don’t need to be another burden right now. I’m being the coolest non-girlfriend there ever was—he better realize I’m the shit.

Meanwhile, I’ve been getting some interesting developments of my own. I get lonely too, you know. I like testosterone and male company in my life. I love to flirt. And lately, there’s been no shortage of available men. I’ve been bumping into my beautiful Writing Lab Boy everywhere, who apparently saw me everywhere this summer: at the mall, on the beach, at a party, on the street, in the gym. (I am so happy I looked tan and fit and good in my itty bitty bikini this summer. Thank you, lord.) The other day, riding the god-awful-early-morning bus to campus for my 8 AM class, Blowdryer Boy sat next to me. The heat coming off of him along with the smell of his cologne and shampoo was almost intoxicating in my early morning haze. (The Bailey’s Irish Crème that may or may not have been in my coffee also helped with this haziness—both to add to it and then erase it. Yes to starting out shitty mornings the good way.)

Blowdryer Boy is one of those people who exist in my group of friends whose path sometimes brushes up against mine. For awhile last spring, I flirted with the idea of ending up in bed with him. I didn’t, though, and most of the time, I’m sure I made the right choice.

The night before, I had had the shittiest night’s sleep since May. I crammed for three hours with homework, and then was kept up from 12:15 to 1:30 by my roommate’s pseudo-boy and his friend laughing in the living room. I woke up at 6 AM, for some reason thinking I had to take the 7:10 bus, and not the 7:35 bus, meaning I missed out on an extra thirty minutes of sleep. By the time I got around to making my coffee, I was already thoroughly disenchanted with life. Missing Perfect profusely—that was the shitty night’s sleep; the feeling of him being there was gone, snapped like a guitar string—and having Blowdryer Boy so near tempted me into the “what ifs” that I generally like to try and stay out of. Like I’ve said, I’m generally a one-man woman. But sometimes, distance and no word can get to be a little much on my nerves and heart.

So sometimes, like this other morning, I like to think about it. But when it comes down to it, Blowdryer Boy would be settling after Perfect. Blowdryer Boy would just be a waste of time and a warm body to replace the warm body that I really want. (And I’m pretty sure that most of the time, Blowdryer Boy can be bitchier than I am.)

Also, I recently found out what happens when you play with other people’s private property: you get fixed up. Generally, I try to keep my hands to myself in matter like this, but there’s this beautiful sport bike that lives in the same parking garage as my Civvy, and Alli and I recently did an impromptu photo-op with it. We touched it as little as possible while still admiring it and handling it with care, and then I posted the pictures on my Facebook profile, thinking that in my protected and private account they’d be safe from any angry Hell’s Angel owners looking for revenge and a new leather jacket made of my skinned hide for touching his bike.

Well, surprise. Facebook—it’s not that safe anymore, kids, at least not when you have mutual friends with said bike owner. A few days after the pictures went live, I got a comment from a friend who said they knew the owner. The next morning, I got a friend request from the guy. I accepted it, thinking, hey—I played on his bike. Might as well be nice. Fortunately, instead of being a hulking antichrist, the guy turned out to be a stocky senior. Who reverted back to the third-grade playground practice of asking our mutual friend to ask me if I’d be willing to meet him for a set-up.

Actually, it went more like this:

Mutual Friend: “Motorcycle Boy would like to meet you; shall I set up a meeting?”

Me, hemming and hawing about if I really wanted to do this: “I'm kinda figuring things out with the guy I was seeing this past summer, so I feel the need to get that disclaimer out there in the disclaimer of not leading anyone on, but seeing as he (unknowingly) let me molest his bike, I would say it's only fair to be able to apologize/thank him in person. Plus, I love meeting new people!”

I thought I was pretty clear about the fact I wasn’t looking for anything more than a new acquaintance. Apparently not, though.

Mutual Friend: “Haha, he was like "Pam I wanna meet this girl!" He’s a sweet guy, haha. He's leaving in December I think, anyway, so it doesn't have to be anything serious. He said he Facebook friended you, so I dunno if he's messaged you yet or not.”

No, he hadn’t. He’s letting our friend do his dirty-work for him. But whatever. I want to get on that bike, come hell, high water, or a fix-up. I just know to be very up-front about the fact that I am in what I’ve taken to calling a “beautifully complicated and daily-evolving relationship.” But seriously. I want to get on that bike. It’s worth it. And new friends are nice, too.

All these boys suddenly crawling out of the woodwork are making me wonder: could I really settle for one of them while I wait for Perfect? The more and more I look at it, the more and more I realize how easy this whole thing is, really. You are attracted to someone. You let your interest be known. You resist the urge to do the right thing and get to know them or categorize your feelings, and instead, just fall into bed with them. You wake up, get dressed, and walk out. Done. Simple. Over.

Can I do that, though? Could I use one person while wanting another? My heart says “no,” while sometimes, my mind whispers “yes.” Perfect would never need to know; Perfect is probably off doing the same thing with all the soft little freshmen co-eds, and that’s why he’s so tired, my mind whispers to me. Just do it. Just work out your frustration and your lust and your feelings on someone else. Don’t waste time, and youth, and beauty, and your body. Don’t go another year without sex. There’s no reason to.

But at night, at times like this, lying on my bed, the bed I slept with Perfect in, and loved Perfect in, in the same sheets that still, months later, at times still hold wisps of his scent, I think no, no, no, no—I could never do it. I miss him, and I want him, and no one else is going to replace him or fill his hole. To try and do so would be me, settling. And after my many past frog princes, settling is one thing I told myself I’d never do again. Settling was the rut that Perfect saw me in and pulled me out. Settling was what he told me I didn’t deserve.

But, am I settling for this distance between us? The air in this state feels so empty, sometimes it’s hard for me to breathe around the hole that seems to be there; something suddenly missing. It feels like there’s a hole in my Vermont, and you better believe it’s a huge one, because that boy is massive. At any given point in time, I can give you a general idea of in what direction the important people in my life lie. It’s a spider-web of love that crisscrosses the U.S, sometimes even the globe, of what I imagine being thin gold chains running from my heart to the other person’s.

The best way I ever heard this phenomenon described was in Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus’s novel, Dedication. (Which I highly recommend, by the way, especially for people who have ever had any interested in the musician/muse relationship.) As Kate Hollis, their main character and heroine, they write:

“…I feel this thing take root in my stomach, this rubber band thing as Jake Sharpe comes back from the concession stand. A twinge tells me to turn around and, sure enough, he has just walked in the doors at the top of the dark aisle. The band tightens as his narrow silhouette approaches. Then, when he slides past I tuck my legs up on my chair and our eyes meet…and it is taut between us. Loosening as he plunks himself at the other end next to Benjy… I slide my hand to the center of my chest while staring up at the screen. This thing is different from living down Jake Sharpe, different from avoiding Jake Sharpe, even different from knowing Jake Sharpe thinks about what I look like. This new Jake Sharpe thing is happening inside me, all the way at the core… I am piano-bench straight, every inch of me realigning to this new state, this Jake Sharpe Compass I have just become” (McLaughlin/Kraus 68-69.)

Like Kate, if you ask where someone is, I can point, assuredly, in a direction after a moment’s thought, giving that little heart-string a gentle mental tug, and waiting to feel in what direction the pull back comes from. It’s how I also know what direction home is. It’s how I know where my roommates are; where my best and dearest and closest friends from home are; the sisters of my heart and mind and soul. And it’s how I can feel Perfect. What once used to be a thick and relatively short gold chain, full of feelings running back and forth this summer is now one of the thinnest links; one that is full of static and loss of sensation and makes me feel empty in the pit of my stomach and heart. There isn’t that proximity. There isn’t the thought that we’re only a less-than-an-hour drive away from each other, if we really needed to be there, standing next to each other, breathing the same air, and sharing the same space, feeling that electric crackle in the air, and then the sublime stillness that I feel when my body is molded seamlessly up against his—weight on weight, cloth sticking to cloth, skin on skin, hands on body, no start and no finish to us.

Instead, I have this three-hundred mile long chain, and a tentative grip on it. I give it a little pull, and wait for it to jingle back in response. Sometimes the return tug is long in coming. I begin to unravel a little bit, but for the most part, I hold strong, using sticky tape and gritted teeth to keep this girl together. I’m tough. I’ve been through worse. I can do this. I want this. I’m a fighter; I don’t just lie down and cry and give in. If he needs his time and his space to settle in and make his life kosher, than I can damn well have the same time and space to use to my own advantage. There’s always more work I can do on myself. Just like whatever is happening between Perfect and I, I am also always a masterpiece in progress, some days darker and more linear, some days bright and effervescent. There’s really never any telling, anyway.

Looking at being part of a relationship like this: he needs his time, I need my time to have no idea what the hell I’m doing and to grapple with feelings—we’re both in different states, at different colleges, leading different lives—how do you try and integrate someone like a significant other into your life like that? How does it work, really? Can two people living in two different circles stay together with themselves as the only constant and shared thing?

[If I never sing another song, another song, another song…can I still sing your tune?]

XOXO

Ruckus On State Street: The Montpelier and Worcester Diaries

Last Sunday, I put $10 worth of gas in my car, filled my tire with a slow leak up with air, and loaded Alli and Emily into the Civvy for a girl’s getaway day to Montpelier. There are some things that girl friends have to do with each other as mandatory summer friend-community service, and road trips are one of those things. We had an iPod full of summer driving songs, sunglasses, cell phones, and a need to all get out of town. It was one of those days that just feels amazing for a reason you can’t put your finger on.

By now, I’m a champ at driving 89 into Montpelier and getting around town. Because parking was the only thing that I hadn’t done before in the city, we decided to take the easiest option out, park at Shaw’s, and walk. We figured we’d be killing two objectives in one go—getting some exercise, and window-shopping. We stopped in to Splash and Spangle, which is basically Montpelier’s answer to Burlington’s Bella Donna and Queen Anne’s Lace. A rock shop (and by “rock,” I mean those things you find on the ground, but of the pretty variety) on the corner of Main Street and State Street caught Alli’s eye, but unfortunately, it was closed. That’s what you get for going city-hopping on a Sunday.

Capitol Grounds, however, was open and bustling. I ordered a Capitol Chill—their version of a Coffee Coolata—with hazelnut flavoring from a barista who looked so familiar it weirded me out until I came up with the only excuse possible—she was either one of Perfect or Cait’s Facebook friends whose profile picture, and so, face, I’d seen before. We both gave each other curious looks, so I think the feeling was mutual. That’s the one weird thing about Facebook—far-flung friends of friends aren’t strangers anymore when they’re staring you in the face on someone’s comment wall.

After getting our iced coffees and such to go, we wandered right past Perfect’s place of employment (and no, my curiosity did not get the better of me and I did not peek into the front windows like I wanted to so badly,) and to the State House’s lawn and front steps where we followed Alli’s idea to “really stir up something crazy so if Perfect or John hear about it, they’ll know it was us,” and put my native Vermonter’s tax dollars at work by turning it inside-out to be our “we’re twenty-somethings with a camera and taste for adventure” playground. There were cannons to be climbed on, statues to mock, lamp-posts to swing around, marble to be danced on, trees to be climbed…you get the drift. If there is one thing that you cannot accuse me of, it is taking myself too seriously. I still love to play like a little kid. The pictures posted here from that day are proof of it. The first thing I did upon approaching the lawn was to kick off my flip-flops and go skipping off, shoes, coffee and Ralph Lauren purse in hand.

We spent about an hour lounging literally on the Capitol, having girl-talk, sorting out the world’s problems, making lewd and salacious comments, and generally soaking in the gorgeous and finally present sun’s rays. As we started our trek back to the car, a motorcyclist checked us out so hard he almost tripped his moving bike over by overcompensating. We laughed openly at this, although I think that we all know that while we may make fun of guys for doing this now, there’s going to be a time down the road when it doesn’t happen anymore, so secretly, or not so secretly, we cherish it now.

Not so cute was the old flat-black-painted pick-up truck of three twenty-something guys. It was cute the first time they passed us heading out of town, as the half-naked and attractive guy in the passenger’s seat hung a little further out the window to grin at us as we grinned back at him, maybe a little too convincingly, because when they passed us again on route 12, passenger now hanging his upper body out of the car to get a good look at us, they pulled over, let us pass, and then pulled out behind us. And proceeded to follow us almost all the way in to Worcester. Normally, Alli, Em and I are pretty cool customers—it takes a lot to flap Alli, whose father is an ex-UFC fighter and who herself can take down an over 200 pound man singlehandedly; as for myself, having too much bravado for my own good and an ex-Marine for a father who taught me a thing or two, “fear” usually isn’t a word in my vocabulary—but after the flattery of this event wore off, it left us rather worried. Thankfully, I knew two different ways to get to where we were going to the Pots, and one way travelled right past John’s mom’s house. It was decided that if the followed us up Minister Brook Road, we would pull into John’s driveway, hoping he was there and all 6-foot-one, lanky sapling body and sweet nature of his could save us. We would go to Perfect’s house, just up the road from John’s, only in the utmost dire situation. The idea of landing unannounced on his doorstep that had never been shown to me, merely explained where it was, chilled me more to the bone than the idea of having to tell three Montpelier guys to back off at a local swimming hole. Alli, the official road trip video girl, got this entire episode on tape. Possibly the most self-telling moment of this entire situation was when after I bombed across a bridge under construction to try and put space between the Civvy and the black truck that remained close to my bumper, Alli caught my distress mantra on tape.

“John, be home, be home; oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please,” I chanted under my breath, and then after glancing back into my rear-view window, did the only thing that came naturally to me at that second: opened my mouth and wailed Perfect’s name is distress.

“PEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERFEEEEEEEEEEEEECT!!!” (Um. Ok. Granted, I yelled his real name and not his nickname, but you get the idea.)

Perfect, all 6'3" and 204 muscular pounds of him with his voice that sounds like it originates around his kneecaps, could certainly give our pseudo-stalkers pause. Perfect, with all the time I spent next to him, reassured me by nothing more than proximity. Perfect, the hulking manbeast of sheer strength and belly laughs, still is categorized in my mental Rolodex under “Protector.” Perfect is still the first person I think of for help when in a crisis.

…And Perfect was at home and so, out of cell-phone range for receiving any calls either about our needing to be rescued or to meet up to swim with us.

Luckily, the pick-up truck of men pulled over when we crossed the border into Worcester, probably thinking that they’d followed us far enough with us showing no signs of stopping or pulling over. We continued to the Pots happily, if not shakily, passing John’s house—sans a John, so that plan wouldn’t have worked—and went swimming in the refreshingly glacial waters. Knowing that the plan had been to try and meet up with Perfect and/or John to inject some testosterone into our Girl’s Day, Alli and Em both kept a close eye and question on my well-being when that plan fell flat due to Verizon’s lack of cell phone towers on Worcester Mountain. What bothered me even more than the fact that neither of them were there was the fact that I had inadvertently stumbled upon the fact with the “help” of the guys in the truck that Perfect is still my go-to guy in a time of need. I still, maybe foolishly, rely on Perfect to protect me, get me through things, and be there for me, when in reality, I don’t really know if I could trust in him to do those things for me.

In the long run, however, it seemed maybe better off that the guys hadn’t met us. We all ended up getting creepy little crawly bugs from the stone waterslide in our bathing suits, and there was a lot of bare ass being shown as girly shrieks pierced the air, prompting me to come up with the term “Beasty Cave” as a synonym for “vagina.”

“You know,” I said to Emily. “That’s where I keep my pets. Sometimes, a one-eyed snake even lives in it.”

On the way home from Montpelier, after working myself into a righteous anger with Alli and Em about how Perfect was now “officially avoiding me” or so it seemed since it had been bordering on a month since we had last seen each other, I received a text from a perfectly contrite Perfect.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was out of service all day! How was it?”

I can’t go from rampantly pissed to cooingly pleased with him so quickly. It’s bad for my health. Or, at least, mental stability. I have also since decided that Perfect owes me the last four shots of my vodka that he got drunk off of and an orgasm. Then we can call it fair.

Meanwhile, my roommate Kim’s younger brother and friend have been living with us for the past week, which I’ve actually greatly enjoyed. Men you can tell to pick up their shit and not have to feel bad or sugar-coat it. In fact, sometimes, they even wash dishes, take out the trash and vacuum without being asked. Louis and Matt are both 17. I sense great promise in their futures as boyfriends and husbands. Watch out, ladies.

I’ve loved having them around for a few reasons. One, younger men are what I call “great soft-assassination flirting targets.” Basically, you can practice your game on them, let them hone their skills on you, and everyone feels good without feeling like they need to follow through on anything. These 17 year olds know I’m not going to decide to just hop into bed with them—as I said to Alli, “You have friend standards, and I have statutory rape standards.”

I may feel this way because it seems that younger men are less intimidating. A 23 or 24 year old I never would have slept with the second time I met him, but Perfect was 19—and so, safe to me. I felt no need to impress him or pretend to be more mature and less raunchy; in other words, I felt no need to be someone who I am not. In my past dating experiences, especially with older men, I have always morphed into some weird hybrid between who I really am and who I think they want me to be. It never goes well.

Secondly, I’ve realized that a lot of my straight male friend’s advice is coming from a different age group than Perfect is in. Most of my guys are 20+ with life experience behind them and a little more maturity. Living with two almost 18 year old boys has given me the sounding board of the younger set.

“Why,” I would ask them. “Would a guy be so into you, make plans to see you, keep in touch with you every day, do all the cute things he’s supposed to, and even more, and then suddenly say he needs to stop? Why would a guy go on and on about plans with you if he was only going to break up with you a few weeks later? Why would he say things like, “I’m looking for a relationship,” and “It sounds like you need a good relationship with a good guy—I’m a good guy,” and “I’ll visit from college,” or “It’s a 3 and a half hour drive, but would you visit?” or “Wait until you see how jacked I get from all the lifting I’ll be doing,” or “Maybe I’ll have to come and travel with you when you’re studying abroad in the spring”?”

“Because he wants to get in your pants,” Matt said matter-of-factly.

“I’m going to be blunt with you,” I told them. “We’d already been there and done that. He started saying these things after.”

“Oh, then that’s completely different. He really liked you, then,” Matt amended his statement. “If he was still making plans to see you and saying that to you after he got what he wanted, than he really meant it.”

Do you see what I mean? Most of my guy friends are too old and have too much tact to say things like “when he got what he wanted.” But it’s the truth, isn’t it?

“Distance scares guys,” Louis added. “Especially when things get serious. If he really likes you and you live 45 minutes away from each other now and it’s going to be more once he moves, then he’s going to get scared about it not working out and him getting hurt.”

“Is that why he jumped ship so quick?” I asked.

“If a guy really likes a girl but thinks he’s going to get hurt, yeah, he’s gonna get out of what he thinks is trouble. Believe me, I know. I’ve done it,” Louis told me. “You need to let him know you’re not scared.”

I think I see the logical equation of the younger male: feelings + distance = scared, so run away. This varies inversely with the logical equation of most females: feelings + distance= work at it and try harder to prove you care. Hmmmm. Our math does not seem to compute, here.

Speaking of Perfect, and 3 posts back, as with most of the supposed meetings with Perfect as of late, it never happened. (But thanks for all the input, though! It was so heartening and really appreciated in my time of indecision!) He and his Amazonian friend were already gone from Church Street and at the UMall by the time I got my shit together and texted him. “I feel like the end of the world is going to happen before we see each other again,” I told him. “Or, at least, you know, the beginning of school. Well, I’ve got to go home this weekend, but I’m sure we’ll be back to Montpelier sometime soon. And you owe Cait and I a girl’s visit to Burlington, sir!”

Suddenly, the atmosphere in our conversation changed completely with the register of his next text. “LOL, why’s that, haha?” he asked. Ok. So. Let me tell you something about Perfect. Picking up attitude in his texts is actually very easy. A single “ha” means displeasure, annoyance, or he’s humoring you. A stand-alone “haha” is his trademark—it’s in almost every text he sends, somewhere. (He’s just a very laughy and exclamation-pointy person.) An “LOL” is more coy. He’s genuinely pleased with something. And an “LOL” and “haha” together or a winky-face is Perfect for “flirting.”

I was flabbergasted more than anything. What am I supposed to say to that? I know the start of a flirty Perfect text when I see one. I know an opening for sexting with Perfect when I see one. And I hadn’t seen one since June. Frankly, I was more happy to know it’s still on the table than anything—I was worried it wasn’t even still in the dining room. But really? Now? Now he wants to get all flirty and hear about how miserable my life has been without him and how I want him back?

I did what any self-respecting girl would do: I weighed my deep desire to tell him yes, I really missed him, and he should visit so that we could ravage each other everywhere we were supposed to—the party shower, his 4Runner, my already broken-by-Perfect bed—with the amount of perverse pleasure he would get out (or off on) knowing the wanting he caused me. And so I sent him back this:

“Because we both miss you and SOMEONE is always busy or MIA when we go to Worcester, that’s why, hahaha!”

For the records, I only use “hahaha” when I’m trying to lighten my texts or add a flirty edge. I’m sure he knows this by now, too.

“Ok, I get it, LOL,” Perfect sent back, keeping the same tone, and it made me wonder, did he really get it? Really? Did he understand at all what I’ve been going through and meant by “we miss you” really meaning “I miss you but am too chicken-shit and wary to say it yet”? Did he really mean to open the “way we used to text” back up and dredge up Memory Lane? Does he really want to know why I want him to keep visiting and stay in my life? I hope so. I hope he really got it. And I hope I don’t have to say all of this alone.

As we wound our conversation down, he promised to come visit soon. He said he’d be around next time we came to Worcester. He even said he’d come up to go clubbing if we could work out a copasetic time. Hmmmm. It’s a start. Is it a start? And how much time do I have to get my lines ready? Maybe while I’m home nannying this week I need to start practicing saying “I miss you, and I miss us.” It’s not that hard—“I miss you, and I miss us.” “I miss…”

XOXO

Turbulence: The Worcester Diaries

[DISCLAIMER: Sometimes, the majority of the time, when I write, I do it very informally, sitting or sprawling on my bed. My room, as I’m sure many young people in cities across America can sympathize with me here, is abysmally tiny. No—if I were to ever be incarcerated, my bedroom in this apartment will have already trained me for it. I have about 12 by 6 feet of bedroom, complete with funky wall angles that eat up more room, leaving me with about 10 cubic feet of walking space, total, plus extra-long twin bed, desk, bookshelf, and closet. My dresser is in my closet. My desk is a flat space for important things to rest on. My desk’s chair is where my purses, Uggs, slippers, and often-worn lounge clothing live. This leaves my bed to be where I sleep, and sometimes multi-task entertaining, watching movies, eating, doing homework, working, and writing. (If you were wondering, sex falls under “entertaining.” I’m trying to bring some class to this place.)

Because of this, I rarely use my desk. The only time I actually EVER write at my desk is when I’m feeling particularly unproductive, scattered, uninspired, and unprofessional. The Desk whips me into shape. It makes me feel all Carrie Bradshaw because it’s in front of a window. (I believe in good desk karma.)

I am writing this, after it has sat open in Microsoft Word on my desktop for 2 weeks in bits and pieces, at The Desk. I’m sorry it’s taken so long. You have my heart-felt apologies. Now do you see what I’m working with here?]

I’ve been getting naked a lot of different places lately. Two weeks ago, on the 5th, it was in Worcester alongside Minister Brook Road, which from now on will be The Road I Got Naked On The Side Of, and not so much The Road Perfect Lives Off Of. (I’ve always been one to eclipse things that my men do with things that I do. Hence, one of the reasons I’m going to study abroad in Italy at the same college in Florence that Legs did. I want Italy to be nice, and not associated with him anymore, and mine.) This also may be why I, although not someone it really takes a lot of convincing to strip down in the first place, was so blasé about dropping trou right next to the swimming hole on a fairly well-trafficked road. Also, I was feeling a little reckless at that point.

Yesterday, it happened again, on a different road next to a different swimming hole in Worcester that also happens to be another road Perfect lives off of. However, this road was far less trafficked. And Perfect was actually in my town, and not his. Safer. (Granted, and I mean, hello—it’s nothing he hasn’t seen before. Or anything the people I do swimming with haven’t seen before. If you can’t tell, I was raised in a Naked House.)

July 5th was the first time I saw Perfect since before The Conversation. Alli, Cait and I had gotten bored with Lake Champlain, and were hungering for some river water. Cait offered to take us back to her hometown of Worcester, where the water is cold, the rivers are clear, and the waterfalls are abundant. Also, where Perfect lives. (Cait doesn’t know about Alli and my little adventure. There was some wonderful play-acting from the peanut gallery about being surprised about certain things. Oscars could have been won.) Cait’s been going through a rough patch in life lately, so when she called me the night before our excursion and I couldn’t do anything to help her or figure out what the right things were to say, I grappled for about five minutes with the idea before saying to her, “You know, I’d love to, but I really don’t know what to say to help you. When you went through this before, Perfect was the one who helped you through it. We’re going to be in Worcester tomorrow—do you either want to call him and see if he can meet up with us, or do you want me to text him and let him know what’s up?”

“Are you sure?” Cait asked, always sensitive to the feelings of others, in her own distress.

“Yeah,” I said on an exhale. “We have to see each other sooner or later, and it might as well be tomorrow. You really need him, so I can deal with it.” What I didn’t say was that I knew in my bones that it was the longest since meeting each other that Perfect and I had gone without seeing each other, and I was ready to end that streak. Also, I needed to see him in person to figure out if the weirdness that I was feeling over text and message was for real, or just imagined.

“I’m calling him right now,” Cait told me. “I’ll call you back after to let you know what he thinks and what’s going on tomorrow.”

Five minutes later, my cell rang again. Cait was almost border-line laughing. “He said the same thing you did,” she told me. “It was the whole, ‘I don’t know if she wants to see me, but we have to see each other at some point, and since we’re both your friends and you need us, it might as well be now.’”

Frankly, I wasn’t so surprised. For two people who are so opposite physically (if you want proof other than the written, that picture heading the “Perfection, Or Lack Thereof” post is of Perfect and I. He’s hulking and dark and manly, and I’m small and blonde and feminine. There, at least. He brings out the girl in me;) and in the way we deal with things, Perfect and I are startlingly similar when it comes to the way we approach things about each other. We’ve always been on the same wavelength, from the very beginning. I think that was the magic of the ‘click’.

And so on the 5th, I woke up, had an orgasm, ate fruit salad, did laundry, and worked out so that I would be glowing, toned, clean, and fresh when I saw him. I wore the teeny green bikini that was my mother’s when she was my age, one of my good luck charms. We got to the Mills about twenty minutes before Perfect, and I was sitting on a rock in cut-offs and my bikini when he appeared emerging from the trail down to the river behind me.

What was it like seeing Perfect again for the first time since we called it off? Oh, lord. I said before that it would be a success if I either didn't burst into tears when I saw him or tried to scale him like a very sexy tree. So I guess it was a success as I did neither, but for starters, the Earth dropped approximately two to five feet from beneath me, like it always does. If there is one thing that remains constant with that boy, it’s that every time I see him, it always feels like the earth drops out from beneath me. It leaves me a little short of breath, a little anxious, and more than a little nervous. The rabbits that always gnaw on my stomach lining went into flurried overdrive like they always do about him. With other guys in my past, there were cute, sweet butterflies of nerves. With Perfect, they were replaced by much larger, much more ravenous, much more solid rabbits. Then it became apparent after the initial “hey,” “hey,” “what’s up?” “not much,” that the weirdness was omnipresent and effusive. I realized that a lot of the bravado about being ready to see him again was just that, bravado. Seeing him, actually seeing him, standing there in the afternoon sun in green shorts and a guarded look made me turn unsure and off-balance. There was some shifty eye contact, and some very brief face-searching on both our parts. He looked tense, guarded, and a little bit unsure. I’m not sure what I looked like to him, but I’m pretty sure awkward and trying really hard to keep cool would top the list.

I was nervous; he was shielding. Though I may be adept at keeping most of my feelings and emotions to myself, when it comes to romantic things, I am an open book, hurling my feelings around through the air. I may not ever say the words; I may not ever be the girl who can talk about her emotions or what she wants or needs to whoever she’s with, but if you’re even passably good at picking up vibes, you’ll know how I feel. I’m not talking freaky-deaky paranormal bullshit here, even though I do believe in all that. What I mean is reading good, old-fashioned body-language, noticing small details, and opening yourself up to what feelings another person is projecting. I do believe it’s called “empathy”—you try to feel what the other person is. I am a very empathic person—when it comes to relationship feelings, I can’t wait to pass them off to the next person and try to lighten my load. I think this comes from being single so much, so often, for so long. I’m so used to having to live with myself and try not to hurt my own heart that when I meet someone like Perfect, I can’t rip my own heart out of my chest and hand it over to them fast enough. I tend to trust men to take better care of my own heart than I do. It doesn’t tend to work, as evidenced, but, I keep doing it. Someone once asked me if this is why I “fall in love over and over and over.” But I don’t fall in love over and over and over. To me, I have been in Love once. That’s capital Love, not “oh, I love you too. I love being with you and I love spending time with you. I mean Love as in, “I would move mountains for you, I would have your children, I would die for you, I feel like you complete me and I can’t be without you.” To me, that is Love. Love is not a word that I pass around freely. It seems like a lot more people are willing to just toss it out there. I’m trying to keep the meaning of Love sacred. What I do tend to do, however, is to fall for a guy hard, and fast, with all of my heart and head and soul. I never do anything half-assed.

The one time our eyes actually met for an extended gaze, I was shocked by what I saw there: hurt, and wariness. I wanted to reach up and grab him by the shoulders to shake him while screaming, “I’m not the one who did this! I was willing to hang on! You were the one who jumped ship! All I want is things to be normal; why won’t you be normal? I need you to be normal!”

Thankfully, he brought one of his best friends, John. I’d actually met John for all of about ten seconds previously at U-32’s high school graduation. It was a fly-by introduction—Cait got a hug and a “how are you?” and she pointed Alli and I out to John by our names. I rapidly realized that Perfect’s decision to bring John was a very good one when another ten seconds after he appeared behind Perfect, he looked from Alli to I and went, “Hey! I remember you!”

As normally out-going and effervescent as Perfect normally is, so is John. When it became apparent by his standing apart and lingering minutes standing on the various concrete jumping obstacles that the Mill has to offer suicidal swimmers that Perfect was not going to be his normal out-going self, John stepped up to the plate and jumped in to join Alli and I in the pool of water beneath the falls. He’s an easy conversationalist, instantly likable, and easy on the eyes to boot. (I think the word that comes up most often when I talk to someone about him is “adorable.”) He is someone I would really like to kidnap and stuff in a closet and keep them around for bad days when I need an instant pick-me-up. The kid has a great aura. (Excuse the New Age-ery.)

So what was it like watching Perfect, the first time I’d seen him since we called it off, dive head-first off of things into churning water in apparent suicide attempts? Here I was, watching one of the few guys that I actually deemed worthy of potentially being the father of my children (i.e—I was willing to have sex with him. I felt clarification was needed. I like to protect the few men that hold the chromosomes I would consider meshing with mine. It’s biology, baby. It’s just natural,) jumping off of a concrete bridge 40 feet that sloped out above the churning and rocky water. I may have screamed once, I’ll admit it. Even though he’s been doing this since he was knee-high to a grasshopper, I still got the feeling of “I could watch him die right in front of me.” Waiting for his wet brown head to break the surface felt like one of the longest-held breaths of my life. Both John and Cait also agreed, and they’ve been watching him do this for years. I’m pretty sure the only thing in my head during that time was a desperate repeated mantra of “oh please oh please oh please oh please.”

It’s the waiting for people to surface that always takes the longest.

Growing up fuck-nuts crazy and jumping off of things like the Mills have given Perfect a sort of Superman complex that is completely at odds with his emotional self, which is what really drives me nuts. The cliff-diving, wheelie-popping, discus-throwing, weight-lifting, tree-hauling, adrenaline-freak, while willing to put himself through all sorts of potential physical damage, is so cautious of emotional hurt that he refuses to take chances.

At the beginning of Perfect and I, Alli made the premonition that I would break his heart. I countered with a vehement “no, he’ll break mine.” Neither of us turns out to have been right, but the fact still stands that both parties involved know it’s a possibility. Perfect saw this and made his decision about what to do, which was the right one. I’ll even admit it. He saw possible heartbreak in his future, so he let go now while it was easier. Maybe it’s the masochist in me, but when I looked into that same future and saw that it could fall apart at some point, I thought, “ok, whatever. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. I can hurt myself again—I lived through it the first time; I can live through it a second time.” Myself, I’m of the school of thought that feelings should conquer all—if you feel something, you should fight until the end of the earth for it. This is how I live my life—very focused. I see something, I want it, I find a way to get it. Perfect is more of the "things-just-come-to-me-and-I-assess-them-and-make-logical-decisions" way of thinking and living. I think this makes him the wiser one, but I also think this makes me to one who stands to gain more in the end.

But then the strangest thing happened. We were all standing on the sandbar, chatting as John told us about his new girlfriend, who was actually a girl he had previously dated a few times before. Cait asked him how it was going, and he admitted that he really liked her.

“So are you going to keep dating her?” Cait asked.

“Yeah,” John said, a cute and shy grin on his face.

That was promptly wiped off when Perfect, in the most un-Perfect voice I have ever heard come out of his mouth, butted in with a “But only until college.” That was it. Final. Perfect said it, so it was going to happen that way. And that’s when I knew, hearing that voice and those words, that what Cait had said was true—Perfect had gone to Baby Mix for advice, and Baby Mix had nixed me. I got the Kiss of Dating Death from the best friend due to the best friend’s own fucked-up long-distance relationship. Because in Baby Mix’s world, if it didn’t work for him and Cait, it wouldn’t work any better for me and Perfect. That was Baby Mix talking out of Perfect.

Now, I know you’re thinking I’m fucking crazy. I know you’re thinking I’m one of Those Girls who just can’t understand why they’ve been broken up with an grasps for straws and excuses and possibly answers. But you haven’t met Baby Mix. I have. I’ve spent HOURS talking to both Perfect and Cait about him. I spent HOURS of my birthday talking to the man himself, trying to prove to him that I was a good girl for his best friend, whom goes to him for everything and values his opinions and thoughts above all else. (When Baby Mix says “jump,” Perfect asks “how high, and would you also like me to orchestrate some music to go along with it?”) I would know a Baby Mix statement coming out of a complete stranger’s mouth. And the hard truth of the matter is it’s because Baby Mix and I are so alike. We’re both cunning, calculating people who spend more times planning and plotting in our heads than most people ever do. I actually knew, within moments of being introduced to him by a very nervous Perfect, hoping for the best, that Baby Mix and I weren’t going to get along because we are so similar, as you often know with people like you. You generally can’t tolerate them. I see Baby Mix as cold and self-serving, and he probably sees me the same and as his greatest threat to his best friend and their time together. (It also didn’t help that Perfect was staying at Baby Mix’s place during this time and was seeing the hours and hours of texting we were doing, combined with the fact that the next day, Perfect ran away to my apartment and me for over five hours, leaving Baby Mix behind. I’m sure he loved that.)

John, to his immense credit, didn't back all the way down, instead sputtering a little bit and shrugging, giving a “Well…uhhhh…” while Cait looked at Perfect, as horrified as I was, and leaned into John to comfort him with a “Just see what happens—you can always try long-distance.”

Perfect remained stony. In other words, Perfect remained a (not so) miniature Baby Mix. I have never, ever, not even during our dissolution, liked Perfect less.

Between the suicidal diving, brooding and ice-cold water temperature, (guaranteed to give you hypothermia!) Perfect and I managed to maybe say five complete sentences to each other before he decided it was time for him and John to leave. Bereft of our men, Cait and Alli and I decided that was our cue to leave as well. As we all walked back to the car, John kept the conversation going while Perfect toweled down and hopped in his 4Runner. Come to find out when he complimented my Civic, which NEVER gets complimented being the Plain-Jane of the car world, John works at a Honda dealership. When the words “Let me know if you ever need expensive parts and I can get them for you at my discount,” came out of his mouth, I knew he was one of my new Favorite People. John is my white knight in shining Honda armor. Him, I love. He promptly responds to Facebook messages and is optimistic and charming and eager. His best friend, the one who now can be surly and unresponsive and cynical, is the one who drives me crazy.

---

A week after this less-than-stellar encounter, I was over at Cait’s and finally managed to speak up and ask for some help with the whole “what’s going on?” thing. Generally, I tend to try and not exploit Cait and the trust that Perfect puts in her by talking to her about things, because I know that like a five-year-old, unless expressly told not to repeat something, Cait will regurgitate it to the first person who asks. Which, sometimes, works in my favor. I’m sure it works not in my favor a lot of the time when Perfect talks to Cait.

Seated on her kitchen floor, both a little inebriated, I managed to finally say out-loud, “So. Things have been kinda weird between Perfect and I lately. You saw it at the Mills. What’s going on with that?”

Cait, always a beautifully cheap date, looked me dead in the face. “He’s not over you. He’s realized that the feelings that he had for you were a lot stronger than he thought and he still feels them. He’s having a hard time.”

I didn’t know if I wanted to dance on the rooftop or rip the shelving behind me apart by hand.

“He’s not going to get over you if you guys keep texting and talking and seeing each other,” she continued. My first thought was, apparently the “hostage relationship” thing works, to mixed results. My second thought was, keep texting and talking and seeing him and possibly rattle the teeth in his head around until he admits his mistake and fixes it. Or, at least, it’s time to have a civil conversation about “what we both feel.”

“Are you over him?” Cait asked suddenly, looked much more sober than she had a minute ago.

I didn’t answer.

---

The next day, I jubilantly sent Perfect a few casually flirty texts, which he responded to promptly and similarly, talking about when he’d be in town next. (To see Baby Mix, the relationship-ruining fucker. No, really—I can be civil to him in person, and really, I try. He means a lot to Perfect, ergo, he should mean a lot to me, and he does: I value his thoughts on me, and I value his friendship with Perfect. But he’s screwed-over one of my best friends in a long-distance college relationship, and now helped screw me over with some biased statements about long-distance college relationships. There are some hard feelings involved.)

After some continued nice texting and planning, despite Baby Mix and all, I now realized I had the upper-hand, and something that Baby Mix couldn’t control—Perfect’s feelings. I'm feeling like I need to write something like "He's Just Not That Over You." Hello, truth.

---

Yesterday, Alli, Cait, Cait’s boyfriend Justin and I all went back to Worcester to go swimming at another place called the Pots, complete with two deep swimming pools, four waterfalls, and a natural stone water-slide. I like to now call it “Heaven On Earth.” John, who has kept in touch with me since the day at the Mill, was planning on meeting us, but a family dinner came up. Perfect was back in Burlington visiting Baby Mix. So Alli and I scrambled over rocks and trees and pine needles and stones and water, and Cait and Justin cuddled on the rocks. Alli and I, an original native backwoods Vermont Girl, got back to nature, while Cait and Justin got back to basics, otherwise known as first and second base. We had a perfectly lovely time, and Alli and I found the place we were searching for that makes summer feel like summer. We’re planning on heading back this weekend, maybe to meet up with John and/or Perfect.

In the meantime, I’m getting very familiar and comfortable with Worcester and Montpelier. Worcester reminds me very much of Tinmouth, where my best friend lives, and I’d always spent at least half of every year there through high school. I now know where I can get gas or food, where the house with the cool mural is, and what two roads I can take to go swimming or get to Cait’s old house, Perfect’s house, or John’s house. I can now find my own way from swimming to the Dairy Crème with no directions asked. My stomach, sometimes like my vagina, is my compass. And the supreme fact of comfort—I get naked there, which we have decided needs to be a new tradition, even if swimming isn’t involved. (I’m one of those people who can’t stand to stay in a damp bath suit, so I would rather shuck it off on the side of the road and change than marinate in it for the drive home. Mold, people, MOLD.) Especially if Perfect and I get involved again and visiting becomes a common thing, (re: we really need to have that talk about the lingering feelings on both sides,) I foresee some very interesting introductions to people, maybe sans clothing, because I’m that strict with tradition. Thank god I’m not that shy.

So there you have it—the good, the bad, and the naked. A lot has happened in these past few weeks that has either cleared some things up or made others more complicated, but hey—I have the facts, and whatever happens, happens. Sometimes, surprises can be good, like Perfect and I again being mutual with the feelings, and sometimes, they can be bad, like the whole Baby Mix advice debacle. To wrap this beast of a post up, men need to stop surprising us. I know we women always bitch about how we want them to, but really—when they actually start to, it throws us for a loop. Another male friend who was previously given up for a lost soul started being decisive—even doing things like making reservations. Clutch you uterus and hold on for dear life, ladies. The men—they are a-changin’.

XOXO