Day Seven: February, Teflon Month of Love

I have not had a Valentine’s-Day-boyfriend since 1982. My freshman-year high school steady, The Earnest Piano Player who wooed me with a pretty-good version of “Moonlight Sonata” in between games of Dungeons & Dragons, sent me an FTD bouquet with one red rose, in a planter shaped like a little white teddy bear.

Let the record reflect that the saccharine planter was not why we eventually broke up. Now that I see how rare Valentine’s Day boyfriends have been, if possible I would slip on leg warmers, an off-the-shoulder sweatshirt, and jump into a time machine, traveling back to 1982, and confront my 14-year-old self: “Hey Self! He is actually kinda thoughtful and sweet. Maybe you should keep him around for awhile.”

Freshman-year[oops! See author's footnote*] in college was the next boyfriend I happened to have during February. But there were no teddy bear planters from The Future Film Director. And no flowers, not even a card on Valentine’s Day . . . or Christmas . . . or my birthday. Future Film Director was also a Marxist, “and gift-giving holidays are a bourgeois conspiracy constructed by a capitalistic society.”

Translation: He was lazy, cheap, and self-centered.

After Future Film Director was fired by me, the Gods of Love (who must love Woody Allen, and therefore Future Film Director), cursed me for my hubris and turned February into The Teflon Month of Love, repelling boyfriends for that one month a year.

Living in Louisiana I had actually been fine with a cupid-free February. Besides the insane pressures of graduate school, early teaching jobs, and the distractions of friends, Mardi Gras often fell in February, or at least the Mardi Gras season began that month. February was usually festooned in tacky beads, buried in King Cakes, soaked in bourbon and beer.

Only if Mardi Gras came early, like this year, and the beads were swept up by Lent, would February begin to suck. Papers to grade, students to handle, bills from Christmas to pay, student loans, exams and the dissertation, all would become stark realities.

Eventually I moved to a Mardi-Gras-free-Georgia, and February, still Teflon-coated, became even bleaker. Mardi Gras was just another Tuesday, and, damnit, I had to go to work. While I was not exactly at Bridget-Jones-level depression, I became quite Blah! in February.

I would tell myself, “Self, wasn’t Future Film Director (kinda) right? Isn’t Valentine’s Day really just a Hallmark holiday? Isn’t it just a commercial excuse to sell over-priced roses, Jewelry from Kay, fattening chocolates, Kissy Bears, colored-condoms, schmaltzy cards, and tacky heart-shaped everything?”

Yes it is.

Except this year.

This year the clichés unraveled. His impulse and the roses were sincere and beautiful.

I had told him earlier this week what I thought of February, and he told me that maybe he could see if at least one day could be saved from the month.

It was. And maybe a few more days will be too.

[Author's note: My More-than-Sister commented on this entry that Future Film Director was actually sophomore year of college. She is correct. I had forgotten that freshman year was spent by me wallowing in angst over H.S. Senior Year Love-of-My-Life coming out of the closet. Right. Cheers. Thanks alot. But that's a future blog]

Day Four: "Empires Crumble"--Dance Number!

I admit I have a phobia of intrusive people in restaurants. Not loud drunks at the next table or the bickering couple in the booth behind me, but specifically wandering mariachi bands, waiters who slide into the booth next to me when they take my order, and belly dancers. I just want to eat my food, drink my adult beverage, and indulge in conversation with my dinner companions. Unfortunately I love exotic food, and with that love, I often pay the price of a little dinner theater that can cut into or completely halt conversation. I particularly love Middle Eastern food and have learned not to go on a Friday or Saturday night to a Middle Eastern restaurant.

I went this past Friday night to a Middle Eastern restaurant.

It was Belly Dancer Night.

The dancer was beautiful--Middle Eastern Barbie--not exactly normal entertainment when one is on a date.

And the music was loud.

Really loud.

Lean-forward-and-shout-at-your date loud.

But it was hilarious--a techno-traditional fusion with a little Arabic rap thrown in for occasional street cred, and who knew that Evanescence was traditional belly dance fare?

But my date kept smiling and laughing and so did I. He said that he loved it when a film director halts the action and throws in a dance number, like the director feels that the characters and audience should have a little fun--Goddard's little line dance in Band of Outsiders or Tarantino's jack rabbit twist in Pulp Fiction.

The belly dancer somehow fit into the milieu, and in the midst of the evening, I remained strangely phobia-free. I had this wonderful feeling that if my life was a movie, this was the musical interlude--weird, surreal, loud, fun--what should have been uncomfortable was somehow not.

Maybe it was the company.

Day Three: Playing House

I'm having a party tomorrow so naturally I tried to buy new furniture today, actually this afternoon. I had bought a new couch last month, but it has yet to arrive despite the fact that the credit card charge got here two weeks ago. So people are coming over and they will see the Striped-and-stained Monstrosity that clashes with everything, the couch I dragged from Grad school in Louisiana to Adulthood in Georgia.

The Better-half of the Volleyball Couple told me that home ownership does not make one fully an adult. No, one cannot truly be an adult until one has bought a brand new couch, she declared! Used couches do not count, even if they are purchased.

Two summers ago I was forced to buy a house because the rental I was living in went on the market--when I was out of the country for a month. Being that the rental market is tight in this small town and that I was staring at 40, I decided to buy a house.

Last February my writer friend, who also happens to be a great decorator, declared that it was time for me to embrace being a Homeowner, an Adult, no longer a Grad Student, a Child. She said I needed to mark that passage by having my friends come to my home and paint at least one room in my house. So paint we did. This summer I got carpet to cover up the particle board that was exposed when I had taken the carpet up off the supposedly "all wood" floors.

Still there is much to be done. But the procrastination comes not because I am overwhelmed at the number of task, rather, I can’t believe I’m doing this, buying stuff, fixing stuff, like a real grown-up.

Furniture just adds to the complications.

I sometimes hate furniture stores because they are the realm of couples all whispering and exchanging secret couple code about what they can afford, cannot afford, what they both like, or one half of the couple likes and the other does not. When I have shopped for furniture with a boyfriend in tow or alone, I’m often surprised at the weirdness I begin to feel, like I'm playing house or I've escaped from a novel by Sartre.

So I never make purchases until I have to: a house, the washing machine, new paint, chairs, I never buy for the joy, but rather out of my American definition of necessity.

Couches, beds, end tables, area rugs, all form a psychic map pointing at the weird choices I have made in my life that led me to that moment, standing in Haverty's staring at a $1,500* couch wondering at such a thing that could cost that much that I'd even think of buying alone.

*[Author's update: Since several of my friends have commented on the price of the couch, let the record reflect I only contemplated the $1500 couch; I ended up buying a $579 couch--no tax & free delivery. The couch may be new but the budget is still grad school!]

"A city so nice, they named it twice!"

A friend of mine is visiting NY and sent me this picture from his hotel window:

In the spirit of the city where one of my top 5 favorite films takes place, this picture made me make the "Sally Noise," when it opened in my email. And I wasn't faking.

Thank you for the gift A!

Never a Bridesmaid!

A friend of mine was asked to be a bridesmaid. Keep in mind she is not close friends with The Bride. Then The Bride asked her if I could be a bridesmaid too. I have met The Bride maybe three times and have never had one moment of extended life-affirming-sharing interaction with her.

WTF?

Is the wedding a Cecil B. DeMille production and she needs extras? Does she not have friends?

See the dress:
http://www.davidsbridal.com/bridesmaids_detail.jsp?stid=1575&prodgroup=110

Now that you looked, aren't Brides crazy? Normal rational people are turned insane by wedding planners, mothers, Bride Magazine. It's a conspiracy that many a liberated woman has fallen and will fall prey to.

All except my best friend who got married on the volleyball court @ a friend's house (the epicenter of the burgeoning lust/love). The owner of the v-ball court became a minister through the Internet just to perform the ceremony. (The newly-minted padre has taken to wearing a Roman collar at some formal occasions but that's a subject for another entry.) The Bride wore a corset, the groom--leather pants! They were rock stars!

We drank before the ceremony, there were no bridesmaids' dresses, and the party at a nearby restaurant ended with a bar tab that was the most expensive thing bought for the wedding! But before you assume that my friend's wedding was all gloss & no substance, they wrote their vows and had their close friends and family there. Every moment was planned and considered for its spiritual and communal significance.

So . . . why the need in most "conventional" weddings for bridesmaids, and especially those in ugly dresses? So The Bride can be the prettiest woman standing up there? Are we still in high school where "getting the guy," or better getting The Dress, then finding the guy (or some guy) to take us out in Said Dress should also involve metaphorically elbowing other women out of the way?

Standing up for my friend at her wedding didn't involve me donning an ugly/expensive dress (my friend was too kind for that), although for her I would have. Once again I owe her for getting me out of this latest expensive dress and allowing me an escape from standing up for someone I don't even know.

Maybe that's the real kicker. Homophobics & Bible-thumpers aside, overall many straight people still oppose gay marriage, and they use the "sanctity" argument.

Yeah us straight people have done such a bang-up job on protecting that "sanctity." No, it's all about The Dress and not about the commitment or the community. How else can someone ask a near stranger to support her and bear witness on the day she is making a pledge before God?

It's all about The Production, Baby. No sweat; Maybe it's her "starter marriage": http://www.startermarriage.com/

Pamela Paul writes that this trend of the trial or starter marriage is a bellwether for the end of the traditional concept of marriage, and it comes from our "matrimania culture," [where] weddings, marriage, and family are clearly goals to which most young Americans aspire. Why are today’s twenty- and thirtysomethings—the first children-of-divorce generation—so eager to get married, and so prone to failure? Are Americans today destined to jump in and out of marriage? At a time when marriage at age twenty-five can mean a sixty-year active commitment, could 'serial marriages' be the wave of the future? "

Matrimania. So there you have it: This Bridesmaid's dress isn't just an expensive and irritating costume; it is a sign of the cultural breakdown. If the Beast is slouching toward Bethlehem, I'm sure it is wearing an ugly dress.

The List

Yes:

1. Philip Seymour Hoffman (even in Boogie Nights . . . I think, OK maybe, no)
2. David Duchovny
3. James Spader
4. Adam “Not being Billy Madison” Sandler
5. Billy Crystal (City Slickers & When Harry Met Sally)
6. Paul Bettany
7. Russell Crowe (A Beautiful Mind, not bashing people with telephones)
8. Clive Owens (especially mid-season Second Sight)
9. Sean Connery (OK cliché, I realize)
   
   
   

Maybe:

1. Jude Law
2. Christian Bale
3. Jonathan Rhys Meyers
4. Jared Leto
5. Russell Crowe (Gladiator—OK that’s an almost-gimme)
6. Woody Allen (only a consideration as of yesterday)

No:

1. Brad Pitt
   
2. Tom Cruise
   
3. Without the Legolas weave--Orlando Bloom (only one word for hell: Elizabethtown)
   
4. Harrison Ford (after the third Indiana Jones)
   
5. George Clooney
   
6. Probably anyone named People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive”
   

Avatar online--

I used to dance in clubs; now i only dance online--