FAMILY

That family of which I was speaking earlier has reared it’s (not-so) ugly head. It’s just heat breaking.

One of my girls here has had her heartbroken. The man she has loved since before she understood love has left her entirely. His parents have deemed her “too poor” to marry, despite the fact that they come from the same town and have less money than her family. They told her they would reconsider after she wrote his father a letter explaining that her drive would change her familial destiny of “poverty” and that she would be a success.

And it’s true. She’s worked her whole life and she’s dragged herself up to make it in the “Big City” of Xi’An. In a world that values women who strive to be Paris Hilton, she’s gotten herself from “farm girl” (the Chinese equivalent of the Indian “untouchables”) to “Xi’An English Teacher” (the most respected type in a highly respected profession). She works twelve hours a day, seven days a week and rests only during a few days every New Year. She is an amazing woman and has accomplished so much in her life. I can only imagine how much she has left to accomplish. Were I in a position to bring anyone to America, I would choose her as she has never depended on the gifts of others to accomplish.

Nevertheless, the patriarchy that views woman as mere receptacles for the abuse of men has deemed her unworthy of the love of her life. And the love of her life, being a coward and a repugnant human being, has kowtowed to wishes of his parents. I find it morally repugnant the way that the Chinese lack the will to ever stand up to their family. It’s not that I necessarily advocate the American style of always standing up to your family for everyone but in this situation, he truly needs to grow a set and be a man.

Actually, in the long run, he needs to do nothing. If he is, as I originally estimated him to be, then he needs to wallow in his cowardice and reap what his cowardice sows. I find comfort in the idea that anyone who could do that to my girl will always live knowing he had perfection and because of his cowardice, he let it slip away. For that reason alone, I wish him an eternity of crystalline, lucid thought. May he never know a moment’s senility and on his deathbed may the memory of having been loved so completely and allowing his castrati-like behavior to turn it away be as fresh as it is now.

IN WHICH I BECOME A WHORE

I’ve been, done and see a lot of things in my almost-thirty years on this planet. The one thing I’ve never been is a whore; in the bad sense of the word. The fact is that while I’ve compromised, been promiscuous and been disingenuous, I’ve never felt like I’ve sold anything essential to my core being.

Now I can check that off my list of “never”s.

For Christmas, the school decides to break my contract and make me work the day. However, the night before they take me out to dinner for what they deem to be appropriate fun. In other words, this means a banquet dinner followed by KTV (Karaoke TeleVision… yeah, I know). Last year we had the banquet but were too far from KTV to go to KTV. This year, however, they chose a restaurant I know well (in fact, my Brazilian Angel and the Jude hosted my birthday dinner there) and it happens to be right next to a KTV.

I find Chinese banquets remarkably unsatisfying as basically all your food is on a Lazy Susan in front of you and you have to pick at your food while you make small talk. Usually, by the time you’ve sampled everything and find something that you like, it’s eaten, cold and certainly not swinging back your way anytime soon. Also, most of the dishes are meat laden as banquets are the time to break the bank but frankly, I don’t like Chinese meats and my stomach has adjusted to a more or less lacto-ovo (eating milk and eggs) vegetarian diet. So, I get very full very fast but you’re supposed to just keep eating and eating. Physically, it’s just unpleasant.

I guess I’d like the set up better if I could understand the conversation but being a guest of honor in a situation where I can’t understand the “praise” being heaped on me is a bit disconcerting as there’s a TON of toasting (read: lots of drinking and very little eating) and I’m supposed to look grateful and appreciative as the each person sitting at the table stands and gives me a long-winded speech.

Which brings me to my whoredom.

Last year, I could get away with being overwhelmed but not this year. I knew I had to toast. So, as the last of the people finished their toast to me (15 people in total; imagine 15 shots of hard liquor on a relatively empty stomach) I knew I had to say something and it had to be good.

I had been sorting out what to say most of the day and some of that evening. I kept circling around the idea of “family” as, for them, it’s the most important thing… to the razing of self. With the help of my former boss I gave my toast to the table.

“I just want to thank you for your generosity and being my family away from my family.”
And, as the toast was translated, I was greatly cheered and applauded. And, it true form, I found cheeks flushing and myself unable to look anyone in the eye.

They would have seen my reaction as my “innate” shyness. I’m by no means a shy woman but they have all decided that’s what I am. My reaction, however, was one of shame.

I realized that I just sold out the most important thing to me; my family. My family is not a conventional one, nor is it all blood, nor is all blood included in it. It is, however, distinctly and very separately mine. It is the one thing, the one place on this planet where I am seen, for better or worse, as what I am. My family is strewn about the globe and they don’t all know each other but I love all of them desperately and would do anything for them.

The more I think about having offered up, as a point of business, something as precious as a position within my family disturbs me and I am, fundamentally bothered by what I did. However, I see no way to right it. I don’t know what to do about it. It is the Chinese way- to blend so permanently business and family to the inability of extraction- and it seemed to be the most appropriate concession to make. Instead, I found myself a million miles from home telling my John on Christmas Eve (to me, one of two days of family) that I did in fact love him and it wasn’t about the money. Being a person who values her passion and earnestness above all other traits it greatly upsets me that I so easily and casually forfeit all that I value for very little discernable reason. Hopefully this “feeling like a whore” thing will fade soon. I’ve certainly learned my lesson.

JEALOUSY

Jealousy comes in all forms and I am suffering from one but not the one everyone expects of me.

Everyone I am surrounded by is stuck in a (relatively) miserable relationship. No joke. And this is not sour grapes. In all honesty, I love to see healthy, happy, contented, long-lasting relationships because they give me hope and strength for the long haul of the brutality that is being "pushing 30 and still single" for a woman. However, I can name all those relationships that I know of on my left hand.

Out of the blue, my Italian friend has ditched me. I had no idea why and he had bailed on me for numerous plans for coffee. Now, I wasn't hurt by his discarding of me so much as irritated. Any man who spends the vast majority of our time together asking me to agree just how beautiful and perfect his rather boring, tedious, self-centered and obnoxious ex-girlfriend is certainly is not bound to grab my lust, much less my heart. Nevertheless, it was nice to have some male company and not feel pressured to go anywhere with it. However, as I discovered yesterday when my French friend and his obnoxious wife showed up at my house (I'm dog sitting), it turns out Italy has a new Chinese girlfriend. It also turns out she's less than thrilled with him but she's essentially sleeping her way to the top and he's more or less interested in proving to his ex that he too can fuck someone after their relationship.

It's not that I begrudge them their dysfunction- lord knows we all need some in our lives- but what I do begrudge them is their condescension. My French friend and his obnoxious wife invited me out as a "Thank you" for dog-sitting for the next two weeks and they invited Italy because he's my +1 in such settings. However, they invited him out and only just discovered that he has a new girlfriend. So, when the new couple wasn't making out at dinner (dear god that always makes me uncomfortable; I just don't need to know some things about my friends libidos) Italy was shooting me apologetic looks as if he knew that I loved him and this was breaking my heart.

Which, in turn, made me want to punch him in the face.

Frankly, it's fine. I'm not jealous that he has someone because I want him. I'm jealous that he has someone because I want someone. Desperately. Frankly, the only thing I want more than a lover is not to be with the wrong person. Nevertheless, I'm unclear exactly when I was supposed to have fallen in love as he never listened to me, only talked about his ex and treated me like one of the guys with no regard for either my ego or my femininity. I'm not particularly insulted by any of his behavior as I was merely looking for company but I am infuriated that this would make me the subject of condescension. Whenever he would shoot me one of those groveling looks of "Can we still be friends" I wanted to put my fist through the back of his head. Really, where do men get their egos?

Also, where do men get their taste in women? I don't get it. Men I find to be perfectly reasonable human beings are married to the most obnoxious and inane women simply because they think the women are beautiful. I can understand an affair based solely on the physical but a marriage? What is that?

I don't know. I'm just having a bad day compounded by a dinner that was supposed to be a "thank you" that somehow morphed into a "poor you." So, please forgive the irritation. I'm sure it will wane soon.

WHEN DID LIFE GET THIS HARD?

Answer: About the fifth grade. And “hi” by the way.

The following conversation was held by me with my first love over IM. I- as I am apt to do when in a funk- opened with the rather direct “when did life get this hard.” His response more or less sums up every reason I ever loved him and why I still have faith in menfolk. The usual response to a question like “When did life get this hard” is some sort of pity-fest. I kvetch about the problem, my friend consoles me, we work on a solution and the conversation comes to conclusion.

Not my boy.

He knows there is no real solution short of allowing me to run my moods. He also knows there is great validity and universality to my quandary. And best of all, he knows how to admit he’s listening, thinking and unable to answer the larger issue but he does it with humorous truth. I think I have no dearer friend than he. Our time has passed and there are a great many things about my life he will never overtly know because, considering our history, I simply cannot speak to him about them but there is something so distinctly precious to me about what is left between us.

I’m in a funk because I’ve got what I want romantically on paper but not in life. What I want in life is not to be mine, my girl is leaving and I’m in domestic limbo with my home. And last night, I slowly came to realize that all my friends will do everything in their power to make the paper-perfect man my lover because they like him and they like me and so the two of us as a couple would be perfect for them.

The paper-perfect man is a lovely gentleman who would care for me and do anything for me until the end of time. He has the means and the will to provide me any lifestyle I would like to grow accustomed to. He is European, elegant and smitten with me. He is kind, smart and self-effacing. He sees me and he is simultaneously elated and at ease. He is does and says things with great regularity with the express purpose of making me feel good about myself. There is nothing creepy or unsettling about him. He is truly, genuinely lovely.

However, there is no spark for me. And somehow, I understand implicitly that he would always be little more than my slave because of that. I have absolutely no desire for that. I crave an equal and it gets damned lonely without one but even lonelier with a servant. The notion of having to hurt this man is truly unappealing. However, my friends are going to make it damned hard to extract myself from the situation because they’ve all clearly decided we’re to be together.

This certainly is not one of life’s great horrors but it has left me notably blue and feeling markedly guilty. The guilt is only compounded by the fact that while I should have been fully present with the paper-perfect man, I kept drifting to the man who truly has my attention; a man I may never see again and a man with whom I could never be the platonic friend his girlfriend would demand. An artist friend of mine, J, to whom I have confessed my smitten state said, “I thought so.” Of course, hearing from him that he could tell there was something between us only deepens the guilt as it strengthens the attraction by confirming its less-than ephemeral existence.

However, I am resigned to this state so well captured by Cesaria Evora’s “Besame Mucho” because of the dinner I had on Sunday night. I had dinner with my French friend married to the Chinese woman alone in their home. She made the decision she wanted to go out and tango dance with a single man friend of theirs and so I was invited to their home for dinner to keep my French friend company. In short, they’re both still dating, despite the fact that they’ve just married. That may work for them but it wouldn’t work for me and if I were to take up with the paper-perfect man, it would be the only way our relationship would survive.
So, instead, I have Cesaria on repeat and take comfort in the greatness I once had and may have again.

RED’S REALLY NOT MY COLOR

For Thanksgiving, I spent the evening with three of my favorite people in Xi’An; my newly discovered French Canadian girlfriend, my Italian friend and my fellow American, J. We went to the Thanksgiving dinner served here at the Sheraton and had quite a good time. We talked about music and art and life and work. My Italian friend tied a few more than expected on and ended up kvetching about his ex-girlfriend a little more than he should have.

Then Friday night, KLM sponsored a free dinner at the Hyatt in Xi’An to celebrate 35 years of serving the European and Chinese community for the West Egg crowd and I got invited. My Italian and Canadian friends were both going away on Saturday, so they decided not to come but J and I decided to make an evening of it.

J, of course, was lovely and quite honestly, my favorite +1 ever. I had such a great time and being that our relationship is solidly platonic, it such a relief to be around an equal without having to worry about cultural landmines. Sitting with us were my favorite couple who hail from Bristol (he is wonderful and she is everything I hope to be) and Mr. Bristol paid me the best compliment I have received in a very long time; “You and [Mrs. Bristol] are the very same kind of woman.” You see, Mrs. Bristol is singularly minded, got married in her mid-thirties, had children in her late thirties and is the only woman I know in Xi’An here on her own dime keeping her husband company because she’s earned a full retirement. She gives me hope and she’s just a wonderful person to boot.

After dinner, a Korean woman (who clearly began life as an anatomical man) insisted that Mr. and Mrs. Bristol, J and I join she and her husband at the bar on the ground floor.

Along for the ride was the most delicious looking man I have seen since I first laid eyes on the Turk. However, unlike the Turk, his energy was more simmering than explosive; the Turk burned hot and bright but this man is slow and steady in the way that made me recall a conversation I had with my Canadian girlfriend. We were both speaking about how neither of us can relax in situations where everyone else is relaxed; we need to be surrounded by people who are more capable than we are in order to relax. This new man has the energy of someone capable of being more capable than me. And, despite this delicious man’s English accent, there was something indefinably familiar about him. There was some underlying something that felt like common ground.

Nevertheless, I got rather wrecked by the fallout from the Turk, so despite my hormones, I made the decision to avoid the very thing I want because, well, the things that I want never turn out to be all that good for me. I took a seat across from my Korean girlfriend and Mrs. Bristol took the seat next to me. And, the Mr. Delicious took the seat next to Mrs. Bristol and proceeded to have an intense conversation about the NGO work that he does here in China that Mrs. Bristol is desperate to get involved with.

Every time I stole a glance at Mr. Delicious, he was looking at me and it was lovely. And, I would be lying if the fact that he could fill out his suit and has body hair wasn’t remarkably appealing. I’m so sick of hairless men swimming in cavernous, worn out suits tacky suits that are always inevitably feminizing. However, Mr. Delicious’ suit was clearly chosen with European taste.

After a brief conversation about his travels around the world and experiences in America’s “Heartland,” it was revealed that he was Jewish. And then I was able to place the familiarity. The two deepest loves I’ve ever had were with men who come from Jewish families and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. It’s something about the focus on life-long education for education’s sake and the quite, reasonable approach to everyday life. And, there’s something about the sense of humor. It just all comes together in a way that I understand and at last I finally understand when my secularly Jewish aunt told me that she didn’t care about marrying from a specific country but she only wanted to marry a fellow Jew. There really is something common and easy about the basics, despite the country of origin.

He then excused himself to go to the restroom.

“I quite like him.” I told Mrs. Bristol.

“He’s got a girlfriend from Australia.” She told me, god bless her.

“Oh well,” I shrugged, determined to push him from my mind, which proved rather easy as he then went into the snooker room and started play with the other men as Mrs. Bristol and I talked about her upcoming trip back home.

And then that fucking Titanic song. The bar band started playing that fucking Celine Dion Titanic song and that was where I drew my line.

“Let’s go into the snooker room. It’s much more quite in there and there’s a couch we can sit on.”

Mrs. Bristol consented immediately and we fled for our lives.

“Celine Dion finally did you in, eh?” Mr. Delicious teased, smiling as the door opened up.

“A girl’s got to have her limits,” I said.

And all I got in return was the sort of smile that makes your toes curl.

Mr. Delicious then left mid-snooker game and pulled a chair up to our couch under the pretext of talking to Mrs. Bristol but he proceeded to watch me for most of the conversation. There was something distinctly lovely in his observation of me. There was no tinge of desperation or escalation. He was simply trying to sort me out.

However, he’s got a girlfriend and I’m all sorts of gun-shy, so I certainly made no efforts to make things easy for him. Nevertheless, he was not to be deterred and he pushed through my inattention.

Finally, he managed to get a real conversation going and suddenly he broke left and the conversation went down the loveliest non sequitur road possible; his status as a “single” man.
“I have the worst problem in this country. I’m 25 and not married- single- and everyone here is asking ‘What are you doing with your life?!’. They all think it’s a waste.”

“Oh honey, I’m 29, female and single. They think it’s a medical emergency.” I held up my left hand with the jade ring on my middle finger. “Why do you think I wear this? Since I started wearing it, no one asks anymore.”

Clueless, he shook his head. “I have no idea.”

“Jade in China is the stone of marriage and any woman with a ring on her middle finger is engaged.”

“Oh, I had no idea.”

“Yeah, it’s the equivalent of wearing a big diamond on my ring finger in the West.”

We all continued to chat while he watched me some more. I always find being watched like that so amusing because, really, what you see is, more or less, what you get. There’s very little to sort out. It’s quite pathetic, actually but yes, I am that simple.

And when it finally came time to call it a night, he ducked out and while saying his goodbyes would shoot me looks whenever whomever he was talking to would look away. It was quite charming. However, he did not ask for my contact information, which I kind of liked. If he does have a girlfriend, I like that he’s not going mess around on her and if he doesn’t have a girlfriend, he’s not escalated anything. “Slow” is a nice thought.

While I was happily settling into the warm glow of a simmering man, trouble was brewing elsewhere over my friendship with my Italian friend. The fact is that, while my Italian friend is lovely, I simply don’t view him as an equal and therefore he will never be an acceptable candidate for lover. He’s too naïve and too gullible for me. I want to have children; I don’t want to date them. I adore him and I adore tending to his fragility because I need to get out my mothering impulses in ways other than sorting out the phrase, “Teacher, he hit me!” Designs on him, I certainly do not have.

However, my friend from France married to a Chinese woman has mistaken our companionship for dating. Apparently, his Chinese wife (a beautiful girl who makes me nuts and, unfortunately, is best friends with the putrid ex-girlfriend) was infuriated by the idea that my Italian friend might be getting on with his life and she insists that though the ex-girlfriend moved back to the US to move in with an old lover (and resume said love affair), the ex-girlfriend and my Italian friend are still exclusively dating. Which, apparently, led to her tearing into my character. Which, in turn, led to her husband (with whom I have a closer-than-should-be relationship) tearing into her for tearing into me.

“You should have heard him defend you,” my Brazilian Angel related to me after she explained the whole story. “It was really sweet of him. I tried to explain the situation so that she wouldn’t tell [the ex-girlfriend] but he thought she shouldn’t say anything bad about you to begin with.”

Which split me in two. I am touched that the people I value defend me even when I’m not around and- my god- to the exclusion of their spouses. However, the inevitable has finally begun to happen. I was always concerned about being the only single woman in the area as I would eventually get labeled the adulteress.

And here it comes.

Granted, I find irony in the fact that on the very night I met another man who- despite a possible girlfriend- I would absolutely say yes to anything asked of me, a single man whose bed I would truly choose second in a contest between he and my own brother is gaining me a very large, very scarlet “A.”

WATER WATER EVERYWHERE

Everywhere I turn, there are gorgeous men and lots of whom want to sleep with me but none of whom are available. It’s killing me.

Last night, I went on my first pub-crawl since I came to China. I got super hammered and had a great time. All of the most gorgeous men I know in West Egg were all distinctly aware that their wives were away and that I am single. The night ended with me being propositioned for a threesome with the most beautiful Francophile couple. It was a difficult decision but ultimately, I decided that even though the Parisian is one of the most gorgeous men I’ve ever seen, I really don’t want to test drive him, being as he’s not for sale.

Then, this morning I was invited out to lunch with some of my Chinese friends. There was a PLA policeman at the lunch. Dear god he was delicious. He was super aggressive and an amazing dose of testosterone. He was, in fact, so single minded about getting my attention that our mutual friends apologized on his behalf. It was fantastic and very dangerous. The last thing I need is to hook up with an aggressive, PLA special policeman running high on testosterone but dear god, it’s hard to turn down a handsome, solidly built man’s man singularly focused on seducing me. There’s just something about a man with the right swagger. I seriously need to be manhandled.

IT’S ABOUT DAMNED TIME

It’s fall in Xi’An and- by definition- fall in Xi’An is kind of lame. They literally shake the trees to preempt any leaf-color-change and then quickly sweep away and evidence that there ever were leaves to begin with. They fail to turn on the heat until November 15th despite the freezing weather. The “White” season moves in and the air fills with exhaust, desert dust, construction debris and general pollution so thick a white blanket of fog envelopes the city and you can barely see more than 50 feet ahead of you. The sum total of this is that everyone everywhere is constantly sick. I, for one, have at least three more bouts of bronchitis to look forward to once I’m done with this one.

Another angle on the whole “fall” aspect is that I’ve been rather blue. I have no steadily available man friends to flirt with (all my male friends are married to Chinese women and therefore unable, under threat of castration or worse, to flirt) and my Brazilian Angel is leaving me at the beginning of December.

However, a new male friend who has been threatening to take me out to dinner for ages finally did and it was lovely. There’s no great lighting; it’s just lovely. He called me Saturday night for dinner, we met up and ended up talking until one in the morning. He’s also invited me over for dinner tonight (Sunday) because he’s having a small party with some mutual friends and he wanted me to join them. One of the best parts about it is that there is no pressure. His girlfriend left him here a few months ago and he’s still getting over their breakup. He’s not made any moves to imply that he’s look for me to be a rebound. We can just, simply be around each other and be two adults as two westerners understand “adulthood.” I can dote on him and he spoils me. The conversation is interesting. He’s fun and I can just relax. And, even though he’s Italian (read: not from my culture) it’s so pressure-free and we’re both of such similar temperaments that I completely forget myself. I never thought I would so very much enjoy the relief of playing the role of a man’s +1/date but I have truly missed it.

I was just thinking on Thursday (while trying to extricate myself from a situation where a wealthy, older, powerful man was clearly making the move to turn me into his wife/mistress) how sick I am of being a female (not that I would want to be a man) because it seems to be this sentence to be placed on a pedestal and never be spoken to, merely spoken at. But my Italian friend not only talks to me, he curses (though at first he was very apologetic about saying “damn” until I clarified that I have a mouth like a sailor) and talks to me about all sorts of things with no strings attached. He himself has even declared just how tired he is of trying to talk to the women around here and there being no topic except answering questions about how rich he is and if he’s willing to marry “a Chinese.” We both want to be able to talk about the same things (passion, art, life, politics, relationships, philosophy, etc) with someone of the other gender and now we have it. What a relief!

It’s about damned time.

CULTURE CLASH

It’s a difficult thing being a tomboy in China. First of all, I’m not at all what they recognize as female. However, they are willing to grant me leeway on my androgyny for the political advantages I would provide as a wife. Secondly, the rules between men and women are far too isolationist for my good.

My masseur is a lovely man who is hell bent on marrying me. I have time and time again turned him down. I have even told him in no uncertain terms that we will never be together. I have tried to switch to another masseur at the gym but he keeps switching me back. I would stop going all together but I have a highly painful pinched nerve in my neck that needs regular treatment. And, frankly, I’m tired of switching masseurs. I’ve switched several times before this masseur and it always ends up with the masseur asking me to marry him.

Nevertheless, I went to my massage session yesterday and this time he asked permission to kiss me. Yet again, I told him “no” and I even went on to explain that we want different things. He wants to me to be his knight in shining armor and rescue him from this life, marry him, protect him, support him, bear his children, and adore him. Forever. To be honest, I’m so sick of being the physical embodiment of “The American Dream.” It is a dream that is so over-hyped that it can only disappoint in the end.

Frankly, I have come to find the notion of marrying a Westerner less intimidating because my divorce of a Westerner, while devastating emotionally, isn’t devastating politically. Our union would be about us and it would remain together because of us, not because he needed it to work for his parents, society and country. I don’t know that I can live with someone who needs me because his society tells him he’s nothing if one of us leaves and not because the thought of a life without me is too much to bear. It’s too much of a burden to make the whole of China happy with the inner workings of my marriage when I’m not sure I even want to get married in the first place.

But I digress.

Nevertheless, I finally understand where the line that I’m crossing is (in the “I’m leading him on” sense) but I find myself, well, screwed because I’m just not constantly conscious of that line. As an American tomboy, I’m accustomed to speaking with my male friends about all sorts of things, including sex. I’m simply not self-conscious about my male friendships. My super feminine Chinese girlfriends, however, would never dream of having a social relationship with a man who wasn’t related to her (or about to be). And, while most of the time I can maintain those limits very well, when I’m on a massage table with the express purpose of relaxing, it’s a bit harder to remind myself to remain vigilant. When I relax, those filters simply come down.

And I don’t know what to do about that. Ultimately, it’s simply a place where the two cultures don’t mesh and it’s simply what is but I loathe coming out of the very relaxed state of having my pinched nerve released to overly polite sexual requests. (A man who literally asks my permission to make sexual advances nauseates me, as I am one for the slightly more confident/brutish type. I’m not in high school anymore. I’ll say “no” when I want him to stop.) It’s really getting on my nerves to come out of a state of high relaxation to revolting sexual advances.

And, I can’t complain because he’d get in some serious trouble.

It’s days like this when I wish I was just a super feminine girly girl.

BLAH

So, I had an affair (by "affair" I mean romantic relationship with someone single, not married or even partnered up in any way) with someone and despite the lovely pillow talk, the light of day has withered and dried any promises and, in short, I have been discarded like rancid garbage. In the grand scheme of things, that's fine. Frankly, either he knew what he was leaving and, well, there's no point in flailing about screaming "you'll live to regret this" or he didn't know what he was leaving, in which case, well, there's no point in flailing about and screaming "you'll live to regret this." And, either way, I don't want to spend my time consumed with someone who would find it so easy to leave me.

Drama is always remarkably unsatisfying to me, in real life.

Nevertheless, I've been unceremoniously ditched and now I have to deal with the "mutual friends" issue. On principle, I refuse to speak to any of our mutual friends about what happened as he asked (while I was still in a giving mood) that I promise never to speak of what happened to anyone because (for extraneous reasons) he would have gotten in a lot of trouble for the timing of our affair. (Let's just say days of attonement are not usually best spent in the licivious arms of me if you want god to think you're truly repentant.) At the time, I gave my word because I would do anything to protect the people I care about. Now, I keep my word because my word is not worth sullying over someone who can discard me so easily.

However, our mutual friends adore him as a wonderful and fantastic boy. They cannot praise him highly enough. They insist upon knowing what has happened between us (as everyone knew we had a flirtation) and upon my supressing the urge to shriek at the top of my lungs "He used me and then threw me away" and toss dishes acros the room, found myself capable of smiling pleasantly and saying, "I think I'm just not for him."

What took the wind from me and has left me in a bit of a funk was the constant dismissal I have received as every woman who praises him so highly shrugs dismissively at my modest explanation responding with something like, "It's true, I think he likes girls who are, ah, DIFFERENT from you," in the most patronizing tone ever. Frankly, it feels like I'm the one they feel falls short; as if I were dating out of my league and they're not in the least bit surprised that he wouldn't want to be with me.

Never before has being an independent, strong, single woman felt like such a pity case. All these women are married and it's clear that their opinion of me is that I'm just not appropriate "wife" material. Being so effortlessly discarded is rough; finding out people you were close with aren't surprised as said disposal just stalls a girl out.

Thank god for my Brazilian Angel. She is the one confidant here who knows all about what happened and she has been kind enough to not say anything. As it was becoming clear that I had been disposed of and I told her how sad I was, she said to me, "Chris, don't think like that. He's the one who has to spend the rest of his life without you. He had you and walked away? Feel bad for him." And then, after the first such rough meeting with mutual friends and their declarations of how he likes "different" girls and resulted in me crouched into a ball, weeping openly in an elevator, she said, "I'm sorry, everyone says he's so wonderful but I hate him. He's a wonderful jerk. Fuck him. It makes me sick the way they talk about how wonderful he is. I've never met him but I hate him."

I'm still floored and breathless at having been treated like garbage once again but thank god for my girls.

PRESTIDIGITATION

I had been depressed about the vanishing of the Turk (the Turk and I had a wonderful time and then something shifted in him the last time I saw him, he wouldn’t talk about it and I haven’t seen him again), the homesickness of coming back from Beijing (Beijing is just like home in that it is a huge, international city complete with too much shopping and people all over the world) and the suckitude of the returning home of the Jude (having mom around is nothing short of comforting and having her return to the other side of the planet, well, frankly, blows). So, I did the only thing I could; I fought the urge to never leave the house again, squeezed my ass into a nice outfit, resisted the urge to bend to the crappy weather and headed out to see my friends in the West Egg community. I did my best to turn off my brain and just let the auto pilot take me to the Oktoberfest that West Egg was having but it was, nevertheless, super hard. Had my Brazilian Angel not been around, I probably would not have made it to the party.

And, of course, I’m glad I did.

I got to see a close girlfriend from Bristol and her husband, drink lots of beer, eat lots of bratwurst, be horrified by the lederhosen-wearing four-piece band and flirt shamelessly. And most wonderfully, I got to flirt shamelessly with a fellow West Egger who is getting over being left by his girlfriend. There’s nothing quite like being distracted from depression by flirting with a gorgeous Italian with a passion for life and then watching him get on smashingly with my favorite English girlfriend. It was such a nice reminder of life as I recognize it.

And it was such a lovely moment.

MYOPIA/UTOPIA

“If you love yourself, no one else will have to,” the Jude always said. And, by and large, I agree; unbridled narcissism tends not to breed what I recognize as “love.” However, the constant self-dismissal I was raised to cherish has become somewhat of an issue. Frankly, I’m just me and one of the many reasons I loathe discussing my past with strangers is because there is the inevitable moment when I run through my litany of experience when the person’s eyes get big and I cease being human and start being larger than life. I always feel like “I” must be such a let down. I don’t have any particularly fascinating stories to tell and I really, truly did Forrest-Gump my way through most of my life. I have been incredibly lucky to be given the gifts I was given and those gifts just seemed to compound themselves. To me, the true delineation between myself and “interesting” people is the day we September 11, 2001 disaster relief workers sat in a conference room and had a frank discussion about why we came to work every day. Clearly, it was not the paycheck, so our leaders wanted to understand what our motivations were so we sat around and discussed it.

“No one would come to this job out of pure virtue. No one would come back day after day simply to help people. We all get something out of this. There’s nothing wrong with feeling like you’re a better person than most for doing this work.”

I sat in that room full of bobbing heads and thought, “No, I really just want to help people because I know that no one else will do it. When people leave this job, no one comes to fill in for the missing.” My whole life, the most powerful poem I ever read goes through a long list of “They came for the Jews and I said nothing, They came for the gays and I said nothing. They came for the…” and so on and so forth. It ends with, “And then they came for me. And there was no one left to speak for me.” After two weeks in the recovery efforts, it was clear that they had come for some of us but most of the rest of us were not about to take a stand.

Frankly, the thought the job might make me “better than you” struck me as odd but I was fascinated to be surrounded by a room full of people all in agreement. The idea that you might want to be above humanity while toiling at its underbelly seems odd to me. That mixture of motivation is fascinating. Virtue born of vice; it’s truly complex and interesting. I’m just pretty nakedly obvious; I’ll carry the load that must be carried if no one else will do it because I’m part of a community and to be so is to have a responsibility to something larger than yourself. I am very cut and dry. I don’t know why that would be of even the slightest interest to anyone. I’m certainly not the thing of revelation or revolution. And I’m certainly not a person of weight.

However, it would appear that my self-dismissal needs to be reconsidered.

Recently, I was given a gift at extreme cost to a close friend and little cost to me. The friend merely asked that I never reveal it, and that I will not do. The act of faith, the leap, the trust that the gift took to give was beautiful and it has made my life a better place. And really, the gift while it had the nice element of feeling good about doing something for someone else, it really was about the act of make this sacrifice for me. It wasn’t done as a gesture of self-sacrifice for my happiness either. It was truly a gift.

For the first time in my life, it was a clean, loving, profound gesture from a friend whose singular motivation was my happiness.

And it has forced me to reevaluate my own sense of self-worth. If this friend, capable of this kind of gift, that kind of selflessness, has deemed me worthy of such a gesture, perhaps I should reconsider how I see myself. Not that I will ever (or would ever want to) be above humanity but that perhaps I should accept less toil. Perhaps I should draw the line sooner and show myself more respect.

I’ve always considered the notion of karma to be a valid one and perhaps it’s visibly manifesting itself. That gift was a bit of a watershed moment. I am surrounded by people I adore, love and like (all together) and I’m infringed upon by very little.

OY VEY

One of the most common phrases in my lexicon is "Oy vey." It simply pops out whenever I'm rendered utterly reflexive by benign disappointment. It just happens. I grew up surrounded by Jewish people in my family and in New York City. It's safe to say that of the major religions, Judaism is the most pervasive in my life. And, while I am not Jewish (my mother is not of Jewish descent nor was I brought up in synagogue) religiously speaking, it is more than clear to me that I am Jewish culturally speaking. In fact, most of my Jewish family and friends have said that they have never thought of me as goyem but rather as one of the tribes... though my particular tribe may be the lesser-known (outside the Upper West) Zabaar's.

The friend of my Brazilian Angel's who I happen to want as my Mentor invited me out for lunch a few weeks ago. My Mentor, my Brazilian Angel and I all went out to lunch at one of the thousands of malls downtown.

We took our seats with my Brazilian Angel and Mentor facing me. Just as we were about to start eating, my Brazilian Angel looked up over my shoulder.

"Oooh, look at those American girls," my Brazilian Angel said in the tone of voice that teases the recipient about the fact that they look sexy.

My mentor looked up at the women behind my back and raised her eyebrows. "Oooh, yes. Look at those American girls!" She exclaimed.

I, being one to rile against presumptions that anyone is from any country given the state of history and how bloody it has been, was about to get all riled up and lecture my two friends on how "It's not nice to presume someone is from somewhere! What if they're Canadian? They wouldn't appreciate your assumptions very much." To make my case, I turned around to take in what I knew would be a myriad of visual cues that might imply another country.

At which point I saw precisely WHY my girlfriends thought the girls were American. They had "Paris Hilton" scrawled all over them.

Defeated, I turned around and said, "Oy vey." I didn't think about it. I just said it.

"What did you say?" My mentor asked.

"What," I said, not realizing I had spoken outside of my disappointed sigh.

"Did you say 'Oy vey'?" She asked, determined.

I paused and replayed the moment in my head. "Yes. Yes, I did."

"Why did you say 'oy vey'?"

"Because those girls are SO American. I mean..." I spoke and was cut off.

"How do you know 'oy vey'?"

"I'm from New York. My mother's first husband and their son, my older brother, are Polish/Israeli Jews. My brother's grandma was in New York when I was growing up so I think of her as my grandma too. Not to mention, that whole extended family was there too. I never went to synagogue but all the holidays we celebrated with my grandma."

"So, you are Jewish."

"My mom's not. So, no. I'm kind of a proud shiksa."

"But your grandmother is Jewish. You practice the customs, so you are Jewish." My mentor said in the inclusive, familial way that my Jewish family has always embraced my mother, my brother and me despite what should be outsider status.

Shyly, I smiled. It is how I see myself- a secular Jew or "Jew-ish" as many of my friends say- and it was really nice to have someone else who understands the rules see me like that too. "Yeah, that's true."

And then we had the inevitable Shoah discussion.

After that, my Mentor apologized to me about not having included me in the past year's worth of Jewish celebrations and she promised that I would be invited to anything happening during Rosh Hashanah.

Reflexively, I was about to demure when I thought how nice it would be to have those customs back in my life. I had figured all references to religion, no matter how secular, were simply to be checked at the door in China. Now, I not only had the chance to re-embrace the cycles I grew up with but I would be re-embracing them with nomadic, secular, Polish/Israeli Jews; my kind of Jews. What can I say? It's family to me. "Okay, that would be really great. I would really like that." I said and smiled, really, truly happy.

We talked a little more about family and history and then my Mentor laughed.

"What?" I asked.

"All because of 'oy vey'!"

I smiled too. I used to get teased that it made me sound like an old rabbi when I said "oy vey" but it's always just felt natural. It has always served me in good stead and now it has even served as some sort of secret handshake.

Having discovered a Jewish circle in China felt really good and I have since been making friends within that circle that has been marked by one distinctive trait; we are all very similar. It's amazing to have so much in common with foreigners. I've been out to lunch with several of the Israelis and we've all just clicked. I never knew how much of my temperament I owed to New York, my extended family and the Torah in general but my god, it's a lot.

The day before the sunset marking the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, I texted my Mentor to wish her a happy New Year. She called me right back and invited me to dinner to celebrate. I immediately accepted, finished work, hopped in a cab and did my best to find the restaurant.

My cab driver didn't really know the area so he dropped me off on the right street but with a street with several different restaurants on it. I had the exact address but there were no numbers on the buildings and no one around (it was a busy street) knew the numbers to the buildings either. Unfortunately, my instructions were in pinyin, not characters, which narrowed down my search to three different restaurants on the street.

I ended up walking back and forth on the street once and then I called my Mentor. We tried to sort out where I was and finally we got me found. I went into the restaurant and up to the room where we were to be seated.

Upon entering the first room that had been reserved, I was met with a flood of gorgeous twenty-something men who were all Western of varying countries but all of whom were "single." I was introduced as "the girl from America I have told all of you about" by my Mentor. It was really lovely and I was in heaven surrounded by all those single men curious about me.

And then, about thirty seconds after I was introduced to one man from Turkey, he looked at me and said, "I saw you outside, on the street" with mild surprised.

I took one look at him and all I could think was "I fucking hate meeting single men so far out of my league." My mouth, however, said, "Yes. I was lost. I wasn't sure which restaurant and I couldn't find my way."

He looked at me in that way that made me realize he wasn't really talking about the logistics of my finding the restaurant, more that I had struck him. "Yes, you were outside," he said again, more to himself than me.

Tearing myself away from a man I'd never have a chance with, I turned to meet the other unbelievably gorgeous men. We all greeted each other warmly and I settled into the comfort of common social rules.

It was just about then that the man from Turkey's large, warm eyes and steady gaze struck me. He had not stopped watching me since we shook hands. He was watching me to take me in, not simply to see me. "Shit. It's that gaze again," I thought and knew immediately that I was in trouble.

I flushed and looked away. I'm not very adept at handling these sorts of things at first blush so I just sort of avoid them. Usually, my nerves assure that he will quickly lose interest.

Not so much this time.

Our party, having grown too large to be accommodated by the original room was switched to another room. I made the conscious effort to speak to the people other than the man from Turkey because all I wanted to do was talk to the man from Turkey. I always figure my desire will be more than self-evident and that I should make every effort to counteract my selfish drives. I'm also terrified of being labeled "that girl" you invite to parties and always spends her time hooking up with some dude instead of being social and entertaining. My social life is so fragile and new and this social circle is so precious to me that I don't want to ruin it by turning myself into some brazen hussy on the first major get together with everyone. However, it would appear that you can't fight your own nature.

When we got to the new room, the Turk immediately gestured for me to sit by him and I did, out of pure reflex. We sat down and started talking. He informed me he was starving as he was in the middle of a fasting.

"Really? How long?" I asked, as it seemed odd to me that a Jew would be fasting during Rosh Hashanah being that Rosh Hashanah is sort of like Mardi Gras before Yom Kippur and Yom Kippur being the time of fasting.

"29 days" he told me.

"29?!" I know some Jewish people fast for more than a single day but that, to my knowledge, is all around Yom Kippur, not Rosh Hashanah. "That positively Catholic," I declared, teasing him.

"Really? Are you Catholic?" He asked clearly ignorant of all things Catholic.

"No," I said, confused how a Westerner wouldn't get the overly-self-punishing Catholic reference.

"Are you Jewish?" He asked.

"Secularly." I said. "And you?" I asked, suspecting there might be more to this conversation that I originally thought.

"I am Muslim," he said smiling.

"You observe Ramadan?" I asked, inanely, trying to cover my surprise at having just met a Muslim at this Zionist feast. I can't help but have the somewhat inappropriate question, "Why is this boy different from all other boys?" pop into my head.

"Yes," he answered, smiling again at my curiosity.

I was stunned, nay FUCKING FLOORED, that he was there and that he was neither arrogant nor apologetic about his religion. Clearly an observant Muslim as he was refusing to eat meat or drink beer once the sun was down, I was left to wonder how on earth it was that he didn't find anything amiss in a sea of Israeli Rosh Hashanah.

"Yes," my Mentor said. "When is Ramadan this year?"

The Turk answered her as I drifted out of the conversation. Here I was, amongst the Chosen people and my company was a Muslim who actively chose to sit with those of us with intimate ties to Israel. He had said, "I am Muslim" like Allah and Yahweh are brothers whose kids love to hang out together. I glanced around the room, uncertain why he was completely unaffected by the room full of Israelis. Rationally, I know that the Qu'ran is quite supportive of the Chosen people; most commonly treating them like cousins. However, that is not quite how things have played out in the current political climate. And yet, this man was there, hugging and kissing and embracing like family, Israeli Jews. In fact, our Chai-wearing hostess was his adoptive mother, declaring, "he is my son" and the Muslim who lost his own mother at 13 gratefully accepted with a big hug. He even went so far as to explain "I can eat meat killed by Jewish people or by Muslims. Both are okay but if the animal is not treated the way the Jews and Muslims do, then I cannot eat it." His comfort with the fluidity of religion while remaining comfortably, clearly in his own just amazed me.

"I have so much left to learn." I thought.

As my Turk and my Mentor finished their conversation he turned back to me and smiled the sort of smile that makes a girl's toes curl. We went back to talking and joking with each other. He is quite the prankster and he told me about several of his hilarious pranks.

A few moments later, the waitress showed up to add one more seat to our circular table, placing the chair right between the two of us. Before she managed to get the chair in place, my Turk deftly took the chair from her and planted himself in it.

"May I ask for your phone number?" He then asked quietly, not five minutes into our sitting together.

"Sure" I smiled, probably a bit to eagerly but dear god, I'm only human.

As I dug into my bag to hand him my cell to have him call himself because I never remember my phone number, we started talking about the ways we learn. Quickly, I learned that he knows a multitude of languages and can learn a language quite fluently in a single year. He speaks Turkish, Arabic, Mandarin, English (all quite fluently) and starting next year he'll learn Russian. It's been a long time since I've met someone whose brain I just wanted to crawl into and poke around for a bit but every time he opened his mouth, that's all I wanted with increasing urgency.

Unable to think of anything but him, I made the conscious effort to occasionally engage the table in conversation. At one point, I had a cross-table conversation with one of the wives about my history. She asked the usual what-do-you-do-in-real-life questions and then she dropped a bit of a bomb.

"And how did you two meet?"

I paused for a moment. "Huh," I asked as she gestured to my Turk and I. It seemed an odd question to be aimed at Turk and I. After all, we had just met. I was quite certain she must have meant my Mentor who was sitting to my Turk's right while I was to his left.

"You two, how did you meet? I was wondering what the story behind you two meeting was." She made it very clear she meant Turk and I.

Surprised, I turned to Turk wide-eyed. I was pleased by the notion that people were certain we were a couple but also a bit nervous because as soon as I think things are going well, that is precisely when they fall apart.

He smiled broadly, not taking his eyes from me as he answered her, "Here. We just met tonight." Had he not been projecting his voice, I would have thought he was talking only to me.

It was just enough to pull me from my nervousness and regain my composure. "Yes, we've only just met." I said, smiling and returning to the lovely woman.

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise, "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you two came together."

Smiling I shook my head, "No."

"Oh." She said and then promptly turned to her husband to let us have more time together.

After that, the evening was a blur of intimate conversation and jokes with Turk. Every once and a while, I would turn back from an outside conversation to see him check me out. And I must say, there's nothing like a cute boy's attention to boost a girl's ego.

At some point he took of his jacket to reveal that not only is he smart, kind, handsome and funny but he has a body to end all bodies. It's not so much that he's very well muscled naturally (which is nice, I gotta admit, but it never last much beyond the momentary, "Dear god, look at that!") but that his bone structure is broader than mine. My hands disappear in his and his hands are stronger than mine. His shoulders are broader than mine and he's not appropriately sized by Chinese standards. Seeing the breadth of his shoulders was breathtaking and as he slid his jacket off, he spoke.

"I should be a gentleman and give you my jacket but I don't think you're cold."

I smiled and shook my head. "No, but thanks for the thought." Though, rest assured, had the room not been sweltering, I would have taken him up on it just to be wrapped in his dizzying scent.

After a year of being surrounded by beautiful works of art that I would worry about my capacity for hurting them if I ever really let go, here was a man built larger than I. There's nothing delicate about him. He's all sorts of rugged and for the first time in a very long time I felt distinctly, physically feminine even with my tomboyish tendencies. It was the first time in a long time that I didn't feel like I was looking at an equal but at someone who could keep me safe, even if he's five and a half years my junior.

What a lovely thing.

He made lots of self-deprecating jokes and lots of comments about how I "will see" about various aspects of his life. It was such a relief to once again be around a man taught to be aggressive. I'm so tired of the men here demurring at the slightest suggestion that I won't commit to marriage upon the first conversation. The women in China really need to be the aggressors, hacking themselves to bits in order to prove their willingness to marry even before the first conversation. I'm just not built for that. Hell, I'm not built to make the first phone call much less lay myself out to prove I'll do anything to marry him before I know his full name.

"Have you ever been married?" He asked quietly and awkwardly towards the end of the evening. I got the sense that he knew he might be crossing a line but his desire to know overcame his sense of propriety. It was, in fact, the first really intimate question he had asked me all night.

"No." I answered, laughing at the absurdity of me having done something so profoundly monumental as get married. I can't commit to a career; how on earth could I have committed to a man on such a grand scale? My relationships all nose-dive long before romantic whisperings of commitment have had a chance to take root. Frankly, I'm such a fucking mess and far too willful for my own good that it's not a surprise that I haven't gotten it together enough to be married/significantly coupled/whatever before 30.

I then thought how much I thought about myself in that answer. I have not reflected on my relationship state in public for quite some time. To be fair, it was the first time in a long time that question was about me. No one here wants to know about me; they want to about the opportunities I will provide them. It is literally the second question asked of me by everyone here. (The first being, "Where are you from?" People only get around to learning my name after extensive, intimate questioning aimed at me, followed by a solemn swear that I'll knock myself out to be friends.) That he waited until he had laid a fair amount of groundwork, waited until I was comfortable with our conversation and then even had the tact to be nervous about prying made the question feel far more intimate than it should have been.

Then he nodded, followed by the smallest, warmest smile for reasons I have no interest in guessing but I do know it made me glow.

At that point dinner had wrapped up and people were moving about to talk with each other and I had to use the restroom. I excused myself, found the restroom, splashed some cold water on my face, fixed my hair and tried to regain my senses. I did the usual stare-at-yourself-in-the-mirror-in-order-to-will-your-reason-back thing.

It didn't work as well as I had hoped but I figured it was time to get back to my seat before they sent a search party looking for me.

As I came back to my seat, Turk was surrounded by my Mentor and our Hostess. They were smiling broadly and patting his shoulder happily. I was curious to know the conversation so I checked in as soon as my Mentor and our Hostess saw me. I was, however, to Turk's back.

"eh... dui... wo gao xin" ["Well, yes... I'm happy"] He replied in Chinese as Chinese seems to be the most comfortable language for he and our Hostess to use.

As I sat down, I caught Turk's attention. "Hello," I said to break the sudden silence that fell over them.

"And look at you! Now you're blushing!" Our Hostess proclaimed in English as my Mentor pinched his cheek. Nervously, Turk nodded and for the first time he didn't look at me but focused on the table.

We all talked a bit more and then he leaned over to whisper into my ear, which, let's be honest, made me swoon. I was actually glad I was sitting. I have a thing, a big thing, about my neck. It just makes me stupid when the right man (hell, even a not-too-wrong-man) puts his lips anywhere near it. My head spun so much it took me a moment to realize the hand he was using to support himself on the back of the seat of my chair was definitely pressed against my rear.

Ah, demonstrative action, how I have missed you!

"Do you think it would be very rude of me to leave now?" He asked as were finishing the end of dinner conversation. "I have to get up at 3 for prayers and food and it's already 10 and I have class tomorrow."

"Don't be silly. Go! You have class and have to get up very early. Go." I insisted.

"Really?" He asked, unsure.

"Really! You need your rest, especially if you're fasting." I pushed, making him smile.

He took one final look at me and then turned to our Hostess whispering that he needed to leave.

She looked at him and stroked his face, "Yes my love. Go. You must get up early tomorrow." It was such a lovely gesture between the two of them. I really wanted to hug them both right then and there. Turk stood to leave and I stood to say goodbye.

As I'm American, everyone shakes my hand at first blush so Turk took my hand and shook it. He then shook his head to himself and leaned in to bisous me and was met with my eager reception.

And then he said a fond farewell to the table. After a brief explanation for his need to leave posthaste, that's exactly what he did.

I sat down again to lots of conversation with my friends as our Hostess's husband came over to me.

When our Host finally had a moment alone with me, he spoke. "Welcome to the Middle East," our Host said to me quietly, as he looked at me knowingly. For a moment, the notion struck serious fear into my heart.

Nothing scares me like the Middle East because I, and all of us, have so much to lose there and I have seen what the horrors of the Middle East have to offer the people I love. But then, I realized what was going on at dinner was precisely what needs to be going on; a laying aside of differences and a sharing of life. The Rosh Hashanah feast was dictated by Turk's Muslim dietary restrictions. Turk's first food after sundown was my apple dipped in honey with the wish for a happy, healthy New Year; the symbolic food of the Jewish New Year. That tolerance and blending is precisely what the Middle East needs to be. Granted, it's rosy and idealistic but the future needs to start somewhere.

"L'Shana tova" I said to him in Hebrew. It is the traditional blessing of the New Year. It is a hope that your name shall be written in the book of life, as is what happens to all people who lead a good and exemplary life. Having the Jewish and Muslim faith break bread during the mutual New Year certainly seems like a monumental step in that direction.

As my Mentor and I were leaving the restaurant with her arm around my waist and my arm around her shoulders, she laughed, "All this because of 'oy vey'."

I laughed too. "Yeah, who knew?"

"You should write the story of how this was all because of 'oy vey'."

And so I did.

SCHOOL’S NOT SO OUT

Yesterday was the first day of school. This week, I’m going to work seven days straight and, to be totally honest, I’m perfectly fine with that. I mean, I’m not FINE with that but I’ve come to a grudging but peaceful resolution with my time here in China. I came home from work yesterday thinking about the fact that I did nothing but sob big, heaving sobs this time last year. I was so overwhelmed by the enormity of what I had done that I was completely wrecked.

However, this year, the worst that happened was that I was mildly annoyed at all the 35-year-old housewives who lectured me on the value of “young people working” when I told them why I couldn’t join in on their weekend plans. Women who’ve never known a day of work in their life feel that they can lecture me on the value of working hard at my young age. You know, because being thirty seconds older than me and never having had to do it themselves makes them infinitely wise in the area of work. Frankly, women who feel that having a child will “intrude” on their relationship rarely have little more than patience to teach me.

Desperate, foreign housewives aside, I’m quite content with my relationship with Xi'An. I came here in crisis over the politics of my homeland and I have come to see how truly not-bad things are at home. Yes, never before have we needed vaster improvements in our political shenanigans but the sentence “America is my home country” no longer strikes a disturbing array of “He’s my ex husband and she’s the mistress he left me for” emotions. In fact, I now occasionally introduce myself as “American” and not always “New Yorker.”

Last year, I was shrieking at the top of my lungs in each class, to no avail. This year, I merely need to look at my students and they quiet up. Last year I was trying to sort out how to get the airport every night; wondering what I could leave behind because I couldn’t manage getting all my stuff to the airport. This year, I’m trying to sort out how to fit Chinese and Gu Zheng (the 21-stringed Chinese lap harp/piano) lessons and their requisite studying into my gym routine. Last year I was afraid of most of the people I lived around; dreading their gossip and prying eyes. This year, they seem to be intimidated by me. Last year, I was quickly in love with China and her men. This year, I seem to have grown and affinity for French men. I’ve come to see just how well they do romance and how poorly they do reality here. This year, I’m relieved to be a foreigner. Yeah, this year will be infinitely easier.

VANITY

I have been toying with the idea of chopping off my hair again. I miss the hair off my neck and the short hair that needs little more than a tuck behind my ears to be handled. I enjoy the romantic swirl of long hair but not the day-to-day reality and, ultimately, I am a girl built for comfort, not glamour. Not to mention, short hair just feels like me. Long hair has always felt too girly-girl for me and while I have grown to love being a woman, I'm not a frilly woman.

With this in the forefront of my mind, I went to the latest in a long string of salons to get my hair cut. After much arguing, I finally got the hair stylist to cut my hair like the photo I showed him. Apparently, no woman in her right mind would cut off all the hair I had. After all, I have the sacred, long, blond hair.

I, however, have never made claims to being in my "right mind."

And so, once again I returned to the land of short hair. By god, I missed it. It's long and tousled in the front and short and stacked in the back. Getting rid of my roots was another matter and I'll sum up the double bleaching, six-conditioner-free shampooings complete with the standard nail-scratching "relaxing" Chinese head massage and single dyeing incident by saying that the sores on my scalp are still weeping and clotting in my hair. Merely because my girls back home sent me a vat of cholesterol, I've managed not to lose my hair. It's safe to say that if my hair and scalp should survive this assault, I am rather happy with the results, despite the less-than-stellar shade of blond and lack of layers in my hair.

However, the fact of the matter is that in the back of my mind, I finally man-ed up and went to the hairdressers because I knew I'd be seeing that lovely French man with the lovely girlfriend at a wedding today and because Bill might be coming back to Xi'An at the start of September. Though I had signed off on him and am certainly not holding my breath, my Brazilian Angel is desperate to get Bill and I together. She thinks we'd be perfect and she really wants to make me happy. It is a kind gesture. She has even gone so far as to assure me that he was unable to see me because he did not stop in Xi'An this last time.

Nevertheless, I am amused by my own vanity. I cut my hair not because I wanted to look like "me" for me but because I wanted to look like me for the men I find infinitely attractive. Because I am not exempt from the human condition, I find myself reasoning to the edge, dallying about the edge ad nauseum and then flinging myself off the precipice without a second thought only at the (mere) mention of lust. I have admitted before to having an addict's problem with men and, frankly, it remains to this day.

Case in point: I spent the day watching the beautiful wedding of two of my closer friends in Xi'An and the highlight of the afternoon was the quiet joke shared between my French friend and myself. Such an addict I am.

When my French friend and his lovely girlfriend entered the banquet, she- being a truly lovely woman- waved emphatically to me and he nodded his casual nod towards me. There was no other indication of his recognition than the polite acknowledgment that I existed. I figured our delightful evening had just been one in a long string of lovely encounters for him and he would barely remember me.

After the banquet, I went over to their table under the guise of introducing some friends and much to my great pleasure, my French friend cracked a joke (aimed at no one but me) about something that happened the last time we met and then looked at me with those same eyes. I am such a sucker for that specific glance from a quiet, observant man.

And it got me thinking about the benchmark of that look; my first love. He and I had been talking online this morning before I had to head out to the wedding. He mentioned in passing how he's not happy with his body at the moment and so he doesn't really think about whether or not he's attractive because he's decided he's not. Upon reading that comment, I actually found myself laughing out loud. It is so odd, the things we pin our vanity to.

There are no words to encapsulate how utterly absurd the notion that he is not lust worthy is. Frankly, structurally speaking, my first love is a very handsome, masculine man. He is not some teenager tarted-up to sell magazines but rather a real man in the "Greek statue" sense of things. He is one of the easiest, most casually handsome things I have ever seen. In the era of pretty, effeminate, non-threatening boys selling whatever product with their lost little lamb qualities, my first love is a solid man. He is not pretty in any way. He is fully masculine in the traditional sense and every inch of him can only be described as handsome. His profile is striking, his eyes are penetrating and his eyes carry that incalculable quality of centered concentration that makes woman all atwitter. Most men watch a woman to see if she is entertained. Most men look (at me, at least) to gauge their own appropriateness in a situation, not to see her. She is little more than yet one more way to see themselves reflected back much like an assets statement or a flashy car.

However, in that gaze my first love articulated for me so many years ago lies the statement of patience and a level of commitment to stick through my nervous shyness and wait for me to gain my nerve so that I might bloom into all the colors I am fully capable of. It is a gaze to see me, not him. I can be a grand dame of epic proportions and often am in order to overcome my shyness but it's not who I am at home, much less in bed. It is that gaze that penetrates my peacock showiness and declares itself steady and curious enough to stick around and find out what I'm like at home. In that gaze, I feel comfortable enough to inhabit all my facets; grand dame to shy bookworm. It allows me to be seen as "versatile" and not "deceptive."

That gaze is my benchmark for all men. My first love spoiled me with it as a young woman and frankly, I look to be spoiled like that again. Money, things, stuff; I can get. I don't need someone to bring me things. I need someone to look at me like that. Given the diversity of my dating life, my friends are usually at a loss to explain what it is that my men have had in common but the fact is that it is that gaze that has been the common denominator. It is precisely that unwaivering ability to observe and remain focused that leaves a girl stripped and breathless. In that unwavering gaze, a girl realizes all the reason god made her a woman. A girl realizes her own perfect, specific beauty and the dust of insecurity is shaken off in the grip of that sort of gaze. To me, there is no lust without that gaze and without lust, you merely have friendship.

It is that gaze that I compare all others to. If a man cannot focus on me with that exquisite detail, I am utterly disinterested. It is tedious and boring to be with a man who cannot make you feel like the only thing to have ever existed, much less a man who would need the Cliff notes to my incongruous nature. It is the men who can look at a woman like that, focus on her and leave her utterly unhinged that make life interesting.

My French friend has the ability to look at me like that down pat and it's dangerous for me. First of all, I really like his girlfriend. She is a good woman and truly lovely. Secondly, I don't want to be a mistress. I'm no good at playing second fiddle. Frankly, I'm too spoiled to be very good at being first, much less second.

However, there is that gaze and I am a slave to it. In that incalculable, ephemeral state- that chemistry between two people- I am utterly lost. All he need to is ask and I am his for the taking. My safety lies not in my ability to reason but in his lack of articulated desire. Ration and reason strip themselves from me along with insecurity in that gaze. And, to be totally honest, since I've made the decision to join the nunnery, the long-term ramifications of my romantic life seem inconsequential so there is no longer a nagging voice in the back of my mind. I don't care about whether or not we'd have a future. I don't care how he'd fit into my life or how we'd "make things work." I just want to have time alone with him when it's convenient for me and then get on with my life.

And so I did the only reasonable thing in a no-win situation; I dug in deeper. I promptly gave them my contact information and said that we needed to hang out.

Ah, the vanity of my libido.

INTIMACY

I must admit, I'm not nearly as prepared for intimacy as I'd like. Granted, I had forgotten just how pervasive the lack of intimacy is here but nevertheless I'm amazed at how much an intimate relationship can throw me for a loop. Keep in mind, as I discuss "intimate" it's not a euphemism for "sex" or even "romantic attachment" but rather that specific emotional connection you feel towards someone with whom you are more often than not without defense and equal parts raw and complete.

My first love almost always has and probably always will be capable of throwing me for a loop... without even trying. Ironically, I have never known him to try. In fact, I'm quite certain there is no one in the history of the world who has ever tried harder NOT to throw me for a loop... ever. To speak bluntly, there is no one in the world I trust more than he and there is no one in the world who has ever been steadier with accepting me as I am. Yes, I have pissed him off and known it. Yes, we have hurt each other. However, he is the only person I have ever known who has never abandoned me out of frustration and has always made himself available to the best of his ability. And, to his great pleasure- I'm sure- he is the only person around whom I have always felt comfortable just being me as I think of me, in all my lunacy. My one great regret about our friendship is that I was not there for him during a particularly difficult time for him. It is, actually, the single regret I have about my life.

There is no one who, at current, can get a rise out of me the way he can nor is there anyone quite as capable of putting me at ease. The fact that I live in a world where no one can access- much less challenge- me the way he does makes me even less prepared to handle myself around him. At home, I am surrounded by a social network of girlfriends who keep me honest about who I am and in whose company I can forget about the "role" I play for them. That keeps me honest and clear on who I am. However, I am not at home. So, in my occasional dealings with him while I'm here, I find myself not the stoic leader with this fantastical future ahead of her that everyone else seems to see but the spastic teen most of us fear being and are happy we outgrew.

This is China and so I am accustomed to the necessity of the patience of a saint merely to get through the day. The Chinese custom is that all meetings will consider beginning no sooner than one hour and a half after the scheduled start time. No one in China ever plans anything and, as my Brazilian Angel so aptly coined, "Darling, this is last minute dot com." I am accustomed to people not thinking about me until 1 am and then indulging in their desire to speak with me right then and there despite the fact that they flaked on our lunch date earlier in the day. I am not human to most of the people I meet here and so, in many ways, I am exempt from the human condition. I need to not be invested in the men who wax poetic about me for I am merely mute, alabaster breasts with blonde hair, blue eyes and a greencard vagina on a pedestal. I am every man's dream because I am merely their perceived perfect blank canvas. I need not be invested in most of the women who befriend me for I am merely the exotic beauty they use to up their social status. I need not waste my time connecting with most of the foreigners for I am merely the fellow sister with strength and potential to envy or the powerful goddess he wishes his wife still was. I am placid, unflappable and infinitely tolerant because, to put it bluntly, I am irrelevant.

However, one mere mention in passing from my first love that he had to pencil in time to contact me so he wouldn't forget and I go off the deep end. I'm furious someone as important as he has been to me has to remind himself to think of me; has to note me on a calendar. I'm crying at the thought that the affection I will always hold for him is a stupid, nostalgic fool's errand built on nothing but my own pathetic projection. And, I find myself erasing all the emails he's ever sent me because I suddenly find that I am not exempt from the human condition and am, in fact, very capable of going to that crazy girl place... and far more easily than I would care to admit to. In a world where I am the calmest, most rational, reasonable human being around- a veritable bodhisvatta- I find myself in the midst of an overreaction worthy of some sort of scientific award. I believe I discovered spontaneous generation; the creation of an infinite amount of energy from absolutely nothing. Because I'm an eight year old, I actually found myself swearing I would never speak to him again and see how he liked it. And then I shot off an email to my girl from that dark space about how hurt I was.

Kali was back but at least this time, for the first time, I had the good sense to see I was losing my mind and not inflict it upon him.

As I purged all electronic things (I would never be able to rid myself of the more tangible pieces of him) from him with vengeance, he then sent a follow up email and a request to chat online with me. Begrudgingly, I accepted, though not after debating ignoring him. And between the compendium email he sent me and the chat we had online, I remember precisely what I adore about him. I adore his steadiness, which results in various things, including his need to have a calendar of "to do" things in order to prioritize. He is anything but reckless and I adore that. That is not to say that he does not have earth-shattering passion but that is to say he's more adult about it than I am. He is mature enough to weigh the pragmatic and sort out a way to make real life coexist with his passion. It doesn't mean his affection is greater or lesser than mine, merely realized differently. Mine just happens to be a lot louder and his, perhaps, is a lot stronger. At the very least, it's far more dependable.

Frankly, it's lovely being revealed to be such an immature, raving lunatic. I was starting to think this detachment wasn't merely a geographical issue but rather something more permanent and insidious; that I had lost my ability to engage emotionally. Leave it to him to prove me wrong in the nicest possible way.

GET ME TO A NUNNERY

It has been coming to my attention for some time now that I am meant to be alone for the indefinite future. I do not speak of platonic love, merely romantic. I am well aware that I am infinitely more lucky than the vast majority of the planet as I am surrounded by an abundance of love. However, there is a marked dearth of romantic love in my life, and has been for some time. Perhaps it will be the rest of my life. Perhaps it will be merely moments more. Who knows? I do know that I don’t know. I also know that I am tired of waiting.

This in mind, the fact of the matter is that I have always found idea of the mechanics of a monastic life appealing. Like all true romantics, I have always been secretly enamored with the idea of living in a space where you have resigned to the idea of solitude and removed yourself from the angst of romantic love. It always seemed so ballsy to me to buck the system I have been addicted to my whole life and just find the inner resolve to get on with things. To be honest, I fantasize about being a soccer mom the way most people fantasize about being a rockstar; the quiet mourning of a dream you know will never be, at least not within the parameters you envision.

In light of my time in China (and the world in general), that is what I have decided to do. I will grab the bull by the horns and resolve myself to live my life with no account for making my own family. To be without a family of my own creation is one of my greatest fears and I will live with that fear no longer. I will embrace what I fear about never having a mate or biological children and learn to live beyond it. If it happens upon me, so be it and I will embrace it with open arms but I’m tired of the quiet, nagging voice in my head that wonders when companionship will arrive, wonders if he’s around the next bend and wonders if I really can compromise enough to keep the latest “him” in my life. I have been loved greatly by lovely men and in that, I have no complaints. However, I am shackled by this nagging voice and constantly at odds with a situation I have no control over. My conscious effort to remain open has merely led to heartache whose only two lessons to be learned are; 1. The things I love always have been and seem to always be less-than-healthy and 2. I can survive innumerable immolations. That’s all well and good and probably completely normal but, to what end?

So, I have resolved to scuttle that voice and live beyond it. Frankly, I’m tired of remaining open to the possibility of love. I wish I could say I was outraged by the way most of my pathetic attempts at relationships have ended but they have merely served to make me feel more for my fellow human beings. I wish I could say I loathe love and resent my fellow human beings for it but quite the contrary. The more I get kicked around, the more I love love because I see it for the fragile, near-impossible beauty it is. The more I get kicked around, the more compassion I feel because I keep learning that we lash out most often because we are afraid of losing love. The more deeply I’m wounded, the more clearly I see the suffering of the person wounding me.

That said, I’ve grown tired; bone weary really. I don’t begrudge anyone romantic love. I don’t, however, want it for myself anymore. I hate the duality of wanting to hate someone but the more I need to hate them the more I find myself unable to do so. And I now wish to construct a life for myself that services the ephemeral nature of my personality. A long-term commitment to solitude and the greater good seems peacefully appealing. In short; a nunnery.

The only snag in my little plan is that I don’t believe in god. Granted, I don’t disbelieve in god either. Frankly, I’m neither here nor there on the “god” issue and instead choose to focus on what I do know about with some certainty (relatively speaking); mankind. It is why I stayed with the 9/11 work far longer than was healthy for me. That is why I have done a myriad of things that were, perhaps, not the best for me but definitely have serviced the greater good. My humanitarian bent aside, I’m pretty sure that whole “who knows” attitude towards god rules out a marriage to whatever deity nuns tend to wed.

So, in lieu of the nunnery, I’ve chosen the Foreign Service. I am not built to remain in the education of students for the rest of the life that lies before me. I can see myself returning to academia but the thought of always doing this for the rest of my life has never sat well with me. I’m sure the Ivory Tower is my destiny but I’m not ready to resign myself to that life quite yet. The Ivory Tower always seemed like a job for retirement and, frankly, I’m not even 30 yet. Also, I have no desire to return to the States permanently yet. I’m sure the desire will return upon my need to “slow down” or whatever, but I’m not there now. I love wandering about the planet, seeing what there is to see and interacting with new cultures. The fact that I would be moving once every 2 to 4 years is perfection to me. Also, I love building bridges of communication. I love art and expression and all the good that mankind is capable of. (As a full spectrum species, we are capable of just as much evil however the nightly news seems to have cornered the market on the depressing aspects of our human condition) Fortunately for me, the Foreign Service has combined the Art and Press departments as a singular unit meaning that those of us with a communications background (as my film experience offers) must also manage cultural liaisons (as my academic background offers) while speaking one of the “hot” languages like Mandarin and the ever-standard French.

Which means I will be working on my Mandarin, studying for the FSO exam and generally imbuing my daily life with a bit more focus than I’ve had recently. This decision makes my head a peaceful place to be. Perhaps I’ll even go the Mia Farrow route and start adopting a million children. I think I could be an okay mom, despite my lack of SUV.

INTERMISSION

I've written and rewritten this entry for a couple of weeks now. So many things keep happening and I find it too difficult to encapsulate it all into a single analysis. I guess I can't and so I'll just relate the broad strokes to you as the unfolded. There's no real "story" here, complete with a beginning, middle and end because, well, it's just my life. It seems to defy encapsulation for me. And, as Utta Hagen once said to her student when she told him to be more passionate about a scen and he responded with "Oh, I get it. You want 'larger than life'." she replied, "My dear, there is nothing larger than life."

At the end of July, a lovely couple came to stay with me. I did not know them and they did not know me. They remarked, on several occasions, how kind it was for me to open my door and allow them to stay in my home. It wasn't until the first time they made such a comment that it even occurred to me that I might not have offered a place to stay. They are, after all, friends of my great (and I mean "great" in both familial description as well as genuinely fabulous) aunt and of similar minds. The only reason I had not offered my place to stay after our first email exchange was that I wasn't sure my guest room would be open and I needed to run the idea by the Jude to make sure it wasn't an inappropriate gesture as I have never before been in the position of being able to offer residence to people I'd never met but with whom I felt a kinship of sorts. Once the Jude assured me it was not an inappropriate gesture, I offered and they accepted.

It was one of the best things I've done in China. I got to hear stories of the rest of China and I got wonderful company. They were highly respectful of my schedule and simply a pleasure to have around. She was a ball of silly, wonderful fun coupled with such a fantastic ability to roll with the punches. It was heartening to be around another woman who lacked such marked fragility as the women I am surrounded with. It was such a relief not to have to be concerned about my female company and her emotional fragility. In short, I not only didn't have to mother her but in an utter inversion of what I have been experiencing here, she had quite a lot to teach me about what I value most in feminine strength, kindness and perseverance.

And he was simply lovely. Given the relationship I have with my own father, I am always a bit uncertain about the friendships I have with men older than myself. I worry about the men I am (platonically) attracted to and my own judgment about such matters. Familially speaking, wonderful men surround me however, I did start off with some less-than-stellar lessons and so every once and a while my supremely bad judgment crops up. Not true in this case. There was the element of my mother's father that exists in every man I adore in my family; the element of a quiet man set upon astute and kind observation. Frankly put, no one has made me consciously think more about my perspective on my time here than he. And, he didn't do it with a lot fanfare It simply came through in quiet moments.

They were a breath of fresh air I didn't consciously realize I needed. I found myself entirely unedited and pieces of myself that have verbally atrophied (I can still write about them but there is no one here with whom I can share significant pieces of myself verbally) were awoken. For the first time in a year, I was challenged by the questions being asked. Seeing the two of them together, seeing the two of them in the flesh and seeing how much they seemed to like being around me reminded me that there is a world (small though it may be) of people of like mind and that I belong there. She reminded me of a world where women can take care of themselves and he reminded me of a world where men can see the full spectrum of the things I value. They brought a lovely bubble of home into my little vacuum and I am forever grateful for that.

There are no witty anecdotes to sum them up and no astute observations to typify them. It was the broad spectrum of their entire time here that I value and there is no one moment I value more than another. The were all priceless to me. I hope that we will be life-long friends.

And then there is school. I was clearly placed in the only class they had and it was way too advanced for me. I did my best but was irretrievably behind the other students who had all been studying for at least three years in an academic setting and even longer in a personal setting. However, now that they were all in China for the first time, it suddenly became summer camp. Korea, not long after our "You're very Asian" encounter, soon revealed himself to be entirely too frat boy-ish for my taste. In a few years I have no doubt he will be a lovely and wonderful boy but he is in dire need of a good, life ass kicking. He's too obsessed with people liking him and the drama of being the cookie-cutter, good-looking bloke as women duke it out around him. He's a dreamboat but he's also a man you would never be alone with, even if it was just the two of you. He is attracted to the girl who only wants the validation of being wanted by the boy all the girls want. And, after I spent one night out with the group in a club, it became abundantly clear that the boy I would make a total ass out of myself over (the sensitive, thoughtful, steady, 19-year-old, half-German/half-Chinese lad) were I young enough was not romantically valued by anyone except myself. So, socially, I knew I had nothing in common with the soap opera unfolding of unrequited hormones and masochistic, twenty-something drama for drama's sake. Which meant the only thing I would be getting out of my class was the academic work.

Unfortunately, the first teacher had had enough of my fellow summer campers and decided to focus on me and teaching me almost to the exclusion of the rest of the class. She became so focused on making an example of me in front of the whole class that I simply skipped her last day of class because it became untenable to constantly have, "I just want to audit the class because it is WAY over my level" constantly ignored. Then, the second teacher, a much more serious teacher, followed suit. I had explained that I wanted to audit and wasn't able to fully participate as the class (on the whole) significantly above my level. Apparently, my levels of honesty were a bad thing as she quickly decided (within the first hour of class) that she should teach, shame and punish me to the exclusion of the rest of the students who all showed up at least a half hour late to her first class. The first day of that class was the first day I've ever tried to write Chinese and so, bright as I may be, two weeks of class is not going to cover the at-least-three-years-of-reading-and-writing the rest of the class has on me.

None of that seemed to matter to the new teacher and I was the first one she called upon to do any reading or writing exercise. Now, I've been a teacher in China long enough to understand that this tough love is considered a sigh of great affection from a Chinese teacher, however, I was there to learn and simply could not with the constant barrage of, "Wrong. Class, what did she do wrong THIS time?" Frankly, it got so bad even my socially inept classmates simply stopped responding to her questions to open up her berating of me. Tough love teachers simply shut me down. I am unable to function in a "tough love" classroom if I am granted no respite. And, this started to damage my ability to speak Chinese. I lost more Chinese taking that class than I learned. The confidence that class killed makes it difficult to go out in the morning and simply do what I've always normally done. So, as I caught myself making excuses and hedging my lifestyle simply to avoid speaking Chinese because the class made me feel stupid, I decided to quit. Frankly, I am the only person who can take care of me here and the last thing I need is to be housebound with agoraphobia.

And the day I quit, I was invited to a party.

I have made a lot of friends in the French contingent of Xi'An. In fact, none of my close foreign friends here speak English natively. Most of them speak French and a few of them speak German. One of my favorite French men invited me to his and his Chinese wife's home for a party with their other friends.

And then I realized I have grown into my age. I was at last at a party of similarly aged people (for the first time, not significantly older) with whom I felt comfortable socially.

As the party began, I noticed I was getting a bit of extra attention from a new Xi'An arrival. He was boisterous and there with his beautiful girlfriend but none of that seemed to stop him from constantly looking to and speaking with the more subdued me. At first I thought nothing of it and figured it was merely a social boy being social but after a while it became clear I really was getting extra attention.

A bit of the way through the party and after two sets of couples were there, a third showed up (always couples here!). We were all chatting when the new couple entered. The woman was a fireball, instantly the "life of the party," and the only other American there. She was everything I dread about being at a party with women my age; she was loud, confident in that naive 20-something way, overtly sexual and non-stop. She is the archetype that walks into a party and instantly has all the men captivated while the rest of us mere mortal females seem to vanish into the background. I was certain at her arrival, this attention I was being lavished with would evaporate.

However, it was not so at this party. She showed up, was her fiery self and none of the men much noticed. Everyone was lovely and social with her but she did not captivate the room the way I am accustomed to seeing. In fact, the lovely French man lavishing me with attention and with whom I would most certainly have gone home had his girlfriend not been in existence, did not miss a beat with me. My platonic interest for the evening acknowledged the fireball within the limits of propriety but kept his eyes on me the whole time. Whenever he had a free moment, he found his way to me to talk and towards the end of the evening clearly settled himself down with me for a long discussion. It was the first time in a very long time I had the very clear message that while he was absolutely physically attracted to me, he was most interested in my conversation. Granted, he is one I can never be alone with for obvious, messy reasons but the affirmation that he wanted to be with me above all others was really lovely.

Frankly, it made me miss Bill. My platonic interest was quietly aggressive in seeking out my discussion and unwavering in his pursuit of me the way Bill had been. In spite of myself and in spite of the clear message of not contacting me during his most recent trip here, I missed Bill most acutely at that party. I was reminded of a lesson in my introductory art history class about the importance of what is missing from art. Often, the absence of a single thing that would fit best within an image is stronger than the foregone conclusions of its presence.

I am insufferable sap.

I missed that about me.