it's not that there aren't gorgeous men in my life -- some straight ones, even! -- it's that they're just not that into me
My very dear friend and first love of my life, SMF, was in town this weekend conducting the business. In between him booting up craptastic Dupont food and me falling asleep at ten pm, we hung out, which was fantastic. He recently got himself engaged to a lovely lady of much better repute than I, and during a beerlarious evening with Dore and myself recounted the (awesomely cute and goopy) story of his proposal. I knew I wanted to hear the story but I hadn't realized how I would feel -- which was mostly, holy CRAP we are all getting old. Or as TT put it on Sunday night, there's grief at losing the person you knew, even if you are happy and excited, grief because their lives are changing, and that's going to change your own life. He said he put that in a toast when two of his best friends from college got married over the summer -- that he felt so thrilled for them, but also sad, and it was good to hear that I'm not just crazy. I love SMF and I think this is the right thing for him, and for them, but damn. I don't know if I'm ready for one of my nearest and dearest to bite the bullet, you know?
I hung out with Toxic Type on Sunday night, after I saw a show with the parentals. He had been one of two actors called for a part in the show I had just seen, and obviously was not cast, so I wanted to walk him through how the show sucked, and just catch up in general. We hadn't seen each other in quite a while -- he's been rehearsing like a madman for his new show and working late hours at his bar, and I've been, oh I don't know exactly what I've been doing ... drinking cups of tea and watching Undeclared, and trying to decide whether I should go to the Smoke now or in January.
I don't know what it is, exactly, about hanging out with Toxic Type that tends to make me wax philosophical. Maybe the beers and the afters. Maybe the fact that somehow we ended whatever it is we had on equal terms: I don't feel like either of us lost any face, and that's very unusual for me. Maybe the fact that he has chosen to make his living in a field I am attracted to, and that hearing his stories only reaffirms that I really am not suited for pursuing it. Maybe the fact that he has no qualms about asserting his value and skills, when I can be pretty reticent about my own, especially in a professional context. He makes me feel less freaked out about my future, partly because he has to constantly make decisions about his future (reasons #3971 I would not be a good professional actor), so it has shown me, over and over, that paths open in different ways at different times. And TT is quite good about telling me he thinks I'm great (literally, he has on more than one occasion called me "fantastic") which really never gets old.
However it works, I always leave an evening-cum-early morning spent in TT's company fantasizing about how I am going to grow up and be a fabulous artist/patroness of the arts, and that all and sundry will come and visit my flat/house in Ljubljana/Santo-Domingo/Accra/Kyoto/London, and eat my fabulous (yet simple and inspiring and locally-sourced!) meals, and have brilliant conversations about the world and about art. I love that fantasy, and I will always be very fond of TT for fostering and nurturing it in me, because I need to be imagining it in order to bring any part of it into reality.
But for once, in my admittedly-short life, I am not lying when I say it's okay for us to just be friends. I don't want to date him -- among other reasons, I just couldn't listen to him that much. All at once every few weeks is fine, but every day? Yeesh. And to think I've made this realization before pining over him for a period of not less than three months and not more than two years? Astounding! A new leaf! All in all, a stunning and intriguing relationship: I find him quite attractive, but I don't want to get in his pants -- and not just because I've already been in his pants!
While we're swimming in the Sea of Ex, the Southern Gentleman wrote an interesting opinion piece over here. The comments section turned into a screaming match, of course (although he handled it very well I thought) but I think that the piece itself is a sweet little homage, very true to what SG struggled with when I knew him, and true to the struggles of mid-late twenty somethings everywhere: what size fish do I want to be? in what size pond?
Of course, having SMF in town this weekend (so incredibly lovely) threw a new light on the whole DC renaissance issue -- he hasn't lived here in quite a while, and I've certainly forgotten how different this city is from what it was. It is different, and not just because there are hella more wealthy people moving in and buying up property. I wish I could write that the city is moving more towards economic and racial desegregation, but that's not true. Part of why I love working where I do is that it's one of the most integrated social places I've been in DC: we've got the nieghborhood druggies and local fromages grandes, we've got little grandmas of all sizes and colors, we've got human sexuality from one end of the spectrum to the other, and the kitchen judges them ALL on the same thing: how they behave. This definitely is not the time to waiterrant but suffice it to say that neither assholism nor politeness know color or wallet capacity, and we WILL talk about you if you are not acting like a grownup.
But sadly DC isn't becoming more like Zion. Yes, there is more money (thank heavens) although it's not all getting spent where it can do the most good. Yes, there does seem to be more of a local artistic community/energy than when I was growing up and Woolly Mammoth was across the street from an abandoned lot. And yes, now we have a soccer team and a baseball team, and a mayor who doesn't smoke crack. All this "progress" is still bittersweet, though, and some of the comments to SG's piece got at this. Local DC (not federal DC) before this boom was a little bit of an inside joke, something not everyone got, and that was for the best. Really. Errr, maybe. It's the same lame argument everyone makes when their favorite band hits the big time -- now that it's popular, we don't want to like them anymore, or we need to broadcast that we knew about them way back when, etc. Now I can't go to Adams Morgan on a Saturday night without stepping in intern puke (possible in the 80s when Adams Morgan still had a little dodgems left) but I can walk to and from a bar on 11th Street without running into problems (distinctly less possible in the 80s-- and yes, that has to do with the fact that there is now a bar on 11th Street that caters to my pale and disposably-incomed ilk, which definitely did not exist in the Barreighties, but there you go). As my beloved Johnathan says, Six eggs in one basket, seis huevos en el otro ... It's hard to find that balance.
It's strange to think about the directions SG and I have gone in since we parted ways. In a sense I don't feel that my life is really that different: I'm still slinging hash, living in the best house ever, and puzzling out what and where my next concrete steps are. And yes, I am aware of the fact that no decision is a decision, much as I wish the contrary. Still, I am almost entirely where I was at this point last year, whereas it seems now he is progressing very nicely along in his life. I don't FEEL that I am at the same point I was last year, and whether that relates to the grant or to the idea of graduate school not making me puke I don't know. It's good though.
I'd like to see a cage fight between SG and 123L: both passionate, articulate young men, well aware of their above-average intelligence and manejo of pop culture. And both very much concerned with the world and the struggle to find their rightful work in it. When I say I'd like to see a cage fight, it's not really true. I know who would win, and both of them have pretty faces I wouldn't want to see unnecessarily bloodied and/or disfigured. I'd like to think that at one point I knew them each well enough to know that they would enjoy an opponent worthy on several fronts, not just physically or mentally, and that afterwards we could all go for a beer at the Raven, and then my new boyfriend (I swear, looking at him never gets old!) would come and pick me up in his Mini and we would go have cutesy nibbles at Vidalia or something. Also, I would like a pony. Who wears a tiara.
I hung out with Toxic Type on Sunday night, after I saw a show with the parentals. He had been one of two actors called for a part in the show I had just seen, and obviously was not cast, so I wanted to walk him through how the show sucked, and just catch up in general. We hadn't seen each other in quite a while -- he's been rehearsing like a madman for his new show and working late hours at his bar, and I've been, oh I don't know exactly what I've been doing ... drinking cups of tea and watching Undeclared, and trying to decide whether I should go to the Smoke now or in January.
I don't know what it is, exactly, about hanging out with Toxic Type that tends to make me wax philosophical. Maybe the beers and the afters. Maybe the fact that somehow we ended whatever it is we had on equal terms: I don't feel like either of us lost any face, and that's very unusual for me. Maybe the fact that he has chosen to make his living in a field I am attracted to, and that hearing his stories only reaffirms that I really am not suited for pursuing it. Maybe the fact that he has no qualms about asserting his value and skills, when I can be pretty reticent about my own, especially in a professional context. He makes me feel less freaked out about my future, partly because he has to constantly make decisions about his future (reasons #3971 I would not be a good professional actor), so it has shown me, over and over, that paths open in different ways at different times. And TT is quite good about telling me he thinks I'm great (literally, he has on more than one occasion called me "fantastic") which really never gets old.
However it works, I always leave an evening-cum-early morning spent in TT's company fantasizing about how I am going to grow up and be a fabulous artist/patroness of the arts, and that all and sundry will come and visit my flat/house in Ljubljana/Santo-Domingo/Accra/Kyoto/London, and eat my fabulous (yet simple and inspiring and locally-sourced!) meals, and have brilliant conversations about the world and about art. I love that fantasy, and I will always be very fond of TT for fostering and nurturing it in me, because I need to be imagining it in order to bring any part of it into reality.
But for once, in my admittedly-short life, I am not lying when I say it's okay for us to just be friends. I don't want to date him -- among other reasons, I just couldn't listen to him that much. All at once every few weeks is fine, but every day? Yeesh. And to think I've made this realization before pining over him for a period of not less than three months and not more than two years? Astounding! A new leaf! All in all, a stunning and intriguing relationship: I find him quite attractive, but I don't want to get in his pants -- and not just because I've already been in his pants!
While we're swimming in the Sea of Ex, the Southern Gentleman wrote an interesting opinion piece over here. The comments section turned into a screaming match, of course (although he handled it very well I thought) but I think that the piece itself is a sweet little homage, very true to what SG struggled with when I knew him, and true to the struggles of mid-late twenty somethings everywhere: what size fish do I want to be? in what size pond?
Of course, having SMF in town this weekend (so incredibly lovely) threw a new light on the whole DC renaissance issue -- he hasn't lived here in quite a while, and I've certainly forgotten how different this city is from what it was. It is different, and not just because there are hella more wealthy people moving in and buying up property. I wish I could write that the city is moving more towards economic and racial desegregation, but that's not true. Part of why I love working where I do is that it's one of the most integrated social places I've been in DC: we've got the nieghborhood druggies and local fromages grandes, we've got little grandmas of all sizes and colors, we've got human sexuality from one end of the spectrum to the other, and the kitchen judges them ALL on the same thing: how they behave. This definitely is not the time to waiterrant but suffice it to say that neither assholism nor politeness know color or wallet capacity, and we WILL talk about you if you are not acting like a grownup.
But sadly DC isn't becoming more like Zion. Yes, there is more money (thank heavens) although it's not all getting spent where it can do the most good. Yes, there does seem to be more of a local artistic community/energy than when I was growing up and Woolly Mammoth was across the street from an abandoned lot. And yes, now we have a soccer team and a baseball team, and a mayor who doesn't smoke crack. All this "progress" is still bittersweet, though, and some of the comments to SG's piece got at this. Local DC (not federal DC) before this boom was a little bit of an inside joke, something not everyone got, and that was for the best. Really. Errr, maybe. It's the same lame argument everyone makes when their favorite band hits the big time -- now that it's popular, we don't want to like them anymore, or we need to broadcast that we knew about them way back when, etc. Now I can't go to Adams Morgan on a Saturday night without stepping in intern puke (possible in the 80s when Adams Morgan still had a little dodgems left) but I can walk to and from a bar on 11th Street without running into problems (distinctly less possible in the 80s-- and yes, that has to do with the fact that there is now a bar on 11th Street that caters to my pale and disposably-incomed ilk, which definitely did not exist in the Barreighties, but there you go). As my beloved Johnathan says, Six eggs in one basket, seis huevos en el otro ... It's hard to find that balance.
It's strange to think about the directions SG and I have gone in since we parted ways. In a sense I don't feel that my life is really that different: I'm still slinging hash, living in the best house ever, and puzzling out what and where my next concrete steps are. And yes, I am aware of the fact that no decision is a decision, much as I wish the contrary. Still, I am almost entirely where I was at this point last year, whereas it seems now he is progressing very nicely along in his life. I don't FEEL that I am at the same point I was last year, and whether that relates to the grant or to the idea of graduate school not making me puke I don't know. It's good though.
I'd like to see a cage fight between SG and 123L: both passionate, articulate young men, well aware of their above-average intelligence and manejo of pop culture. And both very much concerned with the world and the struggle to find their rightful work in it. When I say I'd like to see a cage fight, it's not really true. I know who would win, and both of them have pretty faces I wouldn't want to see unnecessarily bloodied and/or disfigured. I'd like to think that at one point I knew them each well enough to know that they would enjoy an opponent worthy on several fronts, not just physically or mentally, and that afterwards we could all go for a beer at the Raven, and then my new boyfriend (I swear, looking at him never gets old!) would come and pick me up in his Mini and we would go have cutesy nibbles at Vidalia or something. Also, I would like a pony. Who wears a tiara.
posted by Hannah at 12:15 AM
3 comments
