Here's where I admit that this whole dating thing is really, really hard, and sometimes it really really sucks. I'm about to enter a crazy week not unlike my first flurry foray into this project, ten dates in ten days to top off a summer of adventure, of finding NYC, of finding myself and finding many, many first dates.
But, if I am honest with you all, and with myself, sometimes it's a pain in the butt. I am psyched and committed to jump full force into the next (and last?) series of dates. I'm looking forward to a trip to the Whitney, to grooving with Louis in his house museum, to visiting a courthouse without my suit on, and yes, returning to Staten Island. I'm devilishly ready to meet the men my friends have set me up with for the last venture into finding summer love and anxious to bring summer out with a bang (and a key, and nearly a dozen locks.)
But my goodness if it can't be tiring at times. Being open for three months straight? Believing in the possibility that a connection may be out there? Making the guy feel comfortable and ensure (or at least try to ensure) that he is having a fun time too? Listening to friends dismiss my idea when they go home to their husbands (for clarification,I am not talking about any of my wonderful friends in beautiful relationships who posted comments and furthered dialogue on the last post!). Going through personal struggles and both not wanting to be negative on a first date and also wishing someone already knew. Let's face it, dating can be hard, and dating openly for one whole summer, looking for love, wanting love, but also realizing and admitting and succumbing to the idea that it's all about the experience, the adventure, the moments, well, that's a tough order.
Being single means being your own cheerleader when you want to give up, it means kissing yourself goodnight and telling yourself you're beautiful every morning. It means getting yourself out of that funk and telling yourself a funny story to make you laugh. And it can be insightful and gorgeous and comforting but it can also be, well, hard, and lonely, and, dare I say it, sometimes a little sad. I didn't expect to put myself out there just to find "someone" but the more you date, the more you are confronted with the idea of idea, and thus, the fact that you yourself are floating in orbit.
I don't want to give the wrong idea, I still love all of it, and tomorrow I will wake up and head to that ferry full of possibility and wonder.
But tonight, I just want to acknowledge that it can be tough out there for us single folks in a world made for twos.
-L.A.
KEY 2 THE CITY, KEY 2 MY HEART: Searching for love one lock at a time...
Friday, August 27, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
The Leap
On December second 2006, halfway through my senior year of college and just before my twenty-second birthday, writing " I just want to be with someone whose arms I am as excited to jump into as a pile of leaves fallen from a tree."
The air has finally begun to cool.
Which means many lovely things. It means I get to curl up in a warm sweater as I write this post from my front stoop overlooking cobbled stones. It means lovely jaunts with blessed coworkers and actually enjoying the breeze. It means acroyoga without getting over heated and the reminder of leaves changing color and newly sharpened pencils and the back to school giddiness in the stomach even if you're finally an "adult" who no longer has "summer break" and thus no longer can relish in the mystery/terror of beginnings of class sections, new teachers, cute boys, notebooks that have yet to be written in, subjects that have yet to be learned. The leaves will soon begin to fall.
It also means the end of the Key to the City project. Fear not, I promise you I will get it done (I have quite the week planned) but I have to say that in this summer of love of art and love of life there has been less love than usual in my dating experiences and adventures. What I mean to say is that it is intellectually and romantically interesting to me that I have not yet found someone to consistently share the end dates with, not because I believe men are like fish and you just have to hang around long enough to catch something worthwhile, but because in my past, it's worked out that way.
Now, to be fair, none of my relationships have exactly lasted. Dating I am great at, actual relationships, admittedly, not so much ( I believe Morgan Spurlock proved that McDonald French Fries outlast my boyfriends in terms of a shelf life) but I have, in the past, found people with whom I wanted to share more than a handful of outings. And so far, in this project, either I haven't found them or they haven't (metaphysically) found me or, perhaps more fittingly, we collectively didn't find our connection.
Could it be the project has bitten me in the rear end? Does the possibility and knowledge of completing so many dates in a summer take away from focusing on the man at present? Or have I been allowed to explore more, look for deeper connections, so I am not just falling into old patterns of "eh, you're not so bad"-relationships that inevitably end? Maybe it's something in between. Maybe I have been allowed to look but, truth be told, I have no idea what on earth I am looking for.
It's easy to make lists of attributes, the rambling "cute, funny, smart, good guy" persona's that work like fortune tellers in that we all agree with are talking only about us. Ask one hundred people what they are looking for and I bet 90 percent will tell you much of the same. And there's a difference when you add in personal chemistry and the pace of your conversation and how wide your smile gets when he calls but really, on a first date, I just have no idea how you know anymore.
I knew with Jared, my high school sweetheart who I oft refer to (and shout out here to his fantastic mom who I am told reads this blog and to whom I would STILL like to apologize for consuming 99 percent of her sons time throughout our freshmen and sophomore years of high school, had texting taken off by then I'm sure it would be closer to 100) almost right away. I knew when I first saw him and the first time we hugged I literally, LITERALLY, got weak in the knees. Granted, I was thirteen and had maybe hugged two other guys in the non-cousin variety but still, it was everything the movies tell you it's supposed to be, your breath slows down, your heart speeds up, and everything, even the thoughts through your head, go into slow motion.
But back to life, back to reality and back to non Romeo and Juliet tumultuous hormone driven love from the 90's. These days, I'd like my love with a side of stability please and I'm willing to do what it takes to get there. Though the dramatic parts certainly encompassed a large sector of my life and, while it's been a while since I've bled a pen dry with longing over some boy in a journal, I sometimes read over my piles of notebooks in gestures of humility, thought provocation, and, often, amusement. I quoted Shakespeare, wrote poems, stated, in all truth and belief to myself, that I felt I would die without X,Y, or Zach. But for all that adolescent heartbreak and handwritten drama, I still don't know what actually made my heart go thump-thump.
Is this the silliest of all questions, am I questioning the obvious here? I honestly find myself with guys who are smart, who are cute, who are funny, with whom I share interests and activities and I'll-be-damned if I just don't know what I am supposed to be looking for. My knees don't go weak for anyone, and I no longer stammer at the prospect of a male at the other end of the phone (ok, maybe i never stammered, I've always been quite the flirt but blazing heartbeats like bouncy balls on a san francisco hill, yes, that once existed). But still, I admit, I am totally lost.
I look now at my friends getting married, my friends having babies, my friends dating exes they had once written off and I just wonder, how did you know? Did it take more than one date? Did you ever think it could never work for you? Could you wait until he called you back or did you hold onto your phone like one grasps monkey bars in childhood? Did you know you wanted to look into their eyes forever, hear their voice for always or did you have to distort it to accept it at first in your mind? Did you fantasize right away or did you run screaming before you see things clearly in the closer-than-it-appears mirror of self-reflection? What were the right jokes and right moves and the right time to kiss and was it right because it was simply all wrong? The facebook albums flooding my newsfeed, full of white dresses and tuxed best men, show me one endpoint and I wonder, could they articulate the beginning?
I spent some time this past spring recording my friends, let's call them Julie and Pete, who, together, comprise the most wonderful loving couple that I dare say has walked this earth. I attacked the male counterpart of the pair (the female is one of my better friends from law school) within the first ten minutes of them picking me up from the train station with the question "How did you know you were in love with Julie?" I followed up with the notation that they had first been friends, and how did they know that it could be more than friendship.
Here is his response (note, Julie was with us when we were recording so he addresses her towards the end)
I'm the type of person who doesn't sort of make decisions or have epiphanies in one fell swoop. So I would have to say there were a number of moments when I sort of realized that I was in love with Julie... I think when I had a wonderful moment when I had this gut reaction was when Julie had just gotten back from the airport from visiting her sisters, and she had all her luggage, and she just looked so beautiful and she had this big smile on her face and we hugged and she gave me a kiss on the cheek and I had that butterfly feeling and I started thinking about dating Julie right at that very moment. I had liked Julie before that but I hadn't sustained the emotion before that previous moment. I had thought about it before, but I hadn't known. But then that moment, when you walked in, you were radiant and smiling and I felt all light hearted and I couldn't think about other things for awhile and I was just thinking about you.
Damn.
Incidentally when I followed up with Julie about why she was so happy that day and why her smile was so big, she replied
Because I was happy about seeing Pete. I had to go right from the airport and Pete had sent me a cute email over the summer and when I walked in, to have him sitting there, was really great.
So my question remains, what came first, the love or the love? Without Julie's smile, which was sparked by Pete's presence, would Pete have fallen in love with Julie in the first place? Perhaps I am getting to brainy about all this, too deep (I am a lawyer after all) but as I go on date after date with wonderful guy after wonderful guy, I wonder, what am I missing? Should I know right off the bat or should I give it time? How do I know? And is it that I just have to let go of the knowing to truly find out, to let anything happen and be open to possibility in order for the love to creep it's way in? Is it silent or noisy, hidden or in plain view? My question is not "where is the love" but "where are my glasses so I can see it properly."And maybe it doesn't need to be there, or maybe the real kind never is there, right at the very beginning, and I need to relax and look for comfort, not love, and delight, not necessarily adventure, and find it through being open and willing to allow it to come.
The question still remains over whether I have learned anything yet from this project aside from a lot of self reflection and a newfound appreciation of Staten Island, but, just recognizing the journey is often step one. Four years ago I wrote, " I just want to be with someone whose arms I am as excited to jump into as a pile of leaves fallen from a tree."
That, at least, is a sentiment I can stand behind and taking the plunge is something I have become a champion at. And until the day comes when I know it's right, well, I'll keep jumping with my impish self until I find a pile suitable enough to sustain a legion of notebooks. And in my last dates, I want to jump with some of those great guys with whom, in my past, I may have thought "eh, this won't work," but who deserve a second (or third, or forth look.)
Luckily, the leaves will soon begin to fall and I've become more comfortable with the first step, the leap.
Love,
L.A.
The air has finally begun to cool.
Which means many lovely things. It means I get to curl up in a warm sweater as I write this post from my front stoop overlooking cobbled stones. It means lovely jaunts with blessed coworkers and actually enjoying the breeze. It means acroyoga without getting over heated and the reminder of leaves changing color and newly sharpened pencils and the back to school giddiness in the stomach even if you're finally an "adult" who no longer has "summer break" and thus no longer can relish in the mystery/terror of beginnings of class sections, new teachers, cute boys, notebooks that have yet to be written in, subjects that have yet to be learned. The leaves will soon begin to fall.
It also means the end of the Key to the City project. Fear not, I promise you I will get it done (I have quite the week planned) but I have to say that in this summer of love of art and love of life there has been less love than usual in my dating experiences and adventures. What I mean to say is that it is intellectually and romantically interesting to me that I have not yet found someone to consistently share the end dates with, not because I believe men are like fish and you just have to hang around long enough to catch something worthwhile, but because in my past, it's worked out that way.
Now, to be fair, none of my relationships have exactly lasted. Dating I am great at, actual relationships, admittedly, not so much ( I believe Morgan Spurlock proved that McDonald French Fries outlast my boyfriends in terms of a shelf life) but I have, in the past, found people with whom I wanted to share more than a handful of outings. And so far, in this project, either I haven't found them or they haven't (metaphysically) found me or, perhaps more fittingly, we collectively didn't find our connection.
Could it be the project has bitten me in the rear end? Does the possibility and knowledge of completing so many dates in a summer take away from focusing on the man at present? Or have I been allowed to explore more, look for deeper connections, so I am not just falling into old patterns of "eh, you're not so bad"-relationships that inevitably end? Maybe it's something in between. Maybe I have been allowed to look but, truth be told, I have no idea what on earth I am looking for.
It's easy to make lists of attributes, the rambling "cute, funny, smart, good guy" persona's that work like fortune tellers in that we all agree with are talking only about us. Ask one hundred people what they are looking for and I bet 90 percent will tell you much of the same. And there's a difference when you add in personal chemistry and the pace of your conversation and how wide your smile gets when he calls but really, on a first date, I just have no idea how you know anymore.
I knew with Jared, my high school sweetheart who I oft refer to (and shout out here to his fantastic mom who I am told reads this blog and to whom I would STILL like to apologize for consuming 99 percent of her sons time throughout our freshmen and sophomore years of high school, had texting taken off by then I'm sure it would be closer to 100) almost right away. I knew when I first saw him and the first time we hugged I literally, LITERALLY, got weak in the knees. Granted, I was thirteen and had maybe hugged two other guys in the non-cousin variety but still, it was everything the movies tell you it's supposed to be, your breath slows down, your heart speeds up, and everything, even the thoughts through your head, go into slow motion.
But back to life, back to reality and back to non Romeo and Juliet tumultuous hormone driven love from the 90's. These days, I'd like my love with a side of stability please and I'm willing to do what it takes to get there. Though the dramatic parts certainly encompassed a large sector of my life and, while it's been a while since I've bled a pen dry with longing over some boy in a journal, I sometimes read over my piles of notebooks in gestures of humility, thought provocation, and, often, amusement. I quoted Shakespeare, wrote poems, stated, in all truth and belief to myself, that I felt I would die without X,Y, or Zach. But for all that adolescent heartbreak and handwritten drama, I still don't know what actually made my heart go thump-thump.
Is this the silliest of all questions, am I questioning the obvious here? I honestly find myself with guys who are smart, who are cute, who are funny, with whom I share interests and activities and I'll-be-damned if I just don't know what I am supposed to be looking for. My knees don't go weak for anyone, and I no longer stammer at the prospect of a male at the other end of the phone (ok, maybe i never stammered, I've always been quite the flirt but blazing heartbeats like bouncy balls on a san francisco hill, yes, that once existed). But still, I admit, I am totally lost.
I look now at my friends getting married, my friends having babies, my friends dating exes they had once written off and I just wonder, how did you know? Did it take more than one date? Did you ever think it could never work for you? Could you wait until he called you back or did you hold onto your phone like one grasps monkey bars in childhood? Did you know you wanted to look into their eyes forever, hear their voice for always or did you have to distort it to accept it at first in your mind? Did you fantasize right away or did you run screaming before you see things clearly in the closer-than-it-appears mirror of self-reflection? What were the right jokes and right moves and the right time to kiss and was it right because it was simply all wrong? The facebook albums flooding my newsfeed, full of white dresses and tuxed best men, show me one endpoint and I wonder, could they articulate the beginning?
I spent some time this past spring recording my friends, let's call them Julie and Pete, who, together, comprise the most wonderful loving couple that I dare say has walked this earth. I attacked the male counterpart of the pair (the female is one of my better friends from law school) within the first ten minutes of them picking me up from the train station with the question "How did you know you were in love with Julie?" I followed up with the notation that they had first been friends, and how did they know that it could be more than friendship.
Here is his response (note, Julie was with us when we were recording so he addresses her towards the end)
I'm the type of person who doesn't sort of make decisions or have epiphanies in one fell swoop. So I would have to say there were a number of moments when I sort of realized that I was in love with Julie... I think when I had a wonderful moment when I had this gut reaction was when Julie had just gotten back from the airport from visiting her sisters, and she had all her luggage, and she just looked so beautiful and she had this big smile on her face and we hugged and she gave me a kiss on the cheek and I had that butterfly feeling and I started thinking about dating Julie right at that very moment. I had liked Julie before that but I hadn't sustained the emotion before that previous moment. I had thought about it before, but I hadn't known. But then that moment, when you walked in, you were radiant and smiling and I felt all light hearted and I couldn't think about other things for awhile and I was just thinking about you.
Damn.
Incidentally when I followed up with Julie about why she was so happy that day and why her smile was so big, she replied
Because I was happy about seeing Pete. I had to go right from the airport and Pete had sent me a cute email over the summer and when I walked in, to have him sitting there, was really great.
So my question remains, what came first, the love or the love? Without Julie's smile, which was sparked by Pete's presence, would Pete have fallen in love with Julie in the first place? Perhaps I am getting to brainy about all this, too deep (I am a lawyer after all) but as I go on date after date with wonderful guy after wonderful guy, I wonder, what am I missing? Should I know right off the bat or should I give it time? How do I know? And is it that I just have to let go of the knowing to truly find out, to let anything happen and be open to possibility in order for the love to creep it's way in? Is it silent or noisy, hidden or in plain view? My question is not "where is the love" but "where are my glasses so I can see it properly."And maybe it doesn't need to be there, or maybe the real kind never is there, right at the very beginning, and I need to relax and look for comfort, not love, and delight, not necessarily adventure, and find it through being open and willing to allow it to come.
The question still remains over whether I have learned anything yet from this project aside from a lot of self reflection and a newfound appreciation of Staten Island, but, just recognizing the journey is often step one. Four years ago I wrote, " I just want to be with someone whose arms I am as excited to jump into as a pile of leaves fallen from a tree."
That, at least, is a sentiment I can stand behind and taking the plunge is something I have become a champion at. And until the day comes when I know it's right, well, I'll keep jumping with my impish self until I find a pile suitable enough to sustain a legion of notebooks. And in my last dates, I want to jump with some of those great guys with whom, in my past, I may have thought "eh, this won't work," but who deserve a second (or third, or forth look.)
Luckily, the leaves will soon begin to fall and I've become more comfortable with the first step, the leap.
Love,
L.A.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
The Fourteenth Date!
Yet again, I found myself running late. I know it’s not at all shocking by now but if you are unaware of just how many distractions exist in the twenty-first century then I doubt you’re a reader of my blog to begin with. Today the subject of my tardiness lay in Bikinis. I was headed to the beach, Coney Island to be exact, and lay on my wooden bedroom floor with no less than six bikinis strung around me in my room like the after affects of a tornado rainbow. Not only would I be baring myself on this first date, down to my pale skin and freckled legs, but I couldn’t actually find a matching suit. It had thrown me through a loop. Then, I stopped and realize that should my date be lucky enough to see me in a bikini on our first date, well then, my date couldn’t very well complain over whether or not it matched. This wisdom in hand I grabbed the closest set I could find, threw on some purple shades and ran out the door to date number fourteen!
The Place: Brooklyn Public Library, Coney Island Branch, 19th and Mermaid Ave.
What Creative Time Says: Some space is shared and some knowledge is shared.
On this Saturday I was headed to Coney Island . Home of the annual sandsculpture contest (which I have won, albeit with adorable kids but I won nonetheless), the mermaid parade (which my friends have protested in) and, of course, the nathan’s hot dog eating contest (which I was thoroughly grossed out by in the summer of 2006 right after moving to NYC). I head to Coney Island at least once a year and always find something new, something sunny, and something supremely odd. With a key in hand, I knew this time would be no different.
I was nervous for this date, perhaps so more than all the others. It followed on the tails of two dates where I may have become too detached for my own good and I needed something to kick my butt back into the world of fun and romance. Something to make my stomach flip and nerves slip away. As I walked up to the Brooklyn Public Library, key in hand and passport and pocket, my date’s reflection greeted me first in the plexi glass windows. I saw a rather short individual, with sun bleached hair that could do with fall darkening and a nervous yet adorable smile, containing excitement and possibility. Oh, and she too, had a key in her hand.
Yes ladies and gentlemen, today I was going on a date with myself and Coney Island, where you can be whoever you are right out in the broad of dailylight even it is a, gasp, single woman!, a place that has gone through more transitions than a s scandaled US senator and has always come out on top, was the perfect place to do it. You may protest and most certainly parts of me did when I came up with this hair brained scheme. After all, our society works in twos, we’re not supposed to go to the movies, to dinner, and certainly not the beach, with only ourselves provided the much needed company we all craved. But here’s the thing. I wanted to go to the beach, I wanted to eat a Nathan’s hot dog and I wanted to ride the Cyclone. I wanted to experience the joy of opening a lock in New York
For those of you who remain unsatisfied, well, the library agreed with you. The gates remained firmly closed (budget cuts I was told) and I imagined a rather large woman rolling her eyes and saying “uh-HU you’re not gonna get in here without no man.” I guiltily smiled, holding up my key as if to say, well, I tried, and bowed out and away from the elusive sight. While walking back towards the beach I stumbled upon a community garden, my third through this whole key journey and ate a fresh tomato with Carlos who runs the place. “You got a boyfriend?” he asked me, teasing with his male friends smoking cigars and roasting corn. “Still looking,” I smiled back, making a mock sailor’s gaze with the palm of my hand, “let me know if you see anyone, I’ll be by the ocean.”
So a key site I would not visit but a day at the beach, well, that was something I could sink my feet into. I found a spot between the nutcracker salesmen, tattooed snake wielding locals, and blasting radios, and settled into Anna Karenina for the afternoon. Did I mention this was after I chatted with two very cute boys from Germany awaiting their flight to Las Vegas
Not 30 minutes into my solo adventure I ran into Elly and Emily, two wonderful (single!) women who were freshmen at Connecticut College
Later I strolled on the boardwalk, had the hotdog (ok Corndog) that had eluded me (and which my stomach very feverishly protested) ever since I saw Joey Chestnut take home the championship for the U.S. of A. and danced the salsa on Coney Island’s wooden planks. I walked through fairgrounds, watched couples win each other cheap stuffed animals by filling balloons with water, and tried not to get dizzy at the idea of the new contraptions in Luna Park
On my way out, smiling with glee, and rattling in the head (the Cyclone is from 1927 after all!) I passed the small display of treasures which make up the Coney Island History Project, The most wonderful treasure there, a man named Jim, became my tour guide and pointed out the delights, sights, and unbelievable crowds that made up the tourists of The day ended with Anna Karenina and myself, headed on a subway back to NY. As I opened the pages a recipe fell into my lap from the previous owner, who had sold me this copy on her stoop. “A recipe for Lemon Asparagus” read the top, and at the bottom, “Enjoy” with a heart around the letter u. Small acts people, small acts.
Later, at home, over a dish of Lemon Asparagus and a glass of chilled white wine, I received a phone call from along awaited man I had been flirting with and another old flame pulled up on my facebook feed. Tomorrow, I would make dates with each but tonight, my cute-if-overly-excitable date who made me slightly overcooked asparagus, was enough.
Opening again soon, ever brighter than before,
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Speed Date for a Cause!
Loves,
So if you are not one of my friends who read this blog, let me tell you a little bit about myself: I am heavily into non profits here in the city. I love working for them and supporting them, raising funds for them and putting their profile out there. In the past I have had TONS of fun putting together "Speed date for a cause" events, putting singles together to meet, greet, hopefully kick it off with a beat, and then throwing an after party for coupled friends to attend featuring performers, auctions, and raffles for all attending. It's been pretty successful in the past, with couples and prize-winners growing out of a fundraiser for a local NGO, and I'd love to replicate the experience with Key2theCity.
So here's what I am looking for.
If you are a venue, or a performer, or a place that could offer an item or gift certificate for a raffle, shoot me an email at keys2keys@gmail.com. In the past these events have been a TON of fun and have raised a good amount of money, I just want to keep the love flowing through this blog itself.!
And I'll be posting details as soon as I have them for all you readers looking for love. And YOU, my loves, will get to vote on where the money goes, so stay tuned for that as well!
xoxo,
L.A.
So if you are not one of my friends who read this blog, let me tell you a little bit about myself: I am heavily into non profits here in the city. I love working for them and supporting them, raising funds for them and putting their profile out there. In the past I have had TONS of fun putting together "Speed date for a cause" events, putting singles together to meet, greet, hopefully kick it off with a beat, and then throwing an after party for coupled friends to attend featuring performers, auctions, and raffles for all attending. It's been pretty successful in the past, with couples and prize-winners growing out of a fundraiser for a local NGO, and I'd love to replicate the experience with Key2theCity.
So here's what I am looking for.
If you are a venue, or a performer, or a place that could offer an item or gift certificate for a raffle, shoot me an email at keys2keys@gmail.com. In the past these events have been a TON of fun and have raised a good amount of money, I just want to keep the love flowing through this blog itself.!
And I'll be posting details as soon as I have them for all you readers looking for love. And YOU, my loves, will get to vote on where the money goes, so stay tuned for that as well!
xoxo,
L.A.
Monday, August 16, 2010
The Thirteenth Date
Sadly it didn't happen on Friday the 13th, and you may be able to guess how it ends but I'm hyper and awake and it's past midnight so what else is there to do but post?! Here goes!
The Time: Tuesday, August 10th, 2010, 8:05pm
The Guy: "Phil" met on Okcupid (where else?!)
The Place: Gleason's Gym, 77 Front St, Brooklyn, NY
What Creative Time Says: Like all lockers, this one is yours as long as your lock is on it.
This post is, perhaps, too far removed as it happened one week ago and the buzz of the after glow is not coursing through my veins as I already know how the story ends. I skipped to the last page of the book and found that Charlotte died (ok ok, it's not that dramatic but you know what I mean!) and some of the fun of Wilbur's adventures are thus lost (and if I've lost you, well then, you seriously need to reexamine your childhood). But we forge on in blogging as we do our quest for love and so I will share my tale of "Phil" with you all.
In another twist of my usual style, I think I've found my metaphor before I've even begun. Usually, I write these posts and connect the dots towards the end, finding, I hope, a clever way to sign off which ties in the date and the man and the experience when I am almost finished writing but I think with "Phil" I've got it all figured out ahead of time: I had my boxing gloves on and my fists up before we even began. "Are you saying you wanted to fight, L.A.?" you may ask, but you would ask wrong, instead I was so covered and protected and ready to be beaten up that I didn't allow myself to really shine through. "Phil" (and I am going to stop using quotes now, you all get it's not his real name, yes? though he never did choose that pseudonym) does movie/tv/editing/I'm being purposefully vague work in Manhattan and has the greatest curly hair and the warmest smile in the universe. He caught me working on my cell past 8pm outside my all time favorite photo bookstore in DUMBO (yes my favorites here get that specific, I have a lot!) Power House Books. Part avante garde photo house, part camera shop, part gallery and performance space, pH has it all and tonight I awaited my first date with Phil (well, until my client called my cell, really need to do something about that) while listening to a half puetro-rican half irish woman describe growing up in the 70's in brooklyn. This is what I love about NY, you can't pass a corner without stumbling upon something that will make you smile.Apparently dumbo is extra magical in this sense. Phil mentioned he had heard music and we tore off in the direction of trombones until we stumbled upon, yes, a HIPSTER marching band. Ladies and Gentlemen, it brought tears to my eyes.
Gleasons Gym is a hot smelly wonderful sweatbox full of tough looking men and the women who beat the crap out of them. I felt like I stepped onto an actor's immersion set of some Rocky Balboa pic where the blood aint' fake and the tears don't come till you're alone in the shower. Men staged fights that must incur at least 15 bruises a minute on classic blue and red rings and here I was, little pixie in her hipster red t shirt and work skirt, holding out a key.
The locker, in its glory, revealed jump ropes (I did a double!) and hand tape (we couldn't figure out where our thumbs went!) and signs telling tourists to "go the F* away". Ha! Adventurous, giving, mean and playful, maybe here was my perfect man? Phil and I fake-boxed each other, took pictures of famous people and incredible 80's haircuts, and bought water to replace the gallons we had sweated out in the 15 minutes we were in the gym. Just try and tell me that's not a cute beginning.
And I felt I liked Phil, I really did! He was funny and cute and smart and playful, even if he was maybe too ashamed to be on a date with the key girl and didn't want his picture taken. But here was the problem! I had become The Key Girl. I had turned into that story that your friends read about and here he was on a date and here I was, feeling like I needed to be bouncy (which I was) and happy (which I felt) and refuse a second cup of coffee (which I did) because of what I felt someone else knew about me. And I was detached! I felt it! I tried to be charming and myself but I couldn't stop talking about the project and dating and I am sure I didn't make Phil feel as special as he totally is (the man has shook Obama's hand, enough said) when he had dinner at the delicious and delightfully concepted Rice restaurant (but skip the lemongrass salad, it was lacking in flavor!)This project, which was meant to put the FUN back into dating, and make the rejections hurt less, has perhaps provided me with a little too much extra padding (and not just because I've been eating too much good food, Ba-dum CHING!) No, instead, I've become prepped for the dates themselves to fail, ready to just love the date, enjoying from a distance before I could even get close to the fire.
Which is why it's not surprising that I received the following email in my inbox a few days later (Phil, if you read this, don't kill me!)
Hey Lauren
Hope the rest of your week has been good and you werent too tired at your early morning court appearance. I had a nice time with you tuesday night– that boxing gym was crazy, and the random hipster marching band? funny stuff. That said, I dont think that we should go out again, but i look forward to following your project on your blog and wish you the best.
Cheers
Phil
Which, you know, equals total bummer. And I am sure it could have been any number of things but really, it's probably that I have become too protected by the project. Too much of an outsider, too much of an observer. I'm living my life, to be sure, but am I living the dates and the connections with the men? As of now, unclear.
So guess what this gal decided to do? On Friday, I went on a date with a guy and didn't go to a key site (hit up one of my favorite first-date spots, Gowanus Yacht Club, which is uber cool and cheap and has pirogi!) and I didn't even tell my date about this project at all. And he still told me I seemed detached! (ok, maybe I was a little too invested in analyzing the couple next to us but who doesn't do that right?) Hmmm.
So that is how I found myself lying on my bedroom floor, surrounding by bathing suits, searching fruitlessly for my cutest purple bikini, in preparation for my big saturday date. A date like no other I had tried before. A date that would break all the rules. A date which you'll have to find out about by reading my next post. :)
Trying to take away the gloves and see what's on the other side!
L.A.
P.S. In case I don't get around to blogging my next adventure soon, here's a little preview:
The Guy: "Phil" met on Okcupid (where else?!)
The Place: Gleason's Gym, 77 Front St, Brooklyn, NY
What Creative Time Says: Like all lockers, this one is yours as long as your lock is on it.
This post is, perhaps, too far removed as it happened one week ago and the buzz of the after glow is not coursing through my veins as I already know how the story ends. I skipped to the last page of the book and found that Charlotte died (ok ok, it's not that dramatic but you know what I mean!) and some of the fun of Wilbur's adventures are thus lost (and if I've lost you, well then, you seriously need to reexamine your childhood). But we forge on in blogging as we do our quest for love and so I will share my tale of "Phil" with you all.
The locker, in its glory, revealed jump ropes (I did a double!) and hand tape (we couldn't figure out where our thumbs went!) and signs telling tourists to "go the F* away". Ha! Adventurous, giving, mean and playful, maybe here was my perfect man? Phil and I fake-boxed each other, took pictures of famous people and incredible 80's haircuts, and bought water to replace the gallons we had sweated out in the 15 minutes we were in the gym. Just try and tell me that's not a cute beginning.
Which is why it's not surprising that I received the following email in my inbox a few days later (Phil, if you read this, don't kill me!)
Hope the rest of your week has been good and you werent too tired at your early morning court appearance. I had a nice time with you tuesday night– that boxing gym was crazy, and the random hipster marching band? funny stuff. That said, I dont think that we should go out again, but i look forward to following your project on your blog and wish you the best.
Cheers
Phil
Which, you know, equals total bummer. And I am sure it could have been any number of things but really, it's probably that I have become too protected by the project. Too much of an outsider, too much of an observer. I'm living my life, to be sure, but am I living the dates and the connections with the men? As of now, unclear.
So guess what this gal decided to do? On Friday, I went on a date with a guy and didn't go to a key site (hit up one of my favorite first-date spots, Gowanus Yacht Club, which is uber cool and cheap and has pirogi!) and I didn't even tell my date about this project at all. And he still told me I seemed detached! (ok, maybe I was a little too invested in analyzing the couple next to us but who doesn't do that right?) Hmmm.
So that is how I found myself lying on my bedroom floor, surrounding by bathing suits, searching fruitlessly for my cutest purple bikini, in preparation for my big saturday date. A date like no other I had tried before. A date that would break all the rules. A date which you'll have to find out about by reading my next post. :)
Trying to take away the gloves and see what's on the other side!
L.A.
P.S. In case I don't get around to blogging my next adventure soon, here's a little preview:
Sunday, August 15, 2010
The Hollywood Ending. Or, Moving Beyond.
I am blessed by many things in life and one of those things is that I live in an amazing apartment with a family I love in a gorgeous townhouse with a lovely garden in NYC from where I am writing this post. It is a late Sunday evening and the slightest of raindrops are falling on my shoulders (and hopefully not into my keyboard but I need a new computer anyway) and the sky is tinted orange and it's a perfect place to hear and smell and see and wonder. I have been blessed in this project this summer and all the love it has brought me. Even if it is not the kind of love I have expected. Even if that kind of love may not ever happen. Even if I feel pressure to find, but want to cry because I may not have, the Hollywood ending.
Confession: I just got back from watching Eat, Pray, Love.
Now before you go all hipster new york judgemental on me I would like to note that the majority of my movie money is spent on documentaries and clever indie films like Breaking Upward and The Lottery but every now and then I get sucked into a chick flick. And now I am terrified.
I don't think I am going to find love. At least not this summer. Everyone keeps reminding me that it is already mid-August and states confused that I "haven't found someone yet" and that I "only have ten dates left" (I did two last week, I'll catch you up soon, promise) and I know that everyone so badly, myself included, wants me to have this perfect hollywood ending where I ride off on a boat or a plane or the staten island ferry with a wonderful feminist 28 year old man who speaks fluent spanish and runs his own NGO empowering youth in NYC and who doesn't mind I'm the girl from the New York Times article who is silly about her life and deadly serious about her job and we kiss and everyone in the theater's eyes well with tears.
Sort of the opposite of what this project was meant for has started to happen, I have begun to take the pressure off the dates to the extent that there isn't any pressure left at all. On Tuesday I went out with Mark who, I could tell, viewed the date as a fun idea but not something that would equal long lasting love, I am sure, in part, because he was with the key girl. This prompted me to go on a date with Chris and not even do the key experiement at all and ended up analyzing and talking about other people dating so much that he told me I seemed "detached" from the whole process. Even yesterday, when I took myself on date number fourteen, I found myself flirting with cute travelers from Germany and giving out my number to a could-have-been Jersey Shore member from Brooklyn because of the story it all creates. And while I am focused on this story I am not actually creating my own. And I blame Hollywood for a lot of that.
When I was younger and in a relationship with Jared, the love of my teenage life, I used to imagine he would be hiding behind my door with roses when I got home on a really bad day. In my head, "Matt", my ex with whom I royally screwed things up years ago, would have realized by now what I mean to him and how I've changed and I'll find him on my front stoop and we'll share a passionate kiss, preferably in the rain, before he says he's loved me all along. According to the Rom-Com's, Cheese guy from the deli would have already slided some adorable yet quirky token through my mailslot in order to ask me out and, by now, I should have met at LEAST seven soulmates who I should be trying to choose from.
In Eat Pray Love Liz, now played by Julia Roberts, finds her love in Indonesia and she is "rescued" in a sense from her year of unbalance, her time without sex, her lack of love. I remember being in Bali over two years ago and running tipsy on the beach with a dear though still relationship undefined friend of mine and his friend with whom I had shared some romantic connection. We stripped down to our bathing suits, avoiding fisihing lines and guided by the moonlight and dove into the warm welcoming water. I remember swimming out until the water was at my neck, holding my breath, and sinking my knees to the sand. I allowed the waves to crash over me as my body went limp, tumbling and tossing in the waves, feeling like jello pudding moving through the sea.
I was, I believe, waiting for someone to come to my rescue.
Not that I was actually in any danger (I used to be a lifeguard after all) but something made me believe that being weak and vulnerable and sad was what made men fall in love with you. Maybe it's because men in my life have been drawn to my darker side, maybe I've had too many breakups after I kicked a guys ass skiing down a mountain or in my career, or on a stupid test in fifth grade (that's for you Ian!) but I always thought that if I just opened myself more, just let them see how much I needed them, just became a little more sad, my love would appear and come, "to my rescue." In Eat Pray Love, the movie, Liz/Julia gets sideswiped by her man, yes, but he later shows up with her shoes after a near-encounter with an STD from another guy. We are told that the unbalance of love leads to the balance of life and this new man is what brings it to her. Or, as my friend Suraj who was dragged to the film with his girlfriend and was complaining about it's length put it,
"We get it, in order to get over a guy you fall in love with another one."
I love a good romance as much as the next girl and my DVD collection is stored with all the classics, and I know I am not saying anything new but that I know I need to let go. It's a lovely fantasy but it's not for me. I think there is a great chance, much to the dismay of the artist Paul who told me he felt I'd find love, and my readers who are rooting for me, and, if I am to be honest, my very own heart. And I have to admit that even as I am writing this my brain is ticking with "oooo! but now if you let go of it, you'll definitely find it soon!" (Kantian in it's own way but I doubtfully effective in the real world) which is, of course, a hollywood trope (see He's Just Not That Into You for a most recent example).
I just want to be more PRESENT in my life and the dates and the moments. I am so present with every seashell, every key hole, every surprise I find and yet, oddly, with the men I've detached myself. If I don't fall in love at first sight with birds tweeting and a musical number (see Enchanted) I tell myself this must not be it and enjoy my own adventure, happy to have a partner in crime, but waiting until the next guy comes along because, after all I'm looking for George Clooney and this is not it. But what if I let go of it all? What if I welcome in the possibility that the summer may just be one of fun and not that of love? What if I remove the ideal of some perfect hollywood ending, the perfect hollywood guy, my somehow turning into the, as my ex "Matt" put it, the "cute quirky girl from a romantic comedy."
I'm just me and this is my story and I'm going to love it even if it isn't what Hollywood had in mind.
The rain has stopped falling and my laptop is, thankfully, still humming away. My chamomile/mint tea has begun to cool and the neighbors windows above mine are darkening as lights and eyes close. I'm pulling on a sweatshirt to ward off the breeze from my skin but welcoming it weave through my hair and soon I too will go to sleep. And for once, I'm not going to picture any dream I hope to have. This time, I'm going to be happy and open with what comes along.
Open,
L.A.
Confession: I just got back from watching Eat, Pray, Love.
Now before you go all hipster new york judgemental on me I would like to note that the majority of my movie money is spent on documentaries and clever indie films like Breaking Upward and The Lottery but every now and then I get sucked into a chick flick. And now I am terrified.
I don't think I am going to find love. At least not this summer. Everyone keeps reminding me that it is already mid-August and states confused that I "haven't found someone yet" and that I "only have ten dates left" (I did two last week, I'll catch you up soon, promise) and I know that everyone so badly, myself included, wants me to have this perfect hollywood ending where I ride off on a boat or a plane or the staten island ferry with a wonderful feminist 28 year old man who speaks fluent spanish and runs his own NGO empowering youth in NYC and who doesn't mind I'm the girl from the New York Times article who is silly about her life and deadly serious about her job and we kiss and everyone in the theater's eyes well with tears.
Sort of the opposite of what this project was meant for has started to happen, I have begun to take the pressure off the dates to the extent that there isn't any pressure left at all. On Tuesday I went out with Mark who, I could tell, viewed the date as a fun idea but not something that would equal long lasting love, I am sure, in part, because he was with the key girl. This prompted me to go on a date with Chris and not even do the key experiement at all and ended up analyzing and talking about other people dating so much that he told me I seemed "detached" from the whole process. Even yesterday, when I took myself on date number fourteen, I found myself flirting with cute travelers from Germany and giving out my number to a could-have-been Jersey Shore member from Brooklyn because of the story it all creates. And while I am focused on this story I am not actually creating my own. And I blame Hollywood for a lot of that.
When I was younger and in a relationship with Jared, the love of my teenage life, I used to imagine he would be hiding behind my door with roses when I got home on a really bad day. In my head, "Matt", my ex with whom I royally screwed things up years ago, would have realized by now what I mean to him and how I've changed and I'll find him on my front stoop and we'll share a passionate kiss, preferably in the rain, before he says he's loved me all along. According to the Rom-Com's, Cheese guy from the deli would have already slided some adorable yet quirky token through my mailslot in order to ask me out and, by now, I should have met at LEAST seven soulmates who I should be trying to choose from.
In Eat Pray Love Liz, now played by Julia Roberts, finds her love in Indonesia and she is "rescued" in a sense from her year of unbalance, her time without sex, her lack of love. I remember being in Bali over two years ago and running tipsy on the beach with a dear though still relationship undefined friend of mine and his friend with whom I had shared some romantic connection. We stripped down to our bathing suits, avoiding fisihing lines and guided by the moonlight and dove into the warm welcoming water. I remember swimming out until the water was at my neck, holding my breath, and sinking my knees to the sand. I allowed the waves to crash over me as my body went limp, tumbling and tossing in the waves, feeling like jello pudding moving through the sea.
I was, I believe, waiting for someone to come to my rescue.
Not that I was actually in any danger (I used to be a lifeguard after all) but something made me believe that being weak and vulnerable and sad was what made men fall in love with you. Maybe it's because men in my life have been drawn to my darker side, maybe I've had too many breakups after I kicked a guys ass skiing down a mountain or in my career, or on a stupid test in fifth grade (that's for you Ian!) but I always thought that if I just opened myself more, just let them see how much I needed them, just became a little more sad, my love would appear and come, "to my rescue." In Eat Pray Love, the movie, Liz/Julia gets sideswiped by her man, yes, but he later shows up with her shoes after a near-encounter with an STD from another guy. We are told that the unbalance of love leads to the balance of life and this new man is what brings it to her. Or, as my friend Suraj who was dragged to the film with his girlfriend and was complaining about it's length put it,
"We get it, in order to get over a guy you fall in love with another one."
I love a good romance as much as the next girl and my DVD collection is stored with all the classics, and I know I am not saying anything new but that I know I need to let go. It's a lovely fantasy but it's not for me. I think there is a great chance, much to the dismay of the artist Paul who told me he felt I'd find love, and my readers who are rooting for me, and, if I am to be honest, my very own heart. And I have to admit that even as I am writing this my brain is ticking with "oooo! but now if you let go of it, you'll definitely find it soon!" (Kantian in it's own way but I doubtfully effective in the real world) which is, of course, a hollywood trope (see He's Just Not That Into You for a most recent example).
I just want to be more PRESENT in my life and the dates and the moments. I am so present with every seashell, every key hole, every surprise I find and yet, oddly, with the men I've detached myself. If I don't fall in love at first sight with birds tweeting and a musical number (see Enchanted) I tell myself this must not be it and enjoy my own adventure, happy to have a partner in crime, but waiting until the next guy comes along because, after all I'm looking for George Clooney and this is not it. But what if I let go of it all? What if I welcome in the possibility that the summer may just be one of fun and not that of love? What if I remove the ideal of some perfect hollywood ending, the perfect hollywood guy, my somehow turning into the, as my ex "Matt" put it, the "cute quirky girl from a romantic comedy."
I'm just me and this is my story and I'm going to love it even if it isn't what Hollywood had in mind.
The rain has stopped falling and my laptop is, thankfully, still humming away. My chamomile/mint tea has begun to cool and the neighbors windows above mine are darkening as lights and eyes close. I'm pulling on a sweatshirt to ward off the breeze from my skin but welcoming it weave through my hair and soon I too will go to sleep. And for once, I'm not going to picture any dream I hope to have. This time, I'm going to be happy and open with what comes along.
Open,
L.A.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Progress!
Tonight was a lovely night, a lovely night indeed.
It was rainy and I was ruminating and marinating of thoughts on my mind and I could have curled up at home but no my friends, NYC called as did my wonderful new friend Andrea. Andrea and I met in true NY fashion when I was hosting trivia night and her boyfriend brought her along and we just CLICKED. Clicked in a way I haven't just clicked in a while with someone, like legos when they finally snap into place. Snap! Ah, yes, that feels right. Thus began a delightful fizzy beginning of a long string of romantic friend dates (picnics on the hudson, mojitos in Brazilian gardens, etc) which greatly confuse her boyfriend.
Tonight, it was jazz.
I ventured in the rain and my amazing "new" (read hand me down) black back-zipper pants to Cafe Vivaldi at
It was rainy and I was ruminating and marinating of thoughts on my mind and I could have curled up at home but no my friends, NYC called as did my wonderful new friend Andrea. Andrea and I met in true NY fashion when I was hosting trivia night and her boyfriend brought her along and we just CLICKED. Clicked in a way I haven't just clicked in a while with someone, like legos when they finally snap into place. Snap! Ah, yes, that feels right. Thus began a delightful fizzy beginning of a long string of romantic friend dates (picnics on the hudson, mojitos in Brazilian gardens, etc) which greatly confuse her boyfriend.
Tonight, it was jazz.
I ventured in the rain and my amazing "new" (read hand me down) black back-zipper pants to Cafe Vivaldi at
32 Jones St, not far from where Andrea and I live blissfully close to one another, to see the Dymaxion Quartet a delightful band of Andrea's former drum teacher, a bassist, a trumpeter, and one very cute saxophone player (seriously, it is impossible for me to go anywhere and not fall in love with someone's eyes and talent). Here's what I like about jazz: hearing the notes makes me feel as if I am being extended a massive box of crayola crayons and walls turn white and colorable and I scribble drawings all over them in time wit h the notes. Yellow exclamation dots and blue concentric circles, green boxes, red bursts over black lines. When I listen to jazz I close my eyes and lose myself in the musings on the music and the creations created in live audible color. I can paint a picture and out of the picture comes a story and out of the story lives my life and it grooves and bops with my ebbs and flows.
Andrea and I ordered a mini bottle of champagne, toasted to ourselves, and settled into an evening of choose your own adventure style music with audience interaction, song-name wit (ie Wollman's Rink: No one ice skates angry, this tune's no exception), and, did I mention, a very cute wedding-ring less saxophone player.
You may think, "oh, I bet she dates the saxophone player and brings him to the Louis Armstrong house!" but not tonight my friends, tonight was about me and Andrea and the jazz and our fizzy lovely drinks.
BUT, there is a reason this entry is called progress which I think many an NYC gal can relate (and perhaps anywhere where one walks home alone from an evening out) and that involves the dreaded WALK HOME IN SILENCE. You may not know it but apparently walking a mere ten minutes alone without headphones is the time where I call men in my life that I probably should not be calling. Exes I am not yet 100 percent over, men who live hundreds of miles away with whom there could be a spark. It's just filler and it's embarrassing but it's an activity I have honed my skills incredibly well in over the years in new york and walking home after an evening on the town.
But not tonight! No, tonight, instead, the music continued to play in my mind and I breathed air into my marinations from the day (my new mantra? I wish us peace.) and called, instead of voids where I wished love existed, those who I do love and who love me already. Sally and Kim and Travis and David and others not previously mentioned in this blog, and then I tip toed among the rain drops and wished for peace in myself and in others while jazz music played in my head. A simple step, yes, and one I've taken before, but not so deliberately and conscientiously as tonight.
L.A.
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