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Friday's here and if you're here in Chicago you woke up to a very cold day. It's February 1st and the temperature outside at this very moment is 1 degree! After writing this blog I need to send out my monthly "rabbit rabbit" greetings to the people I text with. It's a fun (maybe strange) British tradition to give "rabbit rabbit" greetings to those you care about on the first day of every month - is supposed to bring the recipient of the greeting good luck for the entire month.
Tonight I'll hang at the piano bar solo which is fine 'cuz I now know everyone there - it's a little family of singers and singing appreciators. So what if I'm the youngest one there (average age is probably about 70!) And what's wrong that younger people don't love live music and The American Songbook? I don't get it! Know it's just my opinion, but the music written in the '40's and '50's is so much better than the pap written today (with some exceptions) - better lyrics, catchier tunes, more sophisticated arrangements. Only thing that might come close after that is the music of Burt Bacharach and also the Brill Building songwriters in the '60s and '70's. Check out a list of the musicians who worked their craft there. Amazing, right? That would be one of my destinations if I could hitch a time-travel ride in the Tardis with Dr. Who.
Do you remember Nigel - I wrote about him a while back. He found me on OK Cupid, the Internet dating site. His writing is amazing, clever and erudite. He was also smitten with me and the compliments about my beauty and intelligence flowed - hard not to like someone who fawns over you! Then the revelation that he is married and pursuing liaisons behind his wife's back. Yuck, right? The other day I was playing around with my phone and opened a factory installed app called "Talk". there were two people listed as being available for communication (not sure how they got there - maybe it's because they too have the app on their phone?) Nigel was one of them - showed he was "available" so I clicked on him and voila, there he was on my phone - it was a video chat. We got a chance to see each other which only made him more amorous. Then incessant communication from him - e-mails after e-mail, sometimes only a few minutes apart that I didn't even have a chance to respond to! And they kept getting racier and racier with double entendres like references to my "puss" (supposedly referring to my cat), references to how someone so NOT frigid could freeze up on the video screen (the app is imperfect), and then something about lust. I blasted him, or as Josh says, I castrated him. Here is what I wrote:
Nigel, as the British are fond of saying, "Down boy!" I'm not enjoying the sexual innuendos (pussy, lust, frigid, etc). It is stupid to "go there" with me - it is, to use your frozen analogy, a frozen life not lived - trying to make futile connections with a woman who is geographically unfavorable who has no intention of getting involved with a married man, and for whom the fact that you are cheating on the wife (trolling the Internet and engaging strange women for sexual innuendo and more IS cheating!) is a turn-off.
And here's the paradox. I actually find you attractive in a lot of ways. You are physically pleasing (great smile), you are really smart and well-spoken which is also appealing. And I'm sure if I knew you there would be more to like about you. And yet.....the whole infidelity thing is a deal breaker. It all but negates that which is attractive. As I've said before, any women worth having would want nothing to do with a man who sneaks around behind his wife's back. We're not stupid. That whole, "once a cheater, always a cheater" rings in one's ears. The irony is that, at this point, if you were to clean up your act - "man up" and fix what's amiss in your life, be honorable and honest, extricate yourself from a marriage that doesn't make you happy, I would still not go out with you - would always be suspect.
So where does that leave "us"? Friends, just. Maybe I can be your muse to make some positive changes. Maybe you can get yourself to a place where you really would be worthy of the kind of woman you want.
I know this is harsh, but I am impatient with you and not amused by your shenanigans. I'm not sure why I even video chatted you the other day. I was messing around with the app and there were two people in the list of users - you and my friend Norma. I chatted both of you to test out the technology and then we got a chance to see a different view of each other and I'm afraid things got stirred up a bit on your end.
I know your're unhappy. The job thing is distressing. You're stuck in some pathologies. You long for something more. I get it.
Sit down and write a mission statement for your life. Read or re-read the Seven Habits of Highly Successful People by Steven Covey.
Grow up and inhabit your skin fully! Be a powerful and honorable man, finally. It's not too late.
Think I sent him into the night with his tail between his legs. And who would want to be my friend after a message like that!
I was similarly hard on dear, sweet Victor last week. I don't write about him here in this blog at his request so I won't go into any details. Suffice to say, he was having difficulties with someone and I felt he was partly to blame and couldn't see his contribution to the problem. In an effort to be helpful, I not-so-gently pointed out his failings. He was furious and rightly so. Amazing that he was able to forgive me. We talked last night. My intentions were good - my execution, awful.
Challenge today. Maybe thinking about friendship and how one can be useful to friends without being officious and overbearing. I'm thinking most of you (except Eugene!) are delicate with your friends. And yet there ARE times when we can take risks and be useful during tough times by challenging our friends to look at things a different way. I love my friends. I'm not always the best friend. Too harsh sometimes.
One of my earliest memories - I was four and, like Spanky, the leader of my neighborhood gang. We tumbled out of our houses in the morning, only returning for lunch and dinner. Can't remember how we spent our days - think we made the rounds of all the old ladies, visiting with them in their parlors, cookies and lemonade. I remember the highlight of the morning was when the milkman came. We clamored around the milk truck and every day, he gave us each a chunk of ice that we licked till it was small enough to crunch. And most of my gang were older than me - I was a very young dictator! One day they revolted against my bossiness. I was exiled! Crying I went to my mother and told her. She listened, told me not to be so bossy and sent me back outside with a plate of cookies. I was reinstated on my throne, a humbled and more benevolent queen! Thanks Mom for that!
Peace,
Sarah
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