ashamed to be a american female photographer

anne liebowitz asks the queen to remove her crown because it is "too dressy."

not only is the logic behind this remarkable, the lack of tact is equally appalling.

no wonder they hate foreigners.

i'm thinking of becoming a british male film eraser.

(that just sounds so dirty and risque, doesn't it! delish!)

what is sexy?

this whole topic brings up the point of what is sexy, anyway?

everyone has their own definition.

for me, it involves attraction, some mystery & suspense, a great voice, an undetermined level of interest, offset by references to vague future plans. that is sexy to me.

that was my conversation with my ex last night, we'll call him mr. busy.

ayiyi, yes, he is sexy.

of course i just spent 6 months getting over his sexiness. clearly, i think he's sexy.

reconciliation

i've been trying for months to reconcile things with my last ex. both in my head & in reality.

a few days ago i finally left him a voicemail telling him exactly that - and tonite he called.

it's the oddest thing. sometimes it takes you just forever to figure out what your objective is or why you're doing something. but then if you can verbalize it, people (especially guys) know what to do with it.

how wierd. it's so much easier to just ask for things rather than to keep trying to get them without asking.

why have i wasted so many years beating around the bush with people when i could have just said what i wanted? ayiyi.

maybe because it's hard to be sexy and honest at the same time. but i guess sometimes the stars align...

the song that never ends (or late to scotland, update 2)

update 2 : he wrote back (see end) next move? i'm thinking...
---------------

update 1: well, i found the perfect answer this morning! thanks for your comments. i sent the last text (found at the bottom) over to mr. b. this morning, coincidentally, just before reading your en pointe recriminations, which i loved. that's why they were lovely. ;)

mr b: you at the bar to hear the band tomorrow?

me: u have a girlfriend?

mr b: you have a boyfriend? [translation: just how many of us will be cheating?]

me: [smells rat] no. been cheated on. don't like.

mr b: ok, settle tight i have a plan. [translation: my girl is on to me...]

me: so you do have a girlfriend?

mr b: nope.

me: 2 quote kelly rippa this morning, "let's call a congressional hearing. you sir are a laar." [added: Update 1]

mr b: Haha don't lie but would like to buy you a drink. [added: Update 2]

when a book has no cover

i love you, my new readers. this is like a diary that talks back. mine never does. it just sits there, duhhhh. but it has a beautiful cover.

being online - no cover. so ya can't judge it. just the opposite - it judges you! luckily for me, ya'll have been kind to me in my extreme singleton condition.

ok, next episode of multi-tasking for this well-adjusted girl.

i just got a text from mr. blowoff from last weekend, asking me if i'm going to be at the same bar we were at last weekend to hear the band play. intriguing. i only recognize his number b/c i had to dial it a few times when sending that last text back.

did he not mean to blow me off, meaning instead, we'd use his condoms & save mine? which is in fact similar to what he said. however, given that he's not very bright, and doesn't remember that him having condoms at all = not getting any, well, maybe he just doesn't remember that.

what to do. i'm coughing in a not very sexy way, so maybe i should reschedule him.

or NOT...?

i could, in the interim be a wiseass & ask who is this? because of course, i deleted him from my phone in my rage.

or not.

half & half

how do you date a guy half way when he's super crazy about you & says you're the only one he's pursuing? and writing you 4x/day (because you're writing back).

i might be super crazy about him back, but i'm not super crazy in general, and tend (big surprise) to be distrustful of unsolicited vows of celibacy by men.

there has been no discussion about what i'm doing or will plan to do, but supposing mr. possibility or mr. florida both show up in march, as they have indicated intent, i will need to remain a 3-man girl. or a 3-ring circus.

this is the first time i've really resisted jumping in with both feet. which of course will make me all the more attractive to him. but like i said, the fall from the initial pedestal isn't smoother anywhichway you make it.

i'm also not inclined, though i'm tempted, to try to lower myself on that pedestal. part of me wants to just say, btw, before you plan on sleeping over, which he would like, do you care if i can sleep at night or not? or that i sleep with, say, ice packs sometimes? or that i get up in the morning and, get up, as opposed to sleeping all day long?

but hey, who reads warning labels? i sure as hell don't. at the most, i'll cut them off. but half the fun is realizing how a product doesn't work like you think it will (especially if it's made in China) so i guess, why would i be any different?

anyhow, these things (like my chronic pain problem) are things one just has to find out. but part of me would like to just shorten the pedestal height at the outset so i don't fall so hard.

no can do.

so i remain half & half. which, according to the book of james, means that i'm unstable in all my ways. (but that is a man divided, what about a woman? hmmm.)

indigestion

it's really hard to listen to your gut, as two-date diva suggested, when your gut thinks many men are indigestible. if "something doesn't feel quite right" but you have no rationale for it, specifically, what do you do?

what if your gut reaction is ... fear.

it's an interesting dilemma.

when you get to be my age & experience, you don't fall easily. in fact, you try not to fall at all, due to many broken hearts.

this makes the guy even more eager to fell you.

maybe i should just get fallen & then survey the damage now, rather than waiting a long time when it will hurt more.

i dunno, it's an odd dilemma any way around it. ugh. my tummy hurts.

girl on girl

agatha christie is just an amazing profiler of people. even if you don't like murder mysteries, she is the best author i've read as a study of people.

in her novel, the mysterious mr. quin is the following interchange, which i've truncated slightly in the sake of interest & relevance:

setting: a mr. satterwaite is in monte carlo, and meets a young american man. he is enamored with an older countess with stories of intrigue and a pearl necklace from the king of bosnia. a plain-jane sight-seeing-bound american, in his traveling group is enamored with him.

young man, speaking about the countess: "it's an extraordinary thing, but she's never found a woman who would be a real friend to her. women have been against her all her life."

mr. satterwaite: "probably."

young man: "don't you think it's a scandalous thing?"

mr. satterwaite: "no. i don't think that i do. women have got their own standards, you know. it's no good our mixing ourselves up in their affairs. they must run their own show."

young man: "it's one of the worst things in the world today, the unkindness of woman to woman. you know elizabeth margin? now she agrees with me in theory absolutely....but the moment it comes to a practical test, why she's as bad as any of them. got a real down on the countess without knowing a darned thing about her, and won't listen when i try to tell her things. it's all wrong, mr. satterwaite. i believe in democracy -- and -- what's that but brotherhood between men and sisterhood between women?"

..."now the countess, on the other hand, admires elizabeth immensely and thinks her charming in every way. now what does that show?"

mr. satterwaite: "it shows that the countess has lived a considerable longer time than miss martin has."

eeny meeny miney moe...

the last post brings me to this one.

the woman picks the man. that's just the way it is. we're not taught that by the rules, but really, it is.

your spark, you lighting up, your persistence, your affection, that gets the guy.

ladies, we choose our men.

i've chosen my guy. and it's wierd that all the others i date seem to have figured out i haven't chosen them. it's ok. i'm ok if they say "you're just not into me." because they're right.

actually, i've chosen more than one guy. i chose my last 2 boyfriends. but they opted out. maybe because ultimately, i was deselecting them too, even though i was with them. couldn't help myself. when i get bored with a guy, it just shows.

this is a new theory for me, but i think it's a good one.

the only trick is to make them think - it's all their idea.

ask and ye shall receive

i never learned to ask for things nicely as a child. probably because if you asked nicely you were ignored. probably because nobody actually heard you, you being either drowned out by the general volume or by the volume in the head of the person you asked.

so now, i'm trying to learn to ask nicely for things. sweetly. as when alan alda's wife praisingly talked him out of installing a new toilet by telling him how smart he was.

i've had some practice with this this weekend.

first, i had to ask a guy (again) if he was in an exclusive relationship with someone else. before i met up with him, i have to know. he just said he was divorced "want to see the papers?" but didn't reply on that. so i had to nicely ask again. he wrote back "i would never do that." then he said to call him. then he wrote a few minutes later saying "did you get my message?"

ok, wierd.

so the question is - i asked. but why is the answer so hard to get? it's either YES or NO. not LET'S DISCUSS MORE.

i also had to ask another guy, very nicely, how i should handle the fact that he wasn't responding to my communications to him, yet seems to want to be in my life. are actions really speaking louder than words here? it's hard to say.

so i ask, how should i handle this? should i call you? again?

these aren't big things, but it's good practice.

i never used to ask anything. or for anything.

this can be very dangerous, much like driving headlong into a tree.

now, many concussions later, i'm learning to ask the hard questions. but first, you have to learn to ask the easy ones...

WTF?

ok, well, this blog isn't about the patriots. although it could be.

so i e-mail dance partner today & see if he wants to go watch a dance competition. he tells me he's doing something else. with my very sexy and soon to be single dance teacher.

then writes a whole paragraph about how attractive i am but that he can see i'm not into him. and how he doesn't want to hang out with me & for it to be just platonic anyway. and then states that he doesn't have time anyway to have a relationship. so declines to hang out with me outside of dance class.

at this point i'm very confused. i don't recall ever deciding that i'm not attracted to him. aka, my recent post. in fact i was thinking that hmmm. and sitting close to him at the concert.

i saw a moment of fear when i got out of his car & said goodbye. usually this happens with guys that want to kiss me goodbye, but don't dare. so i thought to myself, well, he must have thought about that, decided not to, & that's it. nothing unusual.

maybe it was.

you always wonder why people are alone. me, i suppose other people wonder it about me. is this why he's still single? i don't know.

my first response was to write back & say, well, i never said i wasn't attracted to you, in fact...my second was to just do nothing & think about it.

am i really attracted to him? am i not? does it matter? he himself said he was too busy for a relationship.

it seems to me, that like the last guy i dated, the one who remarked with surprise that he "wasn't bored!!!?" he's voting me off the stage on his own.

i was already thinking it would be awkward if something developed between us & we still met up dancing. now i know that since he's already decided it won't, i don't have to worry about that anymore.

well, life is interesting. men are interesting. perhaps he wanted me to be all over him. i'm not like that. if you're not willing to go through the "does she like me, does she not" stage, than it's probably better if you de-self-select. saves me doing it later.

or you.