I'm back in LA. Actually spent more than ten days in a row here. It's a 2011 Summer Miracle. I spent an unexpected 6 weeks on the East Coast and then sang at two weddings north of here in July. The Big Gay Wedding in Vancouver kinda changed my life. And now I'm back. My birthday is in 3 days. Would it be wrong to hope for a Birthday Miracle as well?
Because I am a bit spent and a lot lost. And when I get into this state, I often do the worst thing possible: pine for the terminally unavailable.
A quick update before I begin THAT tangent: sooooo I did the reading of this blog in New York. Another life changing moment. I had left things with The Unicorn kind of open ended ("I'm not sure what I'm capable of; lemme feel out whether I can be friends or not"), but he still text messaged me the day after the show to ask me how it went. ??? I'll tell ya, for someone who is RAREly speechless, I've been dumbfounded quite a bit during this whole scenario. So I responded that although it was weird to be texting instead of talking about it, that it went very well and thanks for asking. Of course I haaaaad to leave him a voice mail later, tryyying to connect, and he left one back; we were going to try to meet the day before my flight back.
That day, my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer...everywhere. And I cancelled my flight because it wouldn't be long for him. I didn't even think about The Unicorn at all that day. He sent me a text the next day, wishing me a safe flight back and "sorry my day was crazy like I'd thought and I couldn't make time to hang."
I wrote back that I actually was not leaving. My grandfather was very ill and I was going down to see him in Philly while I could.
He wrote back, "Bummer."
And that is how I got over The Unicorn.
Okay, back to pining... I am now regressing to my teens where I bide my time crushing on celebrities, guys in relationships and gays. Mostly gays in particular this time round- I feel like Michele Bachmann, praying the gay away or at least praying that even though they may like having sex with men, they could like having sex with me too! I just KNOW they could!
I mean, I haven't been this way since The President of Delta Nu broke my Touch of Gay Curse during my junior year of college. I had such a record of digging gays at school, my classmates joked that instead of the Midas Touch, the Touch of Gold, I had the Touch of Gay. Made a lil sketch out of it and everything. I crushed on someone, BOOM, they came out. One day, on the way down to the cafeteria, TPDN ambushed me and handed me a strip of condoms with Delta Nu written on them with a Sharpie. "Don't use 'em all at once," he said with what ended up being his signature smirk. I went purple with rage. At the time, my three roommates and I were known for being good girls, certainly in no need of condoms; people in the Theatre Department lovingly called us the God Squad. I thought TPDN was making fun of me. I think I blurted out, "Oh, don't worry, I WON'T." I may have mumbled "Dirt Bag" under my breath. Delta Nu was notorious for being scum bags and were always on the brink of being kicked off campus. I'm sure handing out condoms was their community service activity.
ANYwho, I continued grumbling downstairs at a big table of friends about it. One of my gays suggested, "I think that means he likes you." I was...shocked. That had not even been a part of my process. I had been so swaddled in Gay Love that I didn't even recognize genuine Hetero Testosterone when it was thrown at me. Of course, that's all the permission I needed. It was ON.
TPDN was dating another girl who was in Delta Nu's sister sorority and I didn't know her well but I'd always thought she was cool. I went to support a play she produced & performed in at the Studio Theatre on campus. And of course he was in it too. And he was GOOD. And I was amazed he wasn't a Theatre Major. I basically went up to him after and told him so. I made some comment about it "being nice working with your girlfriend so closely" and he said something to the effect of, "Or it can ruin a relationship altogether. Especially if she cheats on you." The confession was startling. But he gave me a look that said it all. Like he would pounce if he could. Weak knees. We politely said goodbye, but it was ab-so-fucking-lute-ly just the beginning.
I went into Anti-Cool-Girl-Stalker Mode. Got his mailbox number, and left a poem in it anonymously. (I know, I just puked in my mouth, too.) It was a very sexy poem about our legs being tangled under a willow tree or some shiz like that. I put a purple cow stamp on the bottom of it. Ha. So 90's. He came to see me in my acting class' scene night and my scene happened to start with me having sex with a very good looking classmate. TPDN gave me a pineapple he stole from the caf after and complimented me on my "work." I died. He said nothing about my poem though. The next day at lunch I gave him an egg I dyed in the caf with melted down Jello- Easter was coming soon. We were hipsters before our time.
We talked a lot on our campus phones and he invited me to hang out on the Delta Nu floor in his room. I was a nervous wreck when I got there. It was just like Animal House. His room, however, was a civilized haven. I traced my fingers along his chess set. "Do you play?" he asked. "No." "Well then I'll have to teach you." Laying on his bed, he thumbed through a copy a book of student poetry and prose published by the school and started to read one of my poems called "Tennessee". "You're very good." "Did you get the one I wrote for you?" "What one?" "In your mailbox...with the purple cow on it..." He sat up straight. "That was you? Of course. I thought it might be...nevermind." He pulled it out of his bedside drawer. "This is what you imagine with me?" I blushed. "Yep." We kissed. I consider it my first kiss. It was not. I had sloppy kisses with too much tongue amongst braces before and tentative, lemme-try-this-girl-thing-out-even-though-I'm-into-boys kisses but this..this was a DUDE kiss. Hungry, unrelenting. He took. I let him. We stopped and I took out my book of Rilke and asked him to read in German for me. He was a German-slash-International Business Major. He obliged. To this day, I cannot hear German without getting a little tingly in my girly bits. I managed to leave his room having only been kissed. I had such principles then. *sigh* I turned before I left and asked him to the Music Department formal. He said yes. I floated across campus and felt his kiss for days after.
We had a magical night at the formal; he breakdanced, full-on windmill in the middle of the dance floor. I was horrified. He made up for it by slow dancing with me. SO good. The first slow song was Whitney's I Will Always Love You and he said, "This was me and my ex's song. Appropriate, huh? It is about a break-up." The next song was Harry Connick Jr.'s Forever For Now, which was absolutely prophetic for us, it turns out. At the end of the night, he wanted more than I could give. He had no idea I was a good girl after all. We talked about it over a picnic later that week and he told me I was too good for him. I was too stubborn to cry; Cool Girl swept in and kept it together for me. Even chatted him up about when he lost his virginity and argued that there was NO way he could've been in love with a girl at 13. He swore he could and he was. If I'm not mistaken, she ended up being his first wife...
He graduated soon after and we kept in touch a bit. He showed up to my graduation a year later looking like...a dream. Dressed in beige drawstring linen pants and a white button down linen shirt, Birkenstocks, leather strap necklace and hair chin-length, gold-kissed by the sun, bronzed skin, blue eyes a-blaze. He had spent months camping somewhere in Central America. My acting professor spied our entire exchange and beelined for me when he walked away. "Whooo was thaaaat handsome maaaan?!" he shouted in his Dallas draw. "Well, you are just all flushed, aren't you?" I certainly was.
Last I heard, TPDN's had 3 or 4 wives and 4 or 5 kids. I can't thank him enough for breaking the Touch of Gay Curse. I could use someone like him right about now. I was working on the red carpet of the Teen Choice Awards as PA and practically made a scene the way I drooled over Taylor Lautner. If I could only lick his mocha abs while he kept absolutely silent... And the Barely Legal Jonas' guns in Hairspray at the Hollywood Bowl haunted my dreams for a week after. So you can add "Cougar Bait" to my inappropriate crushes. While you're at it, add Harry Potter to that list, too.
Right now, the Curse feels more like a trance... I need to snap the hell out of it somehow. Hypnotherapist's been gone for 6 weeks and just emailed me about starting up next week. Maybe one trance can cure me of another. This state also has me looking around for who I am, like I've forgotten all of a sudden. I can't seem to decide what I wanna be...and I AM grown up. It's an issue.
One thing I remember about TPDN that I will always cherish: it was the one an only college Homecoming I'd ever gone to a few years after my graduation and he introduced me to the girl he lost his virginity to as "My Poet Friend..." It was such a simple, generous gesture and reminds me that even when the details get murky, the feelings that surround a memory of profound change do not.
