Monthly Archives: February 2002

This casual sex thing is really interfering with my TV schedule.

So I belong to this internet personals web site called planet out. It is terrific, except for the fact that their e-mail system was designed by a diabolical fiend and delivers exactly half the e-mails you send on it.

So if you e-mail somebody and he doesn’t respond, you are in a terrible bind. There are three possibilities:

1) he got your e-mail and just isn’t interested in you.
2) planet out didn’t deliver your e-mail.
3) planet out delivered your e-mail but he abandoned planet out long ago and, even though he’s your soul mate, you will never, ever meet him and it’s just too bad.

Of course the clear answer is to e-mail somebody a few times. That way, if the case is (1) above, it doesn’t matter if you send multiple e-mails and he gets annoyed, because he wasn’t interested in you to begin with, and he deserves a little annoyance for being so stupid. If the case is (2) above, then eventually he will get your e-mail and respond and since he is your soul mate you will both be deliriously happy for the rest of your lives. If the case is (3) above, well, you’re just fucked. And not in a good way.

Of course, if he still doesn’t respond, then you start wondering, what if he hasn’t checked his planet out e-mail for months, and finally checks it next week and sees that there are 47 messages from this total NEUROTIC FREAK who seemed kind of charming and funny the first 12 or 13 messages but is clearly not someone he wants in his life?

Not that any of this is going through my head.

But if, by chance, you have a planet out profile titled “hare-lipped, leprous, and flatulent,” you are my soul mate; please e-mail me for details.

Today I went to Barnes & Noble and nosed around in the children’s section. I saw a book in the “contemporary issues” section (ages 5-8) called When Someone in the Family Drinks Too Much.

It was about bears.

There was a Baby Bear, a Mama Bear, and an alcoholic Papa Bear. My favorite page had the following captions: “When someone in the family drinks too much, it can affect his family, his health, and even his work.” For family there was a picture of drunk Papa Bear yelling at Mama Bear and Baby Bear. For health there was a picture of drunk Papa Bear in bed with a thermometer in his mouth and fever lines drawn coming out of his head. But the best was work, for which there was a picture of drunk Papa Bear in a business suit, kneeling down in the bathroom with his head in the toilet.

Actually, this happened six years ago in Wordsworth Books, but the rest of it is all true.

After work I went by H&M to see the live personals display themselves and their talents in the windows. There was one really cute guy waiting his turn wearing nothing but angel’s wings and H&M bikini briefs. And glitter. I had dinner plans and unfortunately couldn’t stay to watch him display himself and his talents. I considered giving him my phone number, but he was clearly even more of a bottom than me, so I don’t see what we could possibly have done together other than fight over who gets to be Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle. I am consoling myself with the hope that his act was really stupid and would have turned me off.

Then I went to dinner with some friends and spent the entire time flirting with their German guest before finding out that he’s straight.

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. I plan to rend my garments, and put on sackcloth and ashes, and go out into the midst of the city, and cry with a loud and bitter cry.

Either that or stay home and eat a gallon of ice cream and a pound of Oreos while watching old Buffy episodes.

My ex-boyfriend N.T., who moved out in December, came over tonight to play with our dog, A. She danced around him with uncontrollable joy at seeing him again and then peed on the floor of my room.

I wish I could believe that this wasn’t in some way a metaphor for my life.

Two days to Valentine’s Day. I am trying to think of a suitable way to protest but all I can come up with is to coat candy hearts in wormwood and gall and go around giving them to people. Then I imagine the face my intended of the moment would make after popping my tenderly proffered “I love you” heart into his mouth. I don’t think my self-esteem could handle it.

In the meantime, in the last week I have gone from dating two hot men (M.S. and N.E.) to dating no hot men. I’m not quite sure how this happened but I blame them. M.S., who is funny but not smart, wanted me to date him exclusively. Since I had been seeing him for exactly six days, this made perfect sense to me. So I told N.E., who is smart but not funny, that I thought that we were not meant to be boyfriends. Then M.S. stopped returning my phone calls (evidently having been abducted by aliens). When I suggested to N.E. that maybe I’d been wrong (figuring to myself that hot and smart, while not as good as hot and funny, is better than nothing at all) he said no, he’d thought about it, and we shouldn’t date.

I suppose I should consider this a lesson in the fact that two birds in the hand are better than none in the bush, but, honestly, I could have figured that one out on my own.

Three days to Valentine’s Day. It’s a shame that we’ve forgotten the origins of Saint Valentine’s Day. In 269 A.D., by order of the prefect of Rome, Valentine was beaten with clubs and then beheaded. I think it would be appropriate for each of us to commemorate his day by selecting someone to beat with clubs and then behead.

I went to Tea & Sympathy (my new favorite place) in the west village with a date last week. I ordered the afternoon tea (which I highly recommend) and my date ordered the Welsh rabbit. When our food arrived, after we had eaten for a little while, I asked him, “So how’s the Welsh rabbit?” He said, in a very cheerful tone, “Well, first of all, it’s Welsh rarebit, and it’s very good.”

This is not a person I need in my life.

First of all, anyone who insists that “rarebit” is preferable to “rabbit” is pretentious.

Second of all, he is wrong. The Oxford English Dictionary lists 1725 as the first appearance in English of the term “Welsh rabbit,” almost certainly a borrowing from the French “lapin gallois”; not until 1785 does “Welsh rarebit” appear, probably as a “corrected” version of the name of a dish that has no rabbit in it.

Not that I have a thing about being right or anything.

And I wonder why I don’t have a boyfriend.

It is four days before Valentine’s Day. I have created this blog at the behest of my friend B.N. In the last month I have gone on dates with nine different men. They have all been either cute and smart but not funny, cute and funny but not smart, or funny and smart but not cute. Or cute and smart and funny but not attracted to me. Those are the ones I hate the most. My unfavorite quote from an e-mail: “i should admit that my attraction to you is purely platonic, but that needn’t hinder us from pursuing a friendship, if that is not outside your agenda.” Outside my agenda, indeed. I hate you and will laugh and laugh when you arrive in the special circle of hell reserved for people who don’t capitalize the first-person singular pronoun. Ha, ha, ha. That’s me laughing.